No Such Thing As Bad Publicity?
Your marketing idea may seem brilliant to you, but all too often you're too close to it. Step back and see if, for example, the suspension of a circuit board with wires above a highway might be misinterpreted. You'll be glad you did and. perhaps, glad that it was.
posted by john dodds @ 3:42 PM
5 Comments:
quote: "It said the devices have been in place for two to three weeks in 10 cities: Boston; New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Atlanta; Seattle; Portland, Ore.; Austin, Texas; San Francisco; and Philadelphia."
It sounds like Boston overreacted.
quote: "'It's a hoax -- and it's not funny,' Gov. Deval Patrick said."
But I'd wager he knows more about Aqua Teen Hunger Force now than he did a week ago.
Barring a $750,000 bill to Cartoon Network, I'd call it a success. After all, the story made countless newspapers and blogs (including yours) and in the eyes of their target audience, the City of Boston came out looking bad, not Cartoon Network. If anything the campaign only reinforced the show's edge.
Agreed - and the story has now made the BBC new over here which is unusual - though it was interesting to note that the sign-off on the piece was the old cliche "who says there's no such thing as bad publicity?"
In this case, the awareness is enhanced albeit inadvertantly but I suppose there might be some sort of lawsuit from the local authorities. My point was that, in other situations, people might have a different reaction to your marketing which might not be so beneficial to your aims.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/02/05/boston.turner/index.html
The $2 Million settlement was still less than a super bowl commercial, though probably a little more than the original ad budget. I suppose you get what you pay for in the end? And the $1 million "good will" portion of the payment surely went a long way to repairing any damage the incident had on Turner Broadcasting's image.
Back to the question at hand, can you really have bad publicity or is bad press merely an opportunity to rise above criticisms? For most companies, I think bad press is a great opportunity. It raises awareness which, unless you are a major player, you are always struggling to achieve.
I wish some more folks would join the conversation. I'd like to hear some more opinions on this.
Awareness is only part of the purchase pathology - there are many cases in which a product or compmnay can achieve awareness but if the association in potential customers' minds is a negative one then that is bad publicity. Whether or not that applies in this case only time will tell, though I can imagine that some parents might have established a negative outlook and guide their kids away from the cartoon. The question is whether on balance an increased level of positive "interest" has resulted.
They better guide their kids away from that cartoon.
It's not a children cartoon at all and is very innappropriate for kids, fortunately they don't do the types of jokes that kids typically 'get'.
The only people who reflected badly on was Boston because they not only overreacted, they are suing a corporation for doing something that is basicly harmless in order to:
1. Pay for Boston's dipshit-iness
2. Make it look less like they overeacted.
Seriously. The people in boston would be VERY smart to strongly reconsidure who they put in charge of their city. To react in such a bad manner to a non-threat.. (that's not to say they shouldn't of reacted at all. Fined the corporation for disrupting the peace and maybe sue for litering would of been a much better response.)
how are they going to respond to a situation that requires quick and effective judgement when it's obvious that their judgement is so poor?
I know that if I wanted to do a roadside bomb I would simply put it a black trash bag filled with trash. Make it look like some a-hole chucked it out of a moving car.
I am sure that is very common site in Boston and if the bomb fails to go off street cleaning crews would eventually dispose of it for me.
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