Marketing

"We understand now that in today’s post-Sept. 11 environment, it was reasonable and appropriate for citizens and law enforcement officials to take any perceived threat posed by our light boards very seriously and to respond as they did." – Turner Broadcasting Statement

Katie Paine has a post this morning summing up the resolution of the whole Turner/Interference/Aqua Teen mess as "Boston 2 Aqua Teen 1 Turner 0"  — Boston gets $2million in the settlement from Turner and Interference, more people have heard of the show, and Turner will come out fine.She’s less sure about Interference, the agency that came up with the idea, but she thinks even they might come out okay in the end.

I agree with her assessment, but am still bothered by the ethics of the whole thing. If the goal of the campaign was to expose more people to the TV show, it had not achieved the objective until the "explosion" last Wednesday. From what I have been able to tell, folks certainly saw the critters in Boston and the other cities, but it sounds like many were taken as souvenirs. Hard to spread the word about something if people are taking the adverts back to their dorm rooms. In fact, if the goal was to reach out to the natural audience for the show, those that already recognized the character, then the logical place to put the devices would have been colleges, universities and so forth.

Not I-93. Yet, the agency specified just those sort of places — overpasses, bridges and the like. Why? Was it simply because those were visible spots, or did they perhaps have a clue of what MIGHT happen if a device was placed on a key and highly visible piece of transportation infrastructure? Or were they just stupid? We will never know for certain.

We also can’t really be sure if the agency realized what was going on in the early afternoon on Wednesday and told the performance artists who placed the signs to keep quiet. Waiting about 3 hours before informing the authorities. The young men and their friends say yes. The agency denies. At this point it doesn’t really matter.

What we do know is that the first device reported and detonated Wednesday morning was placed on Monday night, not three weeks ago. And we know that it took a public emergency in Boston for the word to start spreading.

Posts mentioning "aqua teen"

We know, or we should, that it was much better for the authorities to respond as they did, than it would have been to ignore a potentially dangerous situation. Hard as it is for me to read about  the comics making fun of Boston, I’d much rather be hearing that than reading about the deaths caused from a bomb exploding in a subway or train station. It happens.  Madrid 2004 and London 2005. Tom Menino may go over the top, but it doesn’t make the marketing campaign itself any less irresponsible.

That’s the ethical issue: what is the responsibility of a marketer to understand the potential effects of the campaign. Not just the goal we set, but the unintended consequences. Where do we draw the line between the responsibility of the marketer to understand and avoid negative effects, and the fact that the response to a marketing campaign is really out of our control. We tell a story and hope it gets the response or action we intended. But there are no guarantees, and the people have all the real control. We just think we do 🙂

In the case of Aqua Teen,  Turner and Interference should have known better. Even many folks who make fun of Boston for the level of response admit that.

If we want to be responsible marketers, we need to fully understand how our products and campaigns will affect the people exposed to them. If our campaigns will be seen by more than the intended or natural audience, we had better be sure that we are communicating clearly. It isn’t sufficient to say, well they just don’t get it, or that isn’t really for them, or whatever the excuse, if there is a potential for harm.

I leave you with the irony. Although there’s a lot of Aqua Teen buzz these days, the Globe reports:

"Though the Cartoon Network received considerable attention after the scare, there appears to have been no short-term payoff. Viewership for the first "Aqua Teen" episode to air after the incident was down 100,000 viewers, compared to the night before, then only rebounded to its average rating the following night, according to Nielsen Media Research, which monitors television viewership."

CODA (added Feb 11): Head of Cartoon Network resigns over Aqua Teen mess. (sources: Boston Globe print edition and John Cass)

Tags: boston bomb scare, Turner Broadcasting, Aqua Teen, guerilla marketing, viral marketing, Cartoon Network