Healthy Influence Blog

Did you hear about it?

Two applied persuasion researchers are in jail for terrorist activities, arrested by Boston Police for planting suspicious bomblike devices in and around Boston. Authorities initially set bail at $100,000 for each perpetrator. Man, and you thought persuasion was easy?

Yeah, there is a catch to all of this. See, the two guys were doing guerilla marketing for the launch of a new cable cartoon show on the Cartoon Network. The Network hired the guerilla marketing firm, Interference, Inc., to handle the promotion. Guerilla marketing aims at gaining attention through street level, face to face, and sometimes in your face activities. It is, in essence, smartly done street theater that attracts a crowd and promotes a simple message. The crew at Interference, Inc. (a great company name, huh?) got the contract to promote the new cartoon show that features the adventures of a talking milkshake, so Inteference Inc. created a boxlike device with blinking lights and wires coming out of it, then stationed these devices across Boston and many other large cities in the US over the past couple of weeks.

So far, this is just fun guerilla marketing, but apparently the authorities in Boston got freaked out over these mysterious, bomblike devices popping up on freeways and in tunnels and managed to arrest two Interference workers. There is a lot more to this story than we currently know. This promotion has been going on for at least a couple of weeks across the US and yesterday, the Boston Police get nervous and arrest two young men. What scares me is that if the Boston Police genuinely saw these devices as potential security threats, why the hell did it take them over two weeks to notice them?

Everyone involved is apologizing (Interference, the Cartoon Network, and Turner Broadcasting which owns the Cartoon Network), but I don’t take it too seriously. I’m guessing that some cop or prosecuting attorney got honked off for some silly reason and wildly over-reacted here. For example, when the two Interference workers were first arrested, their bail was set at $100,000. It’s already been reduced to $2500. That would seem to indicate that adults are now getting involved in this case.

Meanwhile, the “bad guys” in this case (Interference, Cartoons, Turner) have got to be crying crocodile tears over this. They are getting a phenomenal amount of free media coverage today over this event and everyone is getting their name in the paper big time. Under the assumption that there is no such thing as bad media attention, it appears that the applied persuasion guys are the big winners right now.

For me, well done guerilla marketing demonstrates by contrast one of the Rules: All bad persuasion is sincere. This attempt by Interference Inc. is good persuasion because it definitely achieved its persuasion goal: It got attention to its message. And it did so in a most insincere way. The initial actions of the Boston authorities illustrates the exact problem when you are sincere in your efforts to “persuade” others. Boston police sincerely believed they had a problem on their hands and sincerely charged Interference guys. And they look sincerely foolish doing so.