A TABLOID'S DREAM... aka HB MARKETING
Journalists received repeatedly some faxes announcing:
"Simon got only 6 more days to live! The newspapers should report about this. A few lines could save his life. It's a question of life and death!"
The next day, a new fax was more menacing "due to the absence of response" to the first threat. A third message sent a few days later announced that finally, Simon was rescued because it was " The Hour of the Tiger "...
All faxes carried call numbers from Rangoon,Burma(Myanmar).
As it happens that one lady journalist that received the threats has a son named Simon, she panicked when receiving the second message by fax and reported the whole thing to the Belgian police.
This incident took place in May 97 and came just in the midst and aftermaths of several criminal scandals partially due to the Belgian justice somnolence, scandals so revolting that it took the whole country by storm. Serial killing of young children, pedophile circles organized with official covers, children found dead after being literally buried alive, incompetence of the judiciary... all was scandalizing the Belgian population to the point that 300,000 citizens were protesting in the streets of Brussels a few month before. Never seen in Belgium for any problem since WWII...
Well, the reaction of the judge (Investigation judge- something like a DA - must prepare the file for possible prosecution) committed to the case was swift. He wanted to know what it was all about, to the last detail. The case was rather simple and in a few days time, the police debunked the origin of the fax messages: nothing to do with Burma, the trace for the message led them to... the publisher of LARGO WINCH, in Belgium!!! The marketing cell of Dupuis, the publisher, had had a really "great idea" to promote the new book: The Hour of the Tiger, nb 8 of the Largo Winch saga (this was the follow-up of the two parts story- opening episode was: La Forteresse de Makiling / The Fortress of Makiling).
The judge wanted to interrogate immediately ALL the people involved. After hearing a few of them and letting the others be carried to his office (even during the evening), he soon he discovered the whole marketing cell was involved. Facing such an amount of irresponsible idiocy, he ordered they all should go to jail, waiting for the conclusion of the investigation. On the spot. And they all went in the can!!
Some media people pretended the judge had an unconsidered overreaction.
Did he? I'm not so sure... The police could have been blamed for doing nothing, should it have been something serious. On the other hand, I agree with the judge that people with that position should be able to gauge the consequences of what they are doing. Also: all time and efforts was wasted here by a judiciary system having already difficult to cope with the accumulation of real and gorish cases.
All this should leave us amazed, and afraid, by such an accumulation of stupidity and irresponsible behavior in so many of "capable' people.
But hey! not so rare as not to be seen in the corporate world...
We told you: a lesson of Hard-boiled marketing! That's what it is.
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Most recent revision: 17 January, 1998