• The Boston Globe, Thursday, February 1, 2007 12 PM

A guerilla-marketing campaign for the Cartoon Network's "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" series touched off a terrorism scare and a massive response from police in Boston yesterday. After it was discovered that the electronic boards were only ads for a cartoon, serious condemnation flowed from Washington and Boston.

The episode exposed a wide generational gulf between government officials who reacted as if the ads on small battery-powered light screens might be bombs and 20-somethings raised on hip ads for Snapple, Apple and Google, who instantly recognized the images for what they were: a viral-marketing campaign.

Among many in the young generation, reaction to the scare was smirking. "Repeat after me, authorities. L-E-D. Not I-E-D. Get it?" one 29-year-old blogger from Malden wrote on his Web site, contrasting light emitting diodes with improvised explosive devices.

Turner Broadcasting executives say they did not forewarn local authorities because they never imagined the campaign would cause alarm. Elected officials, however, say there is no room for battery-powered contraptions on bridges and overpasses in a post Sept. 11 world.

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