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Another Ad Stunt Angers Boston

Less than a month after Boston shut itself down due to an advertising stunt, another marketing scheme has the city upset. A clue in a promotion for Dr Pepper suggested a coin worth as much as $1 million was buried in the 347-year-old Granary Burying Ground, the final resting place of John Hancock, Paul Revere, Samuel Adams and other revered locals.

After contestants showed up at the cemetery gates last week, the city closed it. "It absolutely is disrespectful," Boston Parks Commissioner Toni Pollak told The Boston Globe. "It's an affront to the people who are buried there, our nation's ancestors." So candy and soft-drink maker Cadbury Schweppes canceled the Boston portion of the 23-city coin hunt promotion, noting -- as in the case of the Cartoon Network stunt gone awry -- that there hadn't been complaints from any other city.

Still, Cadbury agreed with the Park Department's decision to lock the gates. "We wouldn't do anything to desecrate this cemetery," says Cadbury Schweppes spokesman Greg Artkop. The company will instead award $10,000, the value of the Boston coin, in a random drawing of area residents that had registered for the contest. Parks officials said the city might seek compensation for the police used to protect the site.

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