An update from The Boston Globe:
Friends of the local artist accused of spearheading Wednesday’s bomb scares said he was warned by an executive at a New York guerrilla marketing firm as early as 1:25 p.m. on Wednesday that their advertising campaign had incited panic in Boston.
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.
Does anyone know anything about Interference?
If you become a “brand ambassador” for some viral/guerrilla marketing firm, do you sign some sort of contract? If you do something illegal as part of the job, as it appears these guys might have, who’s liable?
I mean, you don’t get paid much, or maybe you’re paid per event, but there are some serious legal bills involved for these 2 Boston dudes, and I’m wondering who’s going to pay.
UPDATE: Meanwhile, the Interference web site only contains this statement:
We at Interference, Inc. regret that our efforts on behalf of our client contributed to the disruption in Boston yesterday and certainly apologize to anyone who endured any hardship as a result. Nothing undertaken by our firm was in any way intended to cause anxiety, fear or discomfort to anyone. We are working with Turner Broadcasting and appropriate law enforcement and municipal authorities to provide information as requested and take other appropriate actions.
Why didn’t they arrest the real criminals in this case? These two were probably minimum wage employees doing what they were told. Why didn’t Boston arrest the executives at Turner Broadcasting and Interference for pushing the campaign?