Reddit AMA Recap: ATHF Movie Marketing Team

Remember this crazy shit?

Before the Boston bombing, the most recent example of any sort of terrorism in the same town as my Celtics play was actually produced by a marketing company that was trying to work up interest for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. Hard to believe it has been 10 years since this event shut down Boston for fears of terrorism, but thanks to this Reddit AMA featuring Sam Ewen who runs the company that actually put together that aforementioned campaign, we got a whole bunch of cool back story as well as what came from the publicity surrounding that fabled day:

How the guys found out that their signs were being treated as bombs:

It was an interesting moment. I was in DC pitching work to Discovery Channel and stopped in a Baja Fresh for a bit of food before coming back to NY and I looked up and they had CNN on and it was showing the bomb squad in boston removing and blowing up one of our signs. We freaked out, called our client, called the police in all 10 cities to let them know it was not a bomb and then waited to see what was doing to happen.

On whether or not Sam thinks this marketing ploy was a bit too irresponsible:

Irresponsible? In hindsight yes, it could have been done differently, but I do believe the reaction was far greater than the intent. Who would put a bomb up, with flashing lights, and a character giving the finger?

On the selection of the different locales of where the signs were put:

We had mapped out locations all around the city. We used rare earth magnets on the back so we needed metal to stick on to. So that was the main criteria. Probably this is also why things went bad, as one of our guys saw that the support structure for bridges are metal, he put one there, that is the one that got the first 911 call. You should have grabbed the one you saw, they were quite popular on Ebay for awhile.

On whether or not Adult Swim/Cartoon Network wanted to work with them again:

HA, oh no. They wanted NOTHING to do with us after that. But we did a lot of work for other companies after that, while not as attention getting, still made me proud.

And what could the aforementioned network do to be more relevant?

I have noticed they have not been advertising as much and also I think they have ceded a lot of ground to the internet. When they were more relevant it was partly because there were not as many outlets to get their irreverent set of content. Now it is everywhere. I would put my money in fewer, better done shows that bring people back in.

You can read more of the Reddit AMA here