Aqua Teen Stunt Costs Turner and Agency $2M

evw writes "The NYTimes reports that the Turner Broadcasting System and the ad agency responsible have reached a $2M settlement with the city of Boston and state and federal agencies that treated the light boards placed around the city as an act of terrorism (as covered earlier on /.) Half of the money is to cover direct costs associated with the response. The other $1M goes to 'goodwill funds' that will be used for response training and public outreach."

Re:Free advertisement.. er.. low cost.

[Anonymous Coward]

International TV exposure. It's all over Europe, too, and probably other parts of the world.

Re:Boston's full of fucking morons.

[Anonymous Coward]

In case you didn't know, which you seem not to, Opie and Anthony lost their job because CBS owned too many stations in the Boston area according to federal law. CBS used the stunt to hide the fact that in firing Opie and Anthony they could rehire them in New York, sell WAAF (to the Boston Phoenix) and then transfer them to another CBS owned Boston-based station (WBCN). The prank may have made headlines, but it had very little to do with CBS's choice to fire Opie and Anthony.

Re:WTF?

[megrims]

(NB. I hail from Australia and as such am not used to paranoia, yet).

Be alert, but not alarmed.

Re:Free advertisement.. er.. low cost.

[Jaysyn]

Hey, look, it's Ignignot!

Re:two guys still face charges

[Dragonslicer]

I think I heard that the only charges they're still facing are disorderly conduct, which means fines of maybe $1000 if they act like real jackasses in front of the judge. I think the "omg terrorists!" charges got dropped pretty quickly.

Re:two guys still face charges

[Anonymous Coward]

The Boston Herald has reported that the two in question are on video at Sullivan Square T station filming the police responce and subsequent detonation of one of the first devices...which contradicts their statements that they were unaware of the panic the devices were causing. if this is true they may not be out of the woods yet. http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg ?articleid=181301 [bostonherald.com]

Re:Free advertisement.. er.. low cost.

[kabocox]

Does anybody remember the post-9/11 homeland security debacle with Tom Ridge reccomending people use duct tape and plastic sheeting [chicagotribune.com] to protect themselves from terrorists.. and then several people dying by asphyxiating themselves in their own homes?

Butbutbut... duct tape fixes ANYTHING!!!

Duct tape even fixes stupid people.

Re:Free advertisement.. er.. low cost.

[Itchyeyes]

Agreed. I think the media's biggest offense in this issue is the propagation of the idea that this was somehow a hoax. A hoax implies that there was intent. I don't it could be any clearer that this is not what these signs were intended for.

Re:stupid Americans...

[bumptehjambox]

Actually, you can get the stupid cartoon anywhere there's a stupid computer hooked up to the dumb internet!

Adult Swim Fix! [adultswim.com]

And some Europeans have less stupid television service than your very basic stupid service! There are people all over Europe that can watch anything the stupid States get and more...

The Universal is here, Here for everyone!

Re:Free advertisement.. er.. low cost.

[badasscat]

Has the press in America even been negative? The one news piece I saw of it highlighted the ridiculousness of the government's response to the advertisements. So $2M for good press in circles that quite likely would have gone unawares of the show is a pretty good deal I imagine in anyone major company's book.

First of all, Google the story using Google News. You'll turn up about 80% of all the news reports done anywhere on this. Browse through them - many of them are quite negative.

Second, I wish I'd had the chance to comment earlier because I know my thoughts are just gonna get lost here, but I seem to be the only one here who actually works in marketing and knows that there *is* such a thing as "bad press". As the VP of marketing at my company said in a meeting yesterday (where we joked about this), "I'd rather have that $2 million for more advertising". I mean this was hardly a best-case scenario, and yes, people did get fired over this.

Look at it this way. This agency has now cost Turner $2 million that they didn't budget, for a tiny little late-night cartoon that's worth nowhere near that much. That's $2 million that could have been spent promoting bigger shows, and that's probably coming directly out of Adult Swim's overall marketing budget.

Not only that, but it's going to cost the agency future business. No company wants to think that their message is out of their hands once they hire an ad agency, and no company wants to think that their ad campaign could potentially go 1,000% over-budget. My company was considering a deal with this agency and that's now off the table. This is, in the end, going to cost everybody concerned a large amount of money.

That's not even a comment on the city's response, which I do think was an overreaction. But it was also a dumb marketing campaign and the agency should have known better in this day and age - another point that a lot of companies based in large cities are going to take away from this.

The whole point of advertising is to get your message out there in the way you want it, spending as much money as you budget. It's not about watching a couple of dumbasses talking about 1970's hair styles in a press conference or over-spending $2 million on a show that probably had a $200,000 ad budget (why else would you even do a cheap guerilla marketing campaign?). This story became a lot less about the show and a lot more about the ad agency, and that's exactly the opposite of what any company wants from their marketing.