Last week’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force guerrilla marketing campaign in Boston, Mass. by Turner Broadcasting Inc. raised sensitivities, given that some citizens of the city thought the cartoon characters were erected by terrorists or were part of a plot or attack.
   The initial reaction we had here, in a country that only has had one terror-type attack, was thinking that Bostonians had overreacted. But in a post-9-11 world, and since some of the 9-11 terrorists took off from Logan Airport, Bostonians should be, in part, forgiven, even if folks in eight other cities didn’t go into a panic.
   But it saddens me to note that Bostonians themselves would have loved this campaign had it came out in 1998. By all means, be alert. Be wary of things that could be terrorist-related. Bin Laden and his cohorts aren’t cute enough to use cartoon characters from a late-night cable show, although I do think electronic boxes with protruding wires were probably more the issue than the Aqua Teen character itself.
   Having said that, Turner’s Shirley Powell does claim the boxes were up for two weeks with no complaints.
   And it probably did the cartoon itself a world of good, publicity-wise.
   America is at war. Let that not be forgotten. And God bless those fighting for freedom. But don’t let those terrorist bastards change your lives so much that an innocent, albeit provocative, marketing campaign instantly signals ‘Terror alert’. There remains a difference between vigilance and overreaction: don’t give terrorists (or anyone else) the opportunity to have even a chuckle at your expense. Somehow, I doubt they would be so kind as to give the date of an attack, as some of the signs did. Al-Qaeda is not the IRA.
   One other consequence is that all a real bomb has to look like now is an box with the word ‘Advertising’ printed on it to look innocent—in other words, Boston has essentially ended the chances of similar campaigns in future, nationally. Now, all of the US will have to be on alert—for better or for worse. Posted by Jack Yan, 22:23  permalink

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