Ad Agency Told Artist to Stay Mum During Panic. That was a Boston Globe headline on the Boston.com site this evening. The smirking clowns to the left are the "artists" known as Sean Stevens, 28 and Peter Berdovsky, 27 - today known as being responsible for at least some of the Cartoon Network advertising devices that caused emergency response overload in Boston on Wednesday. Now yesterday I was hoping that Turner Broadcasting and their ad agency was not responsible for pointing out the devices to increase the hype - but today we learn the moronic agency that loosed the panic squad didn't bother to contact the police until 4:30pm. That's only eight and half hours from when the first device was found and shut down a major highway and subway line. Reaction to the arraignment has been mixed, many people don't believe these men should be prosecuted for anything, many believing the ad agency should be prosecuted. The blogger and community board discussions have been very interesting (scary-interesting) to read.
While I don't believe these two should be on the hook for the tab owed to the City of Boston, they do need a smack upside their silly little faces if that was their reaction in court. If the quote below is to be believed, Interference Marketing as agent for Turner Broadcasting's Cartoon Network should reimburse the City of Boston for yesterday's costs. A quote from this evening's article:
An advertising executive at Interference Marketing Inc. instructed Peter Berdovsky to keep quiet while police scrambled across the metropolitan area responding to a series of bomb scares. Berdovsky sent an e-mail to friends at 1:25 p.m. telling them not to talk about the marketing scheme to promote the animated television show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" on the Cartoon Network.
"My boss from the Cartoon Network’s ad agency just called -- she is asking that we pretty please keep everything on the DL," or down low, wrote Berdovsky, according to a copy of the e-mail provided to the Globe.
Cartoon Network, in its favor, posted an apology on the Adult Swim website. We'll see where the day takes us tomorrow.
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