I don't want to make fun of this terrorist thing in Boston...but I will. I understand that it was probably not a good idea to do this...sort of, well, no, that's not true, it was a way to promote some goofy adult cartoon that I am now interested in, but give me a break. I realize that Boston is on edge and these things can stream role, but maybe the city over reacted a little? A tiny bit? Maybe? Just a tad? Over reacted. A little. Freaked out. A bit. Took it too far. Just a step. Maybe? Could be? Just a little too far? With this cartoon thing? Hmm? Maybe? Over reacted?
For those who are not familiar with the story, quick recap. There is this off-ball cartoon thing that is coming out in a movie and the huge conglomerate that owns it is falling into a trend to engage in non traditional advertising to promote word of mouth advertising for the movie and they placed these I am now guessing 2 foot by 2 foot electronic billboards with a lit image of the main cartoon character all around the city of Boston. Early in the day on Wednesday someone called in and was concerned because cartoon characters scare them and they shut down everything around Sullivan Square which then led to shutting down a whole bunch of other roads and water ways and I am glad my flight took off later that day in Boston and Cambridge and Somerville. The city found out later in the day that it was a stunt by aforementioned big company and was none too happy.
So while in NY for the following couple of days, it was big news on all the news programs including CNN and Foxnews. It was a big deal because Mumbles Menino was pretty pissed off. Hey, if you can't advertise a cartoon movie targeted to college aged kids by placing a box with wires under bridges, then what can you do?
The DA even went so far as to arrest these two young guys making 7 bucks an hour to place this crap around the city. And did I mentioned that this was also taking place in other cities, like NY and Chicago and Seattle where dozens and dozens of these things were put out and no one freaked. Yep, they did but Boston didn't like it.
So maybe Turner Broadcasting should have told the city of Boston and the surrounding towns what they were going to do but they didn't. And maybe they should have placed them on the 40 OR SO COLLEGES IN THE AREA instead of under 100 year old bridges that thousands of cars drive on. And maybe once someone, somewhere, working for some company associated with this, realized that things were going south really quickly they should have called the police department to clue them in on this. But none of that happened and there are two sides to this debate - the side that says gorilla marketing is going too far and the side that says Boston wigged out.
Personally, I am on the fence.
Now excuse me while I go bid on one of those LED devices on ebay.
- Dave
PS. To read about how NY feels about this, read this
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