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A PR event for Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell: Conviction has hugely backfired in New Zealand after members of the public believed that a man with a gun was on the run.
Organised on behalf of Monaco Corporation, the stunt saw an actor with bandaged hands threatened 20 onlookers drinking outside a bar with an imitation firearm. Police were called and the actor arrested.
The bar manager described his customers as being ‘pretty terrified’.
This was by no means an attempt to get cops down there and get this sort of exposure,” Monaco’s marketing manager Duane Mutu told The New Zealand Herald, as spotted by Kotaku.
We do apologise, we shouldn’t have had guns down there. It was just marketing gone wrong.”
Senior Sergeant Ben Offner added: We consider these types of stunts to be very ill-advised and have real concerns a similar one may one day end in tragedy.”
