Aqua Teen costs Turner
p2pnet.net News:- Speaking of viral marketing, the Turner Broadcasting System and Interference Inc have been ordered to pay $2 million after a Boston, Massachusetts, campaign to boost Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a truly pathetic “adult-oriented” cartoon TV show, went badly wrong ——- or maybe terrifically right, depending on your point of view.
It, “set off fears of terrorism,” The New York Times has state attorney general Martha Coakley saying.
Interference placed electronic ads for Aqua Teen in public places, including a Boston overpass where it was mistaken for a bomb last Wednesday, says the story, going on:
“The companies will pay $1 million to reimburse federal, state and local agencies for their response to the incident, which led officials to close a highway, bridges, subway stations and part of the Charles River for hours after dozens of the devices, which resemble Lite-Brite toys, were found in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville.
“The companies will pay an additional $1 million in ‘goodwill funds’ that will be divided among the agencies for emergency response training and equipment and public outreach.”
Are Turner and Interference execs now rubbing their hands in glee over an ad stunt which garnered massive international press coverage, exceeding their wildest expectations?
Film industry experts say studios generally spend between $10 million and $30 million on advertising and promotion, says the NYT, adding:
“The light boards, which featured a character from the cartoon show, had been in place for two to three weeks, and there had been no complaints from other cities, the official, Shirley Powell, a spokeswoman for Turner Broadcasting, said.”
Aqua Teen Hunger Force stars a milkshake, a box of French-fries and a meatball.
Also See:
viral marketing – Hijacking the Net: viral ads, February 5, 2007
truly pathetic – Tacky Turner ad campaign, February 1, 2007
The New York Times – Boston Reaches Settlement in Bomb Scare, February 5, 2007
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February 6th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
Those light sculptures were free speech, and Coakley is an idiot as much as the fool who reported them. The majority of Americans are not living in fear and we don’t want any more of our freedom taken away. Any true patriots in Massachusetts reading this should start making light sculptures and hanging them everywhere in plain sight. We’re done with tyranny in the name of national security.
February 6th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Okay, first off, IMHO Aqua Teen Hunger Force is a pretty funny show. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but the “truly pathetic” comment seems out of place here. My other observation is, if someone was going to plant a bomb, WHY WOULD THEY PUT BLINKING LEDs ON IT ?!?! How friggin’ stupid are people? It’s like the totally farcical blinking LED on the WMD briefcase in Team America. WTF? It would appear the turarists really have triumphed over murica.
A bomb with a cartoon character LED display. Right…
Maybe Interference Inc arranged for the phoned in bomb scare.
February 7th, 2007 at 3:55 am
My understanding of this is that these blinking light things were placed in lots of cities all over the usa.
My understanding is also that Boston was the only city to belive they were some kind of WMD and react in that fashion.
My understanding is also that it took Boston 2 or 3 weeks to notice all these alleged WMD’s lying around in the plain view of as many people as the ‘perps’ could arrange.
All i can say is that the usa had better hope nobody does use flashing light WMD’s cause obviously nobody’s gonna notice them until it’s too late.
February 7th, 2007 at 5:50 am
It seems to me someone probably (maybe HLS?) did some fear mongering in the Boston police dept and that is what led to this. ie “be on the lookout for bombs, we’ve intercepted some intelligence…” bla bla bla. The usual bullshit. Police are generally not the smartest people as I’m sure most readers know.
If I were on Turners team I would tell the gov’t to go shove their demand for reimbursement up their ass. It sets a dangerous precedent when the police can demand money for their services from third parties that are quite indirectly involved. It sounds like they are using ‘color of law’ to extort this money out of Turner co.
BTW whoever (Jon?) wrote ‘truly pathetic’ in regards to ATHF, that type of highly subjective opinion has no place anywhere except an editorial. Many people think it’s a pretty funny show. The more recent episodes suck but the first few seasons are funny as hell.
And also BTW, fix your damn database server Jon, the site has been locking up every other click with database errors, and it’s been happening for a few months now and it’s really annoying. Checking your error logs once in a blue moon is a good thing, friend….
February 7th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
It was funny shit watching those cops blow up those stupid electronic ads. Stupidity is nothing new to Boston, google “big dig”, “whitey bulger”, and “mike dukakis” for laughs. As for ATF(the show I derogatively refer to as “Fries and Coke”), I don’t think anyone over 40 likes that show, so the comment by Jon is not surprising. I have watched some pretty weird anime (FLCL, Bobo Bo Bo Bobobo), but could not tolerate ATF for more than 5 minuets.
As for the errors, I have not been having any trouble with this site, and Jon may be computer illiterate so log messages may not mean anything to him. If you are the only one experiencing difficulties then he would have had no reason to check error logs.
February 7th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
ATHF is perfect for the ADD generation. The episodes are only about 12 minutes long and move fast, holding my fleeting attention.
Funny, I can’t stand that anime crap, none of it, but ATHF makes me laugh. I’m probably one of the older p2pnet readers too. It’s probably all the violence in that cartoon that makes it funny to sickos such as myself. The ‘mail order bride’ episode is especially funny, grab it on a torrent and you’ll be amused I’m sure.
BTW error logs should be audited on a regular basis as part of a normal server maintenance routine. You can’t rely on users manually report errors, that’s what the logs are supposed to be for.
Jon it’s been happening since December, once every dozen or so clicks, the page fails to load and just shows (after about a 60 second wait) the usual p2pnet template page and an error message where the article would be. There error message is something like ‘database server unavailable’ and lists a line# in your php script.
February 8th, 2007 at 11:21 am
That is a funny thing about Adult Swim, people seem to either like the Anime or the ATF/sealab stuff, but rarly both. How does your generation manage to play WoW for hours, but can’t watch an episode longer than 12 min?
I think Jon said(I could be wrong on this) that someone more web savvy than him would be taking over web site management. Just what are you viewing this web site on? I’m on a linux comp using firefox and I have not had the problems you have been experiencing.