Mazsalaca

Maybe I’m old, but I didn’t think the bogus Tele2 meteor strike last year was funny. The Swedish telecom company dug a huge big hole in a field in Mazsalaca, Latvia, then leaked phony YouTube videos and stuff to get media attention.
The whole thing turned out to be a marketing stunt for some service of theirs called “Meteorite”. The Latvian government didn’t think it was funny, though. Neither did the military, who had to seal off the area and send in scientists before they could assess what was going on. Tele2 had to apologize and promise to reimburse the government for its expenses.
Anyway, now the Tele2 campaign has won a Golden Hammer for best use of guerrilla marketing, and I’m ticked off again that a commercial company thinks it’s funny to make a government look stupid (something I usually don’t mind at all).
Maybe I’m just unamused because it’s Tele2, who employs the world’s most obnoxious telemarketers. Maybe I would have loved it if it had been an artistic provocation, or a trick played on Scientologists or gullible new agers.
Or again – maybe I’m just old.