A guerrilla marketing campaign for Adult Swim and Aqua Teen Hunger Force has gone awry in Boston, touching off the same overreaction that the birds caused us earlier this month.
I’ve linked the first post on the Boston Metblog, but there have been several since that one. I’m not sure if they’re still up, but there were a few billboards here in town similar to the LED ads in Boston (fashioned along the same lines as those geekerrific LED throwies). Our own Austin Swim has a lot more. You’ll recall that they got in trouble for some banners advertising Adult Swim on local overpasses.
Fuzzy has more in Chicago, where they seem to be able to distinguish between suspicious and just plain strange.
Update (Friday, 02.02.07 08:39 CST): The Statesman is reporting that 20 of the LED signs were placed around town yesterday here as well, but they were quickly collected by those who placed them once all hell broke loose in Boston. Anybody see one before it got collected or know who was placing them locally? I’d love to get my hands on one.
Update 2 (Friday, 02.02.07 09:21 CST): Security demigod Bruce Schneier has an awesome post on this.
Photo from cjabest on Flickr
2 Responses to “First Birds, Now Lite Brites”
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Well the same except that in one case a lot of birds actually died. In the other they found a lite-brite. Canaries in coal mines are pretty old tech and I personally respect it. Lite-brite bombs are very new tech and I’m not sure I respect their threat.
100% agreed. We’re somewhat more justified in that something actually died. I commented on this in a couple of other places and left that part out of this post.
It’s a travesty that Turner and the firm in charge of the campaign are paying out $2 million for this. Boston city officials are unwilling to admit that they overreacted and needed a scapegoat.