Feb 04 2007
Humor-Impaired Legal Counsel? I Think Not … Part II
By now, you've probably heard about the now-infamous Boston ATHF ad campaign, which placed battery-operated light boards around the City of Boston aimed at promoting the late-night Adult Swim cartoon "Aqua Teen Hunger Force." The idea was on par with techniques that my marketing-guru friend, Mark Rapp, has come up with in some of his campaigns.
The two guys who developed this outstanding viral ad campaign were promptly arrested and arraigned by the humorless Boston authorities for allegedly engaging in "terrorist-like" disorderly conduct. Instead of advising his counsel to simply issue the standard no comment, their attorney apparently advised them that it would be okay to take questions about anything but the pending legal case.
The result is this hilarious display of the suspects talking about hairstyles from the 1970's. I view this as a masterstroke since it's protecting them legally (mostly) against discussing the fairly minor charges brought against them, while also dealing with true underlying issue of restitution (i.e., if they get more publicity, they may be better prepared to pay/increase their profit margin after paying the huge fines the City of Boston has said it will assess for their "over-responsiveness"). It's also a nice little "fuck you" to the Bostonian tight-asses themselves, who got their panties all up in a bunch over a few fucking LITE-BRITE machines.
P.S. Don't worry, this will probably be the only time I will ever, EVER, EV-ER, post anything from FoxNews except for when their studios spontaneously implode, smitten by the hand of their own non-existent god.
P.P.S. Actually, I may have to change the title of this post. Did you get a look at their attorney in this clip? He may be letting them do the press conference, but he don't look too happy 'bout it.
Advertising sustained through media propaganda. Ethically irreverent, I love it.
No one I talk to thinks they anticipated a bomb scare. I think, yeah, they definitely thought something like this would happen, they were counting on it, and it was in really poor taste.
But it was going downhill prior to the Boston incident:
WHY ADULT SWIM FAILS