Marketing Campaign Bombs in Boston

Turner Broadcasting said it is working to make amends after a guerilla marketing campaign for Cartoon Network went haywire and turned into a citywide bomb scare Wednesday.

“We are making every effort to do the right thing,” Shirley Powell, spokesperson for Turner Broadcasting, told PROMO yesterday. “You will see action taken.”

Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Attorney General is investigating Turner, and Boston officials are seeking restitution for at least $750,000 for the fees that the city incurred responding to what it believed was a terrorist threat. Turner CEO Phil Kent is talking with city officials about the restitution, and other issues, Powell said.

The stunt also resulted in two arrests. It was unclear at deadline whether criminal charges will be filed.

It’s not the first time a promotion has alerted a bomb squad before.

The guerilla campaign began last month when Turner’s agency, Interference, Inc., placed several small, magnetized Plexiglas boards last month featuring an LED screen electric signs on Boston bridges and along roadways to promote an adult cartoon on the cable network. Interference chose the spots where it erected the boards, Turner said.

The 12-by-14-inch devices mimicked a circuit board and had wires and batteries protruding from them. That made them look like bombs. And on Wednesday, the harmless devices triggered calls to Boston police.

Police shut down a highway and deployed bomb squads, throwing the city into a panic and snarling traffic for several hours. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said he was preparing to take legal action against Turner and its affiliates to recoup the expenses the city incurred.

“It is outrageous, in a post 9/11 world, that a company would use this type of marketing scheme,” Menino said in a statement yesterday.

Calls to Cartoon Network and New York-based Interference Inc. were not returned. The agency’s Website Interferenceinc.com was also down Thursday.

Peter Berdovsky, 27, of Arlington, MA, and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown, MA, were charged Wednesday with one count each of placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct. A Charlestown District Court judge ordered Berdovsky to surrender his passport, the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office said. Both men were released yesterday on $2,500 bonds after pleading not guilty and are due back in court on March 7.

In all, Interference, Inc., erected 400 signs in 10 cities: Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, OR, Austin, TX, San Francisco and Philadelphia, according to Turner. The stunt was part of an effort to plug the show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. An upcoming feature-length film based on the series is due out March 23.

The light boards showed the cup-shaped cartoon character, Moonite, giving passers by the finger. That character, a talking milkshake, comes from Cartoon Network’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force show.

Two men who helped execute the outdoor ad campaign were arraigned yesterday.

Shortly after the Boston incident, Turner ordered Interference to remove all its signs immediately. There were no reports from police of residents’ complaints in the other nine cities. The electronic signs have been erected for the last two to three weeks, Turner said.

Turner, a division of Time Warner Inc. and parent of Cartoon Network, said the promotion was never designed to cause a panic.

“This was never intended to cause fear or public safety concerns simply for a promotion for a TV show,” Powell said. “If we ever perceived this as threatening, we never would have implemented the campaign. We regret any hardships that came as a result of this.”

Turner hired New York-based Interference last fall to work on other campaigns for its Adult Swim programming block. Aqua Teen Hunger Force airs at 10:30 p.m. on Sundays and Monday through Thursday at midnight on Cartoon Network.

When asked whether it would fire the agency responsible for the promotion’s execution or others involved, Powell said the company had yet to determine its action.

But experts say when a stunt goes wrong, a firing is generally inevitable.

“I have no doubt someone at Cartoon Network will lose their job over this one and frankly they probably should,” said Drew Nessier, CEO Renegade Marketing Group, a New York-based agency that does some guerilla marketing, but was not connected to this campaign, in statement. “The insensitivity of this stunt is simply astonishing. We all live in this world together and seeking attention by potentially scaring the snot out of someone is an act of self indulgent stupidity.”

“Marketers need to accept responsibility for their actions and avoid “we win, somebody loses” scenarios,” Nessier added. “As for Interference, they are going to take it on the chin for this one and if they are lucky no one will go to jail. I’m all for risk taking but come on folks, grow up! There have got to be ways of getting attention without calling out the bomb squad.”

Others agreed. While the stunt created a media frenzy, the end result may leave a bad taste in people’s mouths.

“The point of a guerilla marketing campaign is that it reflects the brand and campaign idea. It’s not just something that says: ‘Look at me, ‘look at me,'” says Nick Moore, chief creative officer for Wunderman, New York. “Undoubtedly, Cartoon Network will become better known, but they will be known for being immature. I think they will suffer for this.”

It’s not the first time police mistook a promotion for a bomb scare. Los Angeles police last spring called in the arson squad and detonated a newspaper rack after a customer saw a red plastic box with wires protruding from the rack. The red box was part of promotion between the studio and the Los Angeles Times to transform 4,500 newspaper racks into singing machines for the film Mission Impossible: III (PROMO Xtra, May 2, 2006).

Betsy Spethmann contributed to this article.