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One of the devices found in Boston.
As you've probably heard by now, a guerilla marketing stunt gone awry sparked panic in Boston Tuesday. Whimsical yet "suspicious" Lite-Brite-style devices scattered around town to promote the Cartoon Network series "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" prompted a citywide bomb scare that shut down streets and bridges.
After Turner Broadcasting claimed responsibility for the devices, which depicted Mooninites from the show, incensed Boston authorities pledged to prosecute all those responsible -- and arrested Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens, two local men hired to plant the Beantown devices. (You can see them in action on YouTube.)
Stevens, left, and Berdovsky
But Boston was just one of several cities targeted by the campaign, coordinated by a New York agency called Interference. They were also placed in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Portland, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Austin, Texas -- and Seattle.
The local reaction was decidedly lower-key. Neither Seattle police or the King County Sheriff's Office received any 911 calls concerning the devices. "To us, they're so obviously not suspicious," King County sheriff's spokesman John Urquhart told the P-I.
(Some locals might recall an incident in 1996 in which local guerilla artist Jason Sprinkle abandoned a pickup truck in Westlake Park that had "BOMB" painted on it, sparking a bomb scare and evacuation.)
In other cities that were part of the ill-considered campaign, responses by authorities ranged from Bostonian outrage to Seattlesque shrugs to professed ignorance. Here's what local media reported in each:
- San Francisco Chronicle: Ten devices planted. One was found last week above an art gallery whose owner said, "I thought, 'What the hell is this?' I left it up. I thought it was cool." He had it taken down Sunday after the battery ran down.
- OregonLive.com: "Portlanders have reported finding at least three of the devices that caused a minor panic in Boston, but reacted with a yawn, if that."
- Los Angeles Times: Authorities learned that devices were supposed to be planted in "nearly 50 locations" in L.A. but there were no reports of any being found, or removed.
- Philadelphia Inquirer: A spokesman for the city's mayor said one device -- out of 56 scheduled for deployment -- was found attached to a commercial sign. He called it "a stupid, reckless, irresponsible prank." The city sent a cease-and-desist letter to Turner, threatening to fine it for violating zoning codes.
- Chicago Tribune: The Windy City's police chief isn't amused. Although no one reported finding any of the devices there, Police Supt. Philip Cline said it would have total "chaos" had one been discovered during this weekend's Super Bowl festivities: "One of the devices could have easily been mistaken for a bomb and set off enough panic to alarm the entire city."
- Austin American-Statesman: No panic and all 20 devices planted around town had been removed by the time police reached the sites.
- Newsday (New York): "Fuhgeddaboudit. The city's 911 operators logged no calls." In fact, a Turner spokeswoman said that 38 of the 40 signs hung in the Big Apple had disappeared, presumably taken by fans of the show.
- Atlanta Journal Constitution: In Turner Broadcasting's hometown, police were unaware of the devices and had received no complaints.
The AJC observed that Boston's all-out panic response was "as much a product of post-Sept. 11 paranoia as anything else." Incidentally, Turner spokeswoman Shirley Powell told the paper that Turner staffers watched the unfolding news coverage from Boston but never guessed their own promotional campaign was involved until Interference figured it out.
A Mooninite in its full glory.
SFist tries to put it all in perspective: "You know, we feel kind of sorry for the ad rep who dreamed this sucker up. There you are, all proud of your work when next thing you know, you've caused an entire metropolitan area to come to a screeching halt over your work. And then the Mayor goes live on TV and threatens to throw your ass in jail for whatever reason. ... But, on the other hand, there's no such thing as bad publicity, right?"
Nope, says Radar Online: "As it turns out, the LED ad gaffe might just make Adult Swim's campaign one of the most successful ever, garnering wall-to-wall coverage in the last the 24-hour news cycle. Such attention is, after all, a powerful tool."
Meanwhile, ad industry folks not connected to this campaign tell The New York Times that Turner's big mistake wasn't deciding to plant the Mooninites but in failing to make clear that they were promoting a TV show and failing to let local police in on the gag.
That sheds an interesting light on an ABC News story that says that friends Berkovsky claim he was urged by his "boss at the Cartoon Network's ad agency" to keep quiet as the panic was playing out.
And the Boston Globe observed that the incident
The Boston scare has subjected the city to no small amount of ridicule -- and raised quite a few questions. For starters, did authorities in Boston over-react? How you answer that question might depend on how old you are. As the Boston Globe observes, the incident "exposed a wide generational gulf between government officials who reacted as if the ads might be bombs and 20-somethings raised on hip ads for Snapple, Apple, and Google who instantly recognized the images for what they were: a viral marketing campaign."
Some interesting thoughts along those lines were shared by Charles Karel Bouley on The Huffington Post. "January 31, 2007, was another reminder of how Osama Bin Laden and his cronies have truly won the war on terror while we still figure out how to fight it and who to actually fight. ... A little caution is fine, but the hysteria over little billboards was ludicrous. And what's worse, in some land, some region of the world, some damned extremist saw what went on today and laughed. Laughed at what they made the infidels do today, laughed at the fear and chaos over nothing."
Update, Feb. 4: Turner Broadcasting has reportedly pledged to reimburse Boston for all the costs of its all-out terror alert. Meanwhile, Associated Press correspondent Mark Jewell says that legal observers are skeptical that Massachusetts authorities could successfully prosecute Messrs. Berkovsky and Stevens for planting a hoax device. Prosecutors face an uphill battle, they say, in proving that the two performance artists actually intended to cause a public panic. Even the charge of misdemeanor disorderly conduct might be hard to prove, since the Mooninite signs had been in place for about two weeks before they caused any disruption.
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Posted by unregistered user at 2/2/07 9:26 a.m.
Lol Boston.