The Cartoon Network’s promotional campaign for its “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” TV show, which prompted nine bomb scares across Boston this week, is an extreme example of “Guerrilla Marketing” gone awry, marketers say.

As a Certified Guerrilla Marketing Coach, I can say that what we saw in Boston was not true Guerrilla Marketing. “Guerrilla Marketing never offends people, it never frightens people, and it never breaches ethics,” said Jay Conrad Levinson, the “father of Guerrilla Marketing” and author of “Guerrilla Marketing” books that have sold 14 million copies.

Guerrilla marketers use unconventional ways to promote a product, service, company or event, usually in settings where the target audience doesn’t expect it. The reason: to break through the clutter of advertising that constantly bombards their target audiences. Since people today are constantly bombarded by some estimates as many as 35,000 marketing messages per day, businesses need to find “other” ways to breakthrough the clutter.

Guerrilla Marketing is a non-traditional form of marketing that helps you make individual connections with someone rather than a demographic. The connection is made with people as who they are, what they do and where they are. Another difference between Guerrilla and traditional marketing is that instead of using a lot of money, Guerrilla Marketing uses Time, Energy, Imagination and Knowledge.

One of the strong points of Guerrilla Marketing is the 100 Weapons, which are individual tactics. As successful campaigns are rolled out, a business will use 10-20 or more “weapons,” laid out in a marketing calendar, all designed to work together to support the purpose of the campaign as defined in the seven sentence marketing plan.

Guerrilla Marketing allows you to think differently about how you are going to make an impression and gives you the steps to make it happen. In a lot of ways it is on a level that is below the radar screen most people use to filter out traditional messages.

What we saw in Boston was not true Guerrilla Marketing, but one marketing tactic possibly going awry. I don’t think anyone intended the situation to get as big as this did and shut down the town, but it did generate a massive amount of attention. In 2001, Sam Ewen, the CEO of the firm that came up with the idea, was quoted as saying “..come out with things that are unique and attention-getting that generate word-of-mouth and press."  It did generate press and everyone knows about The Cartoon Network’s “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” TV show. Knowing about it is one thing, that doesn’t mean anyone will turn to it.