TIL of GUERRILLA MARKETING and the GREAT MOONINITE PANIC of 2007 : or How a tiny LED sign turned a city upside down.
TIL of GUERRILLA MARKETING and the GREAT MOONINITE PANIC of 2007 : or How a tiny LED sign turned a city upside down.
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On the morning of January 31, 2007, the Boston Police Department and the Boston Fire Department mistakenly identified battery-powered LED placards depicting the Mooninites, characters from the Adult Swim animated television series Aqua Teen Hunger Force, as improvised explosive devices (IEDs), leading to a massive panic.
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I remember that. I never watched that show so I had no idea what the reference was, but if I had seen it in person, I would have just thought it was viral marketing. What's so scary about it?
I did see it and knew what it referenced. There was nothing scary at all about it, it was clearly an LED sign. I couldn't believe how massive an over reaction there was to it by the police. Terrorists tend not to put bright LEDs on their weapons as an advertisement.
People were still pretty 9/11 crazy in those days and I remember thinking the reaction was way more entertaining than even the marketing.
As a huge ATHF fan (I have a Master Shake tattoo on my ass), it just really spoke to me. Felt like an alignment in the cosmos.
Boston PD were(are) out of their minds. They also blew up an ordinary traffic counting device deployed by the city.