Legal Issues - The Art of the Prank

May 15, 2007January 15, 2019

Madison Avenue goes guerilla

News Analysis: Boston Bomb Hoax Scares Up More Guerrilla Business
May 14, 2007
By Becky Ebenkamp
Brandweek

A $2 million fine and Senate bill can’t cage envelope-pushing efforts.

“Now more than ever!” is the rallying cry for guerrilla marketers three months after a misunderstanding over a stealthy street stunt promoting Cartoon Network’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force brewed a Boston bomb scare.

Some marketing agencies say the headline-making hoax has actually increased business despite a bill making its way through the Senate that would impose harsher punishments should such a hoax happen again.

Early reports after the Jan. 31 hysteria had many speculating marketers would steer clear of this big-bang/small bucks school of buzz building. After all, Cartoon Network gm/evp Jim Samples resigned; parent company Turner Broadcasting and guerrilla agency Interference agreed to pay $1 million in compensation to Massachusetts and another $1 million to support federal homeland security.

“The smarter clients I spoke to [realized] that a $2 million fine equals $120 million in publicity,” said Peter Shankman, president of New York-based pr/marketing agency The Geek Factory. “They said, ‘Just get the damn permits first!'” Continue reading “Madison Avenue goes guerilla”

May 12, 2007January 15, 2019

Off the hook

Massachusetts won’t prosecute men in hoax bomb scare
By Svea Herbst
May 11, 2007

BOSTON (Reuters) – Massachusetts will not prosecute two men who planted blinking electronic signs in a “guerrilla” advertising campaign that sparked a terrorism scare in central Boston, the state’s attorney general said on Friday.

In return for public apologies and 140 hours of community service, prosecutors dropped criminal charges in a case state Attorney General Martha Coakley said her office would have lost.

The men were charged with placing a hoax device and disorderly conduct. “That charge would not have been successful,” Coakley said.

She said there was no evidence Sean Stevens, 28, and Peter Berdovsky, 27, intended to cause panic on January 31 when police mistook the small battery-powered electronic billboards for possible bombs. Read the full story.

Here’s video documentation by Zebbler of the original action: Glitchcrew’s guerilla graffiti light installation in Boston on January 31, 2007, done on behalf of Aqua Teen Hunger Force on the Cartoon Network.

Here’s more information about the original action from boston.com and more video including the breaking news coverage (from Fox News) of the incident from robotspiratesninjas: Continue reading “Off the hook”