Oh, you viral marketers and tricksy Adult Swim promo squads, what've you done now? No longer content with offending parents and making the male aged 18-30 demo chortle with glee at their New Jersey debauchery, it would appear Aqua Teen crossed over into real life to wreak havoc promoting the upcoming ATHF movie. Geeky Lite-Brite-like visages of the Mooninites caused shut downs in several transit arteries in Boston, including Interstate 93, the Longfellow Bridge, and Storrow Drive, leaving thousands asking WHAT HAPPENED TO THEIR FRICKIN' CAR?! Strangely, Turner stated that these viral ads have been in place in 10 major cities for between two and three weeks, which leaves one to wonder why no one noticed the strange, pixelated cartoon characters flipping the bird until just this afternoon, and just in Boston.
[Thanks,
Dan]
Update: One's
for sale on eBay! Thanks, everybody.
posted Jan 31st 2007 7:19PM
I want that marketing company working for me. I heard about this on NPR. Bet thats even better results than turner paid for.
I'm sorry but this has to make the Boston emergency personnel look really stupid. oh including the idiots who thought they were explosive devices. But then again better safe than sorry!
Looks like their marketing campaign worked ... spent a few k for cheap signs and most of the US has heard of it by now.
Oh man. I WANT THIS sooo bad!!! I would totaly steal one if I saw it!!! Are there any in SF?!!
This one really makes me upset. It may be some of the media's fault too though. I work in downtown boston and I take the subway to work everyday. Durring lunch I check the news and the media is making it seem like there are bombs all over the city - they report of bombs in "suspicious packages" scaring everyone.
The media wanted this to me another terrorist attack, and was trying to scare people into thinking this so they will watch the news. After seeing what was really posted around the city I shouldnt have been scared at all today. I hate the media for sensationalizing everything.
but the campain should have just used paper posters - they did have the bomb squad blowing these things up which led to the media getting a huge boner and reporting TERRROR!!!
They used LEDs and not posters because that's currently quite the fashion. And this was all about the Cool (yes, I happen to make light-up things myself). Surely you've seen some of the graffiti done with conductive paint and LEDs?
What pisses me off is that these were done with care not to leave a mess to clean up (magnetic; pops right off, no property damage) and were fun/pretty to look at. These signs brought anyone with half a brain a little happiness in addition to advertising something (which I happened to love anyway). It should have gone down as exactly the right way to do guerilla adverts. They weren't *that* clever, but they were pretty.
Monty
"...which leaves one to wonder why no one noticed the strange, pixelated cartoon characters flipping the bird until just this afternoon, and just in Boston."
'Cause the people of Boston are f-ing morons. There's a reason they're called Massholes.
hahahahahhahahahaaaa... massholes. never heard of that before but thats awesome.
im guessing pez is from boston. eat a cock pez. go yankees!
Why does a boxy, pixely, character flipping you the bird automatically make some assume that means bomb?
OMG! Hit the deck, it's an F-bomb!
hahahaha LMAO
yeah i dont see how that looks like/would be/would mean a bomb threat at ALL
ZOMG BLINKY LIGHTS IT MUST BE A BOMB!
Because terrorists make bombs out of LED's that flip off their targets...
Boston, kudos to your Homeland Security experts!
I cant stop laughing over this.
Greatest news week ever
When I say your dumb name, please stand up briefly, but then quickly drop to your knees and forsake all others before me.
Here I am, rock you like a hurricane.
The moon rulz #1!
PS. I didnt make this but i post YTMNDs relating to articles sometimes so here. http://paranoidboston.ytmnd.com/
ahahaha thats great.
I've seen at least one of these in Seattle and didn't think anything of it at the time, other than, "I do believe it's supposed to be flipping me off."
This just in:
Massachusettes State Police have seized the entire stock of Light Brights from all Boston area Toy R Us toy stores and taken in for questioning about their involvement in terrorist plots.
More at 11.
I saw one of these in giant form rocking my face outside a stripclub in Portland.
I know that club ;) ATHF rawks the panties off the girlies! WHOOT!
That's really pathetic to think that people thought that those were bombs. People are idiots & the media is just hyping it up.
Seriously, viral marketing is stupid and obnoxious. Now there a companies that post fake news stories on Digg and have them dugg up. They tag graffiti all over the place, and now they cause a huge traffic jam in Boston. There should honestly be a law against deceptive advertising.
By instilling a state of fear and irrational reactions, the real terrorists have succeeded once again.
Unfortunately such wonderful pop art has once again been wasted on the primitive earthling cavemen. Using 100% of your brains you can never understand the supremacy of that which is the Moonenites. Right now I am smoking and giving you the bird as hard as I can...
Remember this happened with Mission: Impossible III and the newspaper racks? When will the dumb Madison Ave types (in this case, Williams St.) learn? Start fining these companies that do these stunts the cost to clean up the mess they caused, plus throw in a few million for the inconvenience factor, they might start to figure it out.
That's priceless. People can be so paranoid.
I hope everyone realized that the terrorists have already won. The nanosecond someone can shut down roads based simply on the illusion that it might be a terrorist plot, they have gotten exactly what they wanted: being able to bring America or segments of America to a standstill without any actions on their part whatsoever. All they need to do now is sit back and watch up implode on ourselves with the occasional terrorist act to push things along. Congratulations Shrub lovers. As C&C he has created this climate of fear. He pushes policy. He gives the speeches that either inspire or scare a nation. He is the President. He has used the power of the words terror and WMD to get his way and we now see the outcome of his fearmongering.
Right.
And he also cleaned up the economic mess your homeboy "what the definition of 'is' is" Clinton left behind.
You mean the Budget Surplus that bush frittered away?
And these are the idiots we want "protecting" us? What a load of rot! I think I'll take care of myself, and I recommend you all do the same...
PS- And if you think this is the only example of people's overreactions think again.
just so you know... the police have arrested one of the people who was subcontracted by the ad agency to hang these signs up.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/01/artist_arrested.html
presumably it was done by subcontracted workers in every city they were used in. i don't they got paid enough to make being arrested worthwhile.
i doubt anyone at the ad agency or turner has been arrested.
though... a lot of this could've been avoided with some permits and/or permission before doing it. that's one of the ways Sony got out of getting in too much trouble over the PSP Graffiti ads... they simply put the graffiti in places that was already allowed to have advertising.
gotta love how paranoid people are these days
fear, when there is too much, makes you weak
which is exactly what my fellow American people have become
I just found out that the person arrested faces Felony Charges and jail time!
And now I realize that the traffic I had to sit in was for.. a cartoon? man I'm pissed.
Boston's overreaction to this ranks about as high on the stupidity meter as the incident involving those Super Mario question mark ("?") blocks in that small town that those girls put up that led to a similar scare (though on a smaller scale).
I only heard about the incident on the radio and read about it on-line. Did they show pictures of the devices on television early on?
I wish I could say "better safe than sorry," but you can't. Even assuming the response was perfectly executed, it was a little late. I live in Boston and these things have been up for THREE WEEKS... OOPS...
If they had been real bombs they would have exploded weeks ago.
I'm actually embarrassed to be from this state.
Ok, so I don't quite understand Boston. Wasn't it Boston officials who wanted to charge Sony for the police force it took to calm down people waiting in line for a PS3? I think the people of Boston need to pull their heads out of their asses... Why is it that of the 9 cities, only Boston is having a problem? If it is found that Turner placed advertisements illegally, fine them. If this is another case of "dialing while stupid", the people who called in the bomb scare should be fined. I'm really sick of the paranoia. Do you actually think you would SEE a bomb before it goes off anyway?
I searched for one of these guys on eBay...
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mooninites-Ignignokt-LED-Advertising-Bomb_W0QQitemZ130075321405
In the auction's first -4- hours, it jumped from $20 to $1,175.
They're being sold on eBay?! We have to alert Homeland Security before the terrorists snipe the auction and get their hands on this dangerous Moon-based technology.
Tell the Boston PD, that there is a Bar on the Corner of 5th and Lexington with a Neon Beer sign in the window. It could be a bomb. After all it is all lit up, and has wires sticking out of it, and it glows. It could be dangerous.
Alert Homeland Security, there is a billboard at the end of my street that looks suspicious.
I hope my sarcasm is extremely apparent
Tell the Boston PD, that there is a Bar on the Corner of 5th and Lexington with a Neon Beer sign in the window. It could be a bomb. After all it is all lit up, and has wires sticking out of it, and it glows. It could be dangerous.
Alert Homeland Security, there is a billboard at the end of my street that looks suspicious.
I hope my sarcasm is extremely apparent
This is outrageous that we have to put up with the constant bird flipping by these mooninites. Ignignokt & Err are making a mockery of our justice system. If not for my eHelmet I would go insane...
http://www.adultswim.com/shows/athf/stuff/soundboard/
This is where our "war" on terror has brought us. We have to remove our shoes and throw away our liquids before boarding a plane, we have a color scheme to tell us exactly how afraid we should be, we allow our government to spend billions on a war with no clear purpose or end, we are okay with complete invasions of privacy and the deterioration of the Bill of Rights, and now we're afraid of fictional characters from the Moon. All this, and we each have a better chance of being struck by lightning than being the victim of a terrorist attack. If there truly is a "war" on terror, this is just one more incident to illustrate just exactly which side is winning.
Yeah.
Because the part of the world where the "terrorists" come from has never held a grudge against one certain demographic or race...for oh, say, hundreds and hundreds of years.
This is a completley recent development.
God dammit people are stupid.
I can't believe that nobody in boston pd watches ATHF and thought about calling Turner before causing a scare!
why are they calling the an advertising campaign a "HOAX" it wasnt a hoax of any kind! it was an ADVERTISING CAMPAIGN!
The word HOAX implies that these ads were made to look like bombs purposely! Which in fact they werent.
Paranoia Drops Bombs! and President Bush Creates paranoia!
You're spot on Mauricio. The Boston prosecutor's office is out of its freaking gourd charging this dude with felonious perpetration of a hoax. WHAT WAS THE HOAX??? It was a lite brite of a cartoon character! Is the neon sign above my neighborhood bar a hoax too? What a crock! Bostonians need to extract the corncobs from their bums. "Hoax" must be the scapegoat word of the day in the Boston Municipal Government building. The FBI and Boston police's disproportionate response is to blame. They blew up an LED sign attached to a battery? WTF? I thought these people had bomb sniffing dogs and exposive detection devices. The FBI knew darn well what these things were, but they dragged it out to TERRORIZE the country for a few hours. Chertoff is the real criminal.
A new flavor is gonna come out at starbucks and people are gonna think its a bomb next - you watch.
Honestly, what do people expect the Boston Police department to do if they got a call saying that there is a suspicious object with lights suspended under a bridge? Ignore it, laugh it off like its another viral marketing tactic? This has nothing to do with Homeland security, the general public isn't used to guerrilla marketing, to most its more illogical to have someone put LED objects under I-93 that is normally inaccessible to the public.
When this article was posted on Engadget, I thought it was a bomb.
The day the McRib came back at McDonald's, I was sure it was a bomb and informed my local police station.
When I woke up this morning, I thought I was a bomb.
True stories. Don't make fun.
Someone down the block still has their LED christmas lights up - call the bomb squad!
Of course, better information was available on YouTube and the like, where you could actually see these signs and video of the guys placing them, before you could in the mainstream media, who were going nuts about terrorist threats.
The City of Boston completely overreacted, driven by uncritical reporters and pandering public officials. What a joke.
Full Discsoure: I HATE the Aqua Teen Hunger show.
Reminds me of when Microsoft got fined for spreading MSN butterflies over downtown Manhattan. Most advertisers pay the city money to have their ads displayed in places like transit stops. You can't just stick ads up on public property without permission, otherwise, what's to stop people from covertly installing billboards beside payed-for ads?
This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life!! Led cartoon characters are suspicious packages that may be bombs?!?!?!?!
They should bring criminal chargers against the idiot that reported it in as a suspicious package and the whole Homeland Security group in Boston!!!!
Guess the terrorists have already won ;(
I hate to break it to you, but this was not a Viral marketing Campaign. This was a Guerilla Marketing Campaign. Look it up before throwing around your latest dime-store motivational speaker phrases. Hint: Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point should clue you in on the difference. For a Follow up rty looking into Jay Conrad Levinson.
Since when did terrorists make bombs out of a Lite-Brite? People are so incredibly stupid.
I made a nice t-shirt so I can display it around boston. Help yourself: http://www.cafepress.com/mooninitesign
God knows the real things are going to go for thousands on ebay.
I bet the upcoming movie ticket sales double because of it.
I'm frickin glad somebody finally did somethin' about these little aholes. They swim in my pool they steal my porn take all my smoke. They even pounded moonrocks in my... well you don't wanna know where. And they shot me with that fricken quad laser thing of theirs...
Yer not gonna print my real name are ya engadget? -Carl-
I'm thinking a lot of people would be (happier?) if the next bomb had Lite-Brite pegs on it...
actually I see this the other way around. ONLY the Boston PD is enough in the know, to attack the Mooninites on site. The Mooninites are a terrorist faction! They have come to steal our pornography and sodomize our imaginations! Destroy them before they form the quad lazer!!!
I'm amazed at the over reaction of athorities in Boston. Here in Chicago it would have been laughed off.Shame on you Boston.
This reminds me an awful lot of the girls in Ohio who placed Super Mario powerup boxes around their town, and they were reported as possible bombs. It was last year sometime. They weren't charged for it.
Another example of the ignorance of our government. Cartoon Network you rule!!!
Sad- They arrested the people involved
Sadder- Boston PD Thinks a bunch of LEDS will explode. Because, as we all know, LEDS are among the most unstable things known to man.
Saddest- If they thought these were a threat, then HOW THE HECK WERE THEY UP FOR 3 WEEKS WITHOUT ANYONE NOTICING?
Another example of the ignorance of our government. Cartoon Network you rule!!!
I created an icon commemorating this event:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/156/376809246_dcd920f79c_o.png
If you think I am wonderful and clever, or if you are my mom, you can read my whole blog entry:
http://beagley.livejournal.com/119499.html
All hail the Mooninites and their awesome power.
Nah.
If I saw you on the street I'd just beat the shit out of you.
That would solve everyone's problems.
Yes. People are indeed stupid. Thank you for demonstrating that point.
What kind of mind-state does it take to associate pixelated cartoon characters with bombs? I don't get it! Do I need to watch FOX news 24/7 to understand?
Seriously Boston citizens easily take the moron of the year award with this one.
The other bizarre fact is the media reporting on it. Rather than making fun and/or worrying about people's mental health, the reporting implies that it's perfectly normal to be scared to death of weird cartoons. And blames the ad campaign. WTF?
Go on, carve DA MOON RULZ#1 into Mayor Menino's car. You know you want to...
Thank god the Bush administration is here to protect us from all these terrorists. Can't wait for the US government to implant an RFID chip in our asses so they can control the population a bit more. It's all for our own good of course, 'cause terrorists are bad, government is good. Thank you for protecting and serving.
Wow, what a hardass.
Cool, elitist left-wing reply AND a witty retort with no substance or meaning.
Everyone just step away slowly...
YES WE ONLY USE LED SIGNS TO ADVERTISE ON THE MOON. AS YOU CAN SEE IT'S QUITE EFFECTIVE. - IGNIGNOKT
Gads! My five year old just pulled the back off his Fisher-Price walkie talkie … better call the FBI … I see components in here just they had in the fake bomb(s) in those pictures! Some round things. Some square things. Some wires. And a little red light that pops on every time someone talks into the other walkie talkie. Eeeekkk.
Seriously. I can see the investigation. I mean you do have to check these things out now that we know about jihads and our friendly neighbors that carry them out and all. But really. After the investigation proved it was just an ad campaign gone seriously stupid, it would have been much smarter to just let the whole thing die in column 4 on page 3, eh??
OMFG, I'd hate to live in Boston. My lunchbox I take to work would most defenitley be mistaken for a bomb or suspicious package, terrorist communications device, miniature mobile anthrax distibution device or maybe even Bush's WMD from Iraq! It's black, box shaped and has a neat looking radioactive logo sticker on it! I think I'll put some lights on it too. It'll scare the pants off my friend, he's from Bombston, er I mean Boston.
We thank you, city of Boston, for making yourself a laughing stock of the nation. Not only did your security apparatus seemed to have neglected the fact that these things were up there for most of the world to see for over three weeks, of the 10 cities that these object were alleged to have been scattered, it seems that only Boston reacted negatively.
This is my un-expert opinion: You'd think that if they had first got sight of these contraptions, they would've had contacted FBI experts to help determine what the threat was, and immediately contacted other cities in other states to verify if there was anything similar happening in their jurisdictions. Or at least used binoculars or other image magnifying device to first determine visually the threat the aformentioned "bombs".
Then again, the other cities in the US probably was in the joke too: to make Boston look stupid. If that's the case, shame on you, you other 9 cities; you all should grow up!
We whipped up this awesome t-shirt to commemorate 1/31/07
Aqua Teen Bomber Force
Never Forget....
Only available at The Cotton Factory
O get over on the 'fearmongering' presidential b.s. and learn who the real terrorists are: the frickin media. Its what 90% of Americans use to form their ignorant opinions. Its their careful choice of words to spin any situation to their own political goals and financial benefits. They have been doing this long before Bush or any of the presidents. Despite popular belief, the war is actually going quite well over here. Are you a political advisor with inside information and extensive knowledge in counter insurgency operations? No? Didnt think so, so keep your ignorant opinions on the war to yourself. The media controls you and tells you what to think and how to feel. They got you like a puppet on strings. Wake up America. Advertising is a science and they have mastered how to manipulate people to buy their product and the media capitalized on this. The ATHF advertising was harmless until the media saw potential earnings from rating increases. One last thing before Im off my soapbox, despite trying to avoid a Vietnam like mistake by not supporting the war and troops now people say they support the troops but not the war. You cant seperate the two. By not supporting the war (you shouldve stopped it before it happened, too late now) and by calling for immediate troop withdrawal your harming us over here more. Now we have less soldiers to perform the jobs we do and the government wont increase the troop level to an adequate amount that we need because the American people wont like it. Because of the media now terrorists have more rights protecting them from abuse then children do in the U.S. Because people believe everything the media wants them to we are going to lose this war. Remember, every soldier volunteered for this job and the number of deaths of soldiers over here is far less then the number of murders in any one of our major cities in the U.S. Id prefer to die serving my country then to get mugged and shot by a fricking crack fiend or hit by a drunk driver. If you support our troops then support the war because now that we have started this war campaign we have to finish it and do it right.
THEY WERE CORRECT TO FEAR US , FOR IT IS TRUE , THOSE OF US FROM THE MOON ARE "THE BOMB".
-IGNIGNOKT
YEAH , WE CAME TO BLOW THIS MOTHER UP!
-ERR
SERIOUSLY THOSE PEOPLE ARE STUPID AND THIER CHILDREN HATE THEM. - MASTER SHAKE
So all I have to do to get the cool kids to pick up IEDs or not report them is to wrap the C4 in ductape and add some cutesy LEDs over them? Seriously? You're that trusting?
I can believe it -- it's a dumb show.
People are pretty stupid to think that was a bomb
PS The moon rules Denver