Boston Hoax - Marketing Stunt Gone Wrong Cartoon Characters labeled as terrorism

[street 0]

Well on Feb 1,2007 there was a Boston scare over a group of signs of the characters on Aqua Teen Hunger Force Ignignokt and Err if you dont know who they are i suggest you look it up. Now in some parts of the subway areas of boston neon signs of Ignignokt and Err doing what they are famous giving the bird was thought to be a threat of terrorism seeing that a majority of these signs was all over that seem a bit suspicious so the Boston police did what they had to do and took action by doing this they shut down the roads and everything was at a stand still remember all this is going on just for some signs of Ignigokt and Err then they finally realized after a few hrs past that it was a advertising scheme. Oops that made Boston be the center of jokes for late night tv shows. Now they are trying to put blame on cartoon network for doing something like this and they arrested the two men who was putting up the signs. Ok that was my summary on the event,now i think that the Boston police over reacted a bit to much they could have done this under the table with out having everyone scared out of the minds but i guess only the people who did not know about the show was going crazy. There are signs about events all over the city and they come to the conclusion that a sign giving the bird is a sign of terrorism it is not like it was a sign that had bin landen on it burning the American flag it was just a character. Out of this whole event i got a good chuckle out of it cause i have seen these sign before and now they are gone and the outcome of all this is cartoon network gain the advertisement that they wanted also i feel sorry for people who was in boston and you was stuck in traffic or locked in somewhere with out knowing what is going on. terriost

[Mystixs 0]

They acted stupidly. All they had to do is send some people to a sign and check if its a bomb.. If its not ok, if it is, close traffic and everything.They didn't use their brains.I would be laughing at them to. They acted extremely stupid.And trying to use cartoon network is so stupid. There was no threat whatsoever and they have no grounds to arrest or sue anyone.

[blendergalactica 0]

Hypothetical, but what if the package had been a bomb and police had shrugged it off. Or had gone to check it out and it exploded killing the officers and by-standers? You don't take that chance. This is why they have polcies and proceedures. Especially if you find several boxes with the same M.O. Oh and they have plenty of grounds for criminal and civil action. Trust me, as screwed up as TORT (civil) laws are here in the United States you can sue about anything if you have the money to hire a lawyer. Time Warner and the city will settle out of court and that will be over. The two that pulled the stunt will see some kind of probaition or community service. And here is the really sick part. I've worked around marketeers and many would KILL for this kind of publicity. If their goal was to make people aware of ATHF, they suceeded wildly. It generated "buzz". Now whether that is good or ill could be debated, but as the old addage goes: there is no bad publicity.

[serverph 0]

have any of you watched the presscon the two "culprits" had? they said they'd only answer questions about hair in the 1970s, and when reporters asked about something regarding the case, they'd reply: "I'm sorry, that is not a question about hairs." i just want to share how ridiculous it must be for both sides in this incident. a marketing gimmick turned into a full-blown bomb hoax. but we can't blame the citizens who reported it as such, afterall it could have been major havoc once more if it were real, if no extra precaution and eternal vigilance is exercised by boston residents. it's just that it would have been better if it was handled by authorities discretely so as not to cause alarm and panic, just as they did in other states where the marketing gimmick was also in play. on the part of the marketers themselves, they should have exercised more brain cells to have not pursued it the way that it is to be mistaken as a bomb, owing that the general public would perceive it as such. but hey, they seemed to have that in mind altogether -- and they have succeeded in generating public attention to their stunt -- but it is such in bad taste still. more fodder for late-night shows, though.