A Boston Marketing Stunt That Bombed, Or Did It?

Advertisers want nothing more than to generate attention, but Turner Broadcasting got more than it bargained for this week.

On Wednesday, Boston officials shut down big swaths of the city and sent in the bomb squad after passers-by spotted 12-by-14-inch boxes attached to bridges and road signs and called the police. The boxes turned out to be harmless light boards that displayed an image of a character from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a cartoon aimed at 18-to-24-year-olds on Adult Swim, a block of programming on Turners Cartoon Network.

But ad executives uninvolved with the campaign said it was the largest ruckus they had ever seen from a guerrilla marketing stunt, and Turner Broadcasting, a unit of Time Warner, scrambled to apologize.

If we ever would have perceived that this would have been the results, we never would have implemented the campaign, said Shirley Powell, spokeswoman for Turner Broadcasting, which hired Interference, a small stunt agency in New York, to run the campaign in 10 cities.

Guerrilla marketing — sending out street teams or posting ads in unusual places — has become more popular as marketers find it harder and harder to reach consumers through traditional media like newspapers and TV programs.

Marketing has just become too commoditized, and breaking through is becoming more and more difficult, said Andrew Benett, chief strategy officer at Euro RSCG Worldwide, which is part of Havas. Thats why you see stunts like this.

Most companies with large-scale campaigns now assume there should be a buzz component just as there should be an online or a TV element. Part of how ad agencies demonstrate the value of a campaign is with a calculation that attempts to count how many people saw events in person or through media publications that cover stunts, said Drew Neisser, president and chief of the Renegade Marketing Group, which does guerrilla marketing.

Ad executives said where Turner went wrong was failing to identify the boxes as advertising.

Turner did not disclose that this was a corporate message, said Jamie Tedford of Arnold Worldwide, which is part of Havas. It never would have been confused with a bomb if it had been disclosed that this was a corporate initiative.

Scott Goodson, chief executive and chief creative officer of StrawberryFrog, an ad agency in New York, said Interference also should have notified city authorities of their antics before putting them in place.

Mr. Goodson pointed to a marketing campaign by Microsoft last fall in which it paid to have thousands of parachutes holding the companys software fall on the town of Willow Springs, Ill. In that case, Mr. Goodson said, the company was careful to clear the plan with Willow Springss mayor and police department.

Ad executives said they were eager to see whether the stunt ends up having a positive or negative effect on Turner. Some said the move might generate favorable attention among viewers of Adult Swim.

Will it bring more viewers? asked Mr. Tedford of Arnold. My guess is that it will, and in that sense, it achieved its original objective.

But, Mr. Tedford said, the campaign will reflect badly on Turner and other marketers for a long time.

Marketers are sometimes surprised by the negative attention their ads can generate. A billboard in Los Angeles for a line of shoe inserts that says Shoe-icide is not the answer! generated complaints that it was making light of suicide.

Tina Aldatz Norris, the president of Foot Petals, said she did not intend to offend anyone when she put up the billboard. Now, she said she was in the process of removing it and making a donation to the American Association of Suicidology.

In December, San Francisco residents complained about Got Milk? signs at bus stops that smelled like chocolate-chip cookies. A day after the signs went up, the city said the smell had to be turned off.

Interference, the agency that installed the boxes for Turner, is known for its stunts.

A few years ago, Interference sent models into bars to pose as tourists with Sony Ericsson cameras. The models did not identify themselves. Others in the ad industry called the campaign stealthy and said the models should have acknowledged they were being paid.

In an interview in Brandweek in November, Sam Ewen, the chief of Interference, was asked if hed ever been arrested for a stunt. Mr. Ewen said, Luckily I have avoided arrest, mainly by dropping fictitious names of police officers from other precincts in town.

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