Boston to Hold Workshops on Guerrilla Marketing

The Boston City Council plans to conduct a series of workshops on guerrilla marketing to resolve problems the city encountered with two recent campaigns conducted there.

The decision to conduct the workshops came during a public hearing yesterday on the marketing tactic attended by representatives of the city, as well as a handful of marketers.

Steven Halling, the president of the American Marketing Association of Boston, testified at the hearing and said that some of the ideas that surfaced were a bit “scary.” For example, Stephen Murphy, the chairman of economic development and planning for the city, asked if marketers were certified or licensed by the government to operate marketing campaigns.

“As a marketing community we need to talk them away from the edge a little bit to a more reasonable solution,” Halling said.

City officials, including representatives from the police and public works departments, code enforcement division and parks department, remained upset by the problems caused by the two campaigns.

In one, Cartoon Network ran a promotion on Jan. 31 that caused bomb scares, massive traffic delays and plenty of jittery nerves. Shortly after that, a Dr Pepper treasure hunt sent participants to an historic graveyard in search of a gold coin worth $10,000 (PROMO Xtra, Feb. 27, 2007).

The city was not notified that the campaigns were to take place.

“The fact that Dr Pepper followed on [Cartoon Network’s] heels so quickly is somewhat troubling,” said Boston City Council President Maureen Feeney, who attended the hearing. “You can’t help but think that someone is going to try to do something even more outrageous and we have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Halling made the case that the issue is not about guerrilla marketing, but rather marketing ethics. He said that any problems with the city could have been avoided through communication and collaboration among marketers and local officials.

Feeney said that the city did not want to ban guerrilla marketing, but wanted to put in place steps to prevent future problems. She stressed the importance of the city and marketing entities working together.

“They feel the need to do something about it, they need to react,” Halling said. “The motivation seems to be because [the campaigns] created such a stir, they need to show a reaction on the part of the city to let companies know they can’t get away with this without any repercussions.”

No date has been set for the workshops.