I don't think the scale was meant as a public marketing tool, but rather as something to indicate the level of attention international organizations need to giv

I don't think the scale was meant as a public marketing tool, but rather as something to indicate the level of attention international organizations need to give an event (in order to help/react/contain). Also, plenty of the articles mention the amount of material released is about 10% of Chernobyl's release. What this really means is, as everyone has hopefully already realized, this crisis is worse than had originally been thought.