Below The Beltway

There’s been much discussion over yesterday’s security scare in Boston that turned out to be a marketing campaign:

A guerrilla marketing campaign for a cartoon show about a box of french fries and his milkshake pal set off a scare that nearly shut down Boston’s commercial district yesterday, as bomb squads closed highways and two bridges in search of what turned out to be magnetic-light versions of the cartoon characters.

Turner Broadcasting, parent company of the Cartoon Network, said the small electronic circuit boards, which hang from girders and bridges, are part of a 10-city marketing campaign for the animated late-night television show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force.” Such guerrilla ad campaigns seek to place products in unexpected corners and count on those who spot the characters to “get” the gag.

But much of Boston was not in on this joke. The packages were discovered near the New England Medical Center, two bridges and a tunnel. Attorney General Martha Coakley said Peter Berdovsky, 27, of Arlington, Mass., and Sean Stevens, 28, of Charlestown, Mass., had each been arrested on a felony charge of placing a hoax device and a charge of disorderly conduct.

We regret that they were mistakenly thought to pose any danger,” said an e-mail message released by Turner spokeswoman Shirley Powell. “They have been in place for two or three weeks in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, San Francisco and Philadelphia.”

he light boxes portrayed “mooninites,” essentially juvenile delinquents from another galaxy making an obscene gesture.

And the grave threat that was terrorizing Boston ? Here it is:

One can argue over the wisdom of Comedy Central’s marketing campaign. After all, if they’ve been in place in nine other cities for two weeks and nobody’s noticed them until now, it doesn’t appear that it’s been all that successful. What is unclear is why the Boston Police Department reacted the way that they did:

Boston and Massachusetts officials were not amused. A train passenger spied the first magnetic object, which looked like circuit boards with protruding wires, attached to a girder under Interstate 93 in the Charlestown neighborhood of Boston. A police bomb squad responded and blew up the device, leading to the shutdown of a railway station and the highway. For a while, the Coast Guard blocked off a section of the Charles River.

I am deeply dismayed to learn that many of the devices are a part of a marketing campaign by Turner Broadcasting,” Massachusetts Gov. Deval L. Patrick said in a statement, vowing to consult with Coakley.

Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino told the AP he was ready to sue.

It is outrageous, in a post-9/11 world, that a company would use this type of marketing scheme,” Menino said. “I am prepared to take any and all legal action against Turner Broadcasting and its affiliates for any and all expenses incurred during the response to today’s incidents.”

No, what’s outrageous is that, five years after 9/11, law enforcement officials apparently can’t tell the difference between a bomb and a cartoon character.

Cross-Posted At The Liberty Papers