This little black safe caused a bomb scare in Sydney, Australia, after a PR stunt backfired.
Watch Dogs PR stunt backfires, bomb squad called to newsroom office. http://t.co/E1rcmyXzL1
The safe was sent out to a reporter at NineMSN with a letter which said "check your voicemail" and nothing more.
The NineMSN offices in Australia Square were evacuated on Tuesday as four police cars and a rescue van turned up.
Police scanned the safe, forced it open and found that it simply contained a copy of the game, two promotional hats, and a note pointing out that the "story" was under embargo and couldn't be reported until 5pm.
The journalist was in tears.
@Brentus88 @drpiotrowski Yup. Stood next to the journo who received it - she was in tears. Really creepy.
This is definitely the other side of the line in terms of what it's safe for a PR company to send anonymously to a newsroom. The thing was black, heavy and slightly creepy.We did check with other newsrooms to see if they had received a similar package as we thought it was a PR stunt, but no-one else had. We weren't panicked at any point, but given there was no note explaining what it was, we had to take sensible precautions.
As part of a themed promotion for Watch Dogs, our team in Australia sent voicemail messages to some local media alerting them that they'd receive a special package related to the game.Unfortunately, the delivery to Ninemsn didn't go as planned, and we unreservedly apologise to Ninemsn's staff for the mistake and for any problems caused as a result. We will take additional precautions in the future to ensure this kind of situation doesn't happen again.