[Pave Low]

Chaos at £20,000 petrol giveaway

Quote

A stunt in which £20,000 of petrol was given away in north London to promote a computer game has been criticised as "irresponsible and dangerous".

Traffic was gridlocked outside the Last Stop garage in Finsbury Park as drivers queued for £40-worth of free fuel each.

The stunt was by Electronic Arts, to promote the Mercenaries 2: World in Flames game.

[Rocky]

Ha, you beat me to it.

Funny story.

[Sup]

Worked better than they could have planned, the 'negative' publicity that they generated with the traffic problems has been immense.

[WhiteKnight77]

Too funny. Who wants to lay odds another company tries something similar?

[kleaneasy]

In terms of a PR stunt it was clearly effective, what I wondered though is how any company can plan an event like this without permission?
Surely any activity likely to impact on local traffic systems would need local council permisssion?

I only wonder because there's all this screaming about how irresponisble they were but if someone else gave permission for the stunt are they really that irresponsible?

and if they didnt need permission why?

[Sup]

kleaneasy, on Sep 6 2008, 11:53 AM, said:

In terms of a PR stunt it was clearly effective, what I wondered though is how any company can plan an event like this without permission?
Surely any activity likely to impact on local traffic systems would need local council permisssion?

I only wonder because there's all this screaming about how irresponisble they were but if someone else gave permission for the stunt are they really that irresponsible?

and if they didnt need permission why?

Well, i don't profess to know UK law, but it was a business event held on private property zoned for business, wasn't it? The only thing it did to endanger traffic was draw a crowd, it's not like you could fine a movie theatre for messing up walking patterns on a sidewalk because there was a massive line buying tickets, to use a more mundane example.

[kleaneasy]

Sup, on Sep 10 2008, 02:44 PM, said:

Well, i don't profess to know UK law, but it was a business event held on private property zoned for business, wasn't it? The only thing it did to endanger traffic was draw a crowd, it's not like you could fine a movie theatre for messing up walking patterns on a sidewalk because there was a massive line buying tickets, to use a more mundane example.

I don’t know a great deal about the ins and outs of the law either but I do know any event expected to disrupt traffic has to get permission from the various organisations within local council. For example a music festival is a private event on private property but the crowds it attracts will cause disruption so the organisers have to work with the various officials to create a traffic plan to avoid unnecessary disruption, same with any other event.

A crowd cuing for tickets doesn’t cause the same disruption this event did, it not only blocked the immediate road so residents couldn’t get in or out of their own properties but the adjoining roads were impacted causing a knock on effect of traffic issues.

I'm not saying whether it should or shouldn’t have taken place, more a curiosity of where the defining line is in regard to the need for permission and traffic plans and at which point permission is no longer required and why

[snared_gambit]

If i remember right, Sony had people putting graffiti ads up for the PSP all over cities. They're companies, not people, they apparently don't have to follow the rules. Hell, i have a friend who's doing six months in jail for graffing stuff right now. A lot of businesses have no ethics anymore. I could go on for hours, but I'll just put it this way: I'm tired of being told about every product ever, in every way ever, every single day of my life. Commercialism is a disease overtaking common sense every single day.

[WytchDokta]

snared_gambit, on Sep 15 2008, 08:24 PM, said:

Commercialism is a disease overtaking common sense every single day.

This is the main reason why I refuse to listen to commercial music. Underground is the way.

[Sup]

You're right. You should think independently and acquire information independantly and not let any one media source influence your opinion!

That's why you should completely block out 50% or more of media, because it's the *indie* thing to do!