I was embarrassed for all of us recently.  A few morons pulled a stunt that  reinforced the stereotype of marketers  being slick manipulators who  don’t care how we get our message out.  That hurts every legitimate effort and  practitioner in our profession.

In case you missed it, the  Turner Network and a New  York marketing firm, Interference,  launched an outdoor  marketing campaign for its  film “Aqua Teen Hunger Force  Colon Movie Film for Theatres”  involving small circuit  boxes with lights and wires  sticking out of them across the  streets of Boston and nine  other cities.

The stunt shut down a  huge section of Boston as the  city’s bomb squad scrambled around  the city, detonating and removing the  devices. It’s estimated that the stunt  cost Boston in excess of $500,000 and  paralyzed some of the city’s most active  roads and transit systems.

What I find most worrisome about  this whole incident is that it seems a  whole collection of people are comfortable  with trivializing the consequences.

Some are applauding the disruptive  ploy. They are pointing to the  fact that we’re all writing about it, it  played on major network news  reports, and the name of the movie is  top of mind.

We have to boil this down  to the very basics. This was  all to promote a movie. Not a  life-saving drug or to save a  starving child. This was  about selling more movie  tickets at $9 apiece.

I’m very proud of our  profession, and I think we  add great value. But let’s be  very clear about the value we  bring in comparison to the  price paid.

I believe it’s our responsibility  to be sure those scales stay in  proper balance.

Drew McLellan is Top Dog at McLellan  Marketing Group and the  author of “99.3 Random Acts of  Marketing.” He can be reached at  Drew@MclellanMarketing.com.  © Drew McLellan