0
0
0_
sp
Wen sday," - 208 :aly S
I 6 Te icign .aiy W dn sday .Otobr S, 00
;
. eF.
e
..
' ' '
l
ABOUT CAMPUS
WI
' I1
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
" They're not going to shoot
us. It's not Iraq."
- TED STEVENS, a senator from Alaska, in a
secretly recorded phone call with millionaire
Alaska oil magnate Bill Allen, in which Stevens
tried to downplay the consequences of being
found guilty in a corruption investigation. Ste-
vens is on trial involving felony charges claim-
ing that he intentionally failed to disclose gifts
and services from Allen worth $250,000
"If men are horny, they're
going to come in here."
- DYLAN, a 24-year-old prostitute based in
Manhattan, explaining that she hasn't experi-
enced a significant decline in business, despite
the fact that many of her Wall Street patrons
have been hit hard by the plummeting economy.
Dylan works for Madam Sadie's, which has two
prostitution dens north of Wall Street and
charges $260 for a 60 minute service
I
I x - , MEN
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN OQUIST
Adult Swim's
convuluted ad ploy
Why inside jokes and
marketing don't always mix
Among the many multicolored
fliers passed out to students last
week, one would have definitely
sparked the curiosity of a recipient
who bothered to read it.
"Adult Swim presents the Wil-
liams Street County Fair and Expo
featuring the Experienced Clairvoy-
ant Cat, some balloons, free t-shirts.
Plus go fishing!" read the advertise-
ment in Old-West style type.
A few questions might come to
mind: What local organization got
William Street wrong? What's the
deal with this psychic cat? And if
they want me to go see this cat, why
wouldn't they put a time and place
on the event flier?
"A little confusing, I would say,"
said LSA senior Young-Jin Cho
when shown the advertisement.
"The minute I looked at it I was like,
'What's going on here?!' "
While left unexplained by the
flier, Adult Swim is the late-night,
adult-oriented programming on
Cartoon Network. The channel is
evidently on a marketing tour to
promote its shows, following the
direction on the flier to visit www.
adultswimpresents.com reveals
that the network is holding "Wil-
liams Street" fairs on 15 college
campuses.
It kicked offthe tour Oct.10 with a
visit to the Diag, but you would only
know to go by visiting the web site
and fighting through larger, bright-
er, cat-sound-making version of the
flier to find the tour dates schedule.
And even then, you wouldn't have
found a time.
Sowhat'sthe pointofanextensive
marketing campaign that obscures
the thing it's advertising?
Mitch Thompson, a manager at
the London-based Iris Marketing
firm that organized the fair, said
that the absurdity of its advertising
campaigns goes hand-in-hand with
Adult Swim's implicit mission state-
ment: to make no sense.
"That's kind of what they're going
with,"said Thompson, whose favor-
ite Adult Swim cartoon is "Robot
Chicken." "Not really to confuse
people, but to give them curiosity."
The nebulous fair is scheduled to
hit Boston today - despite the chaos
Adult Swim created last February
with another advertising ploy for
the movie version of the network's
show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force."
Boston transportation authori-
ties shut down major roadways and
subway lines when citizens feared
that terrorists were responsible for
38 small TV screens that brightly
flashed from storefronts, beneath
bridges and outside parks all over
the city.
Adult Swim had planted the
screens the night before as part of
their guerrilla marketing campaign.
The BostonPolice investigationonly
caught on when one of the screens
was moved into a darker area, mak-
ing its image discernable.
"Sometime between 2 and 3 p.m.,
according to a public safety official,
a Boston police analyst recognized
the image as a cartoon character,"
the Boston Globe reported.
Cartoon Network's parent com-
pany, Turner Broadcasting System,
publicly apologized about two hours
later. TBS said that the devices were
"horribly misinterpreted" and that
their unintended aftermath was
"not the kind of publicity we would
ever seek."
They paid $2 million in damages
to city and state agencies in Massa-
chusetts, and the incognito flashing
screens were seen no more.
Despite past gaffes, it seems
Adult Swim is sticking to its ambig-
uous . random-acts-of-advertising
approach. But while devoted fans
love the stunts and inside jokes, a
marketing ploy that alienates people
who don't watch the show might be
counter-productive.
**
*
*
*
AND
i _ r
FE AT URING
SAME BALLOONS
FLEIUS GO FIST IN G!
0o ONwww.an.TowwaPaff T Yco1 ro*eons*fo
reach.
Joe Pak, an LSA senior and Adult
Swim fan, said he hadbeen looking
forward to the event after hearing
about it online.
"I planned it out and everything,"
Pak said, juggling a Jimmy John's
sandwich and an inflatable likeness
of Stewey, the cynical talking baby
from "The Family Guy."
Iris Marketing Production Man-
ager Valerie Peron said that Adult
Swim hoped to entertain everyone,
whether or not they understood the
inside jokes.
"Maybe you would look at Tim
and Eric's photo booth and not
understand why Tim and Eric have
their own show," she said, pointing
to a photo booth adorned with the
faces of two boring-looking, middle-
class white men. "But we try to get
students to tune into Adult Swim
and have a good time here."
There's at least one thing the
campaign took from traditional
marketing strategy: give away free
stuffand they will come, at least for
a second on their way through the
Diag.
Peron said that more than 4,000
prizes and 1,000 custom-printed
T-shirts were given away at the fair
on Friday. And they went over well,
from the white ribbons reading "I
Milked it at the Williams Street
County Fair" to the pens, post card
and books stuffed into a giant fake
log deemed "Xavier's Tree of Infi-
nite Possibilities".
Reaching insifde one of the log's
small knots, students were prod-
ded by workers hiding behind the
log who guided their hands to priz-
es, like the yellow sticker with an
alien brandishing a laser gun, read-
ing "ELIMINATE BIG THINGS
FAST!"
Amid the confusion, though, LSA
freshman Mary Emma Young could
sumup the event and the channel its
advertising easily.
"Borderline vulgar," she said.
"And that's a good thing."
- SARA LYNNE THELEN
TALKING
POINTS
Three things you can talk about this w
1. Andy Martin
2. Gay marriage in Connecticut
3. Google's Mail Goggles
And three things you can't:
1. ACORN
2. The Dow
3. The University of
Toledo
week:
"I'm convinced that Magic faked AIDS."
- LANGDON PERRY, host of a conservative radio show on KTLK in Minneapolis, Minn., explain-
ing his belief that former NBA star Magic Johnson faked having AIDS to arouse public sympathy for
himself. In response, Johnson assailed Perry and his co-host, Chris Baker, for undermining the
gravity of the disease, but said they shouldn't be fired for their remarks
YOU T U B E _. . ...
VIDEO OF
THE WEEK
The "rogue helicopter
pilot" threat
Art and Design senior Eileen
Tjan was immediately in on the joke
when a friend called her to say there
was a giant meatball on the Diag.
"I got a phone call and she was
like, 'there's agiant Meat Wad on the
Diag,' " Tjan said. "And I was like, 'I
love "Aqua Teen Hunger Force!"' "
The inflatable Meat Wad, a char-
acter from "Aqua Teen Hunger
Force," was circular and about the
size of a 3-car garage. It was filled
with claw machines and arcade
games.
There was also a dart stand
with bags of goldfish pinned to the
bullseyes, a "heavy petting zoo"
ADULT SWIM EVENT FLIER
featuring a man in a dingy, easter-
esque white bunny suit, and 1,500
miscellaneous prizes in a wooden
carriage enclosed by chicken wire,
'manned' by a child-sized teddy
bear and 'pulled' by three stuffed
cats who were tied to the carriage
with nylon rope.
The much-hyped clairvoyant cat
was just a guy in a suit, and turned
out to be another inside joke from
the programming.
All oftthe attendants interviewed
for this article were already Adult
Swim devotees, which again begs
the question of how many new
viewers the campaign was going to
BY THE NUMBERS
David Thompson knows there's
a threat facing his North Carolina
town. And this threat is apparently a
"rogue helicopter pilot"... and about
30 other unjustified problems.d
Standingin front ofthe city council
in Charlotte, N.C., Thompson rattles
off a disconnected tale claiming that
not only is there a dangerous helicop-
ter pilot who flies way too low over his
house and between the trees, but also
some sort of problem involving some-
S thing called "bundling," that loosely
connects to someone not allowing ice
to be placed into a local arena.And
Thompson isn't going to take it any-
more, claiming he's "been ready to
explode like Mount St. Helens."
Boy is he ever, as he shakes the
podium and jostles the microphone so
much that a councilman even warns
Mr. Thompson about a group of Boy
Scouts in the audience who might be
getting scared.
from Texas, But tuck it, Thompson knows
astronauts that problems like rogue helicopter
pilots and national security are more
important than anything else in this
world. Thompson ends his testimony
by screaming at the pilot, wherever he
might be, "You're nothing but a cha-
meleon, lemonheaded, coward, ter-
rorist pussy."
arth on And that's a problem no one should
have to deal with.
-MATT EMERY
See this and other
YouTube videos ofthe week at
youtube.com/user/michigandaily
ing mark,
made
Source: Reuters r
Amount that Richard Garriott, a video game developer
paid to fly into space on a Russian rocket with two other;
Days Garriott will spend in space. He will return to E
an aircraft called a Soyuz re-entering vehicle
Miles by which the last Soyuz vehicle missed its land
after explosive bolts didn't detonate and the craftr
a "ballistic" landing
THEME PARTY SUGGESTION
Fall break escape - Get in a car and go. Flee the
Ann Arbor bubble and expand your cultural and
geographical horizons. Visit a jazz nightclub in
Detroit. Go fishing off the coast of a Great Lake.
Drive to Chicago and eat varenyky in Ukrainian Vil-
lage. You could even travel to New York City and
commiserate with the downtrodden businessmen
on Wall Street. Unless, of course, you have an exam
right after break. You do? Bummer.
Throwing this party? Let us know. TheStatement@umich.edu
STUDY OF THE WEEK
Gay marriage flourishes in California before vote
Since the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in
May, 3,800 gay couples are marrying each month in the state, according
to a study released last week by the Williams Institute at UCLA.
On Nov. 4, Californiavoterswill decide the tate ofgay marriage when
they vote on Proposition 8. If passed, the measure would overturn the
court's decision and reinstate the ban on same-sex marriage.
For the study, researchers examined the three-month period from
when same-sex marriages began, in the middle of June, to Sept. 17. In
those months, 11,440 gay couples got married in California, research-
ers said. They also said that, during the period, California had more gay
marriages than Massachusetts did in four years. Since gay marriage was
legalized there in 2004,10,300 couples have married in Massachusetts.
In explaining the boom in marriages, researchers cited not only the
looming Prop. 8 vote, but also California's substantial gay population
and its sizeable tourism industry.
- BRIAN TENGEL
WHAT'S YOUR PERSONAL STATEMENT?
E-mail submissions to TheStatement@michigandaily.com.