Event Marketing Gone Bad

Event marketing is a cool way to draw attention to your product. You create some sort of event, something unusual that gets press coverage, and usually you'll spend far less than you would for advertising to get some attention. As you might expect, there's a way to do this right... and a way to do it wrong. The wrong method is illustrated by this attempt at getting attention for the upcoming release of Splinter Cell Conviction; you hire a guy to dress up like a wounded man from the game and point a fake gun at people in a downtown area. As you might expect, this gets reported to the police, w, who show up and point real guns at the guy.

Fortunately, no one was shot, though you might think about shooting the marketing guy that thought this was a good idea. Making up interesting events to draw attention can be a good idea; making up events that can potentially create hazardous situations is not. This idea should have been, pardon the expression, shot down in the marketing meeting before it ever got out into the street.