As one who spent 25 years in the media planning and placement business, I understand that advertisers don't really buy specific programs for the most part. They package ad buys across several dayparts and even across sibling networks. They don't buy spots; they buy aggregated rating points.
But they can pull out of a show. And another one is out of Glenn Beck.
I was one of many who responded to the list of advertisers airing spot on Glenn Beck's FOX News program. I went right at one company with a more personalized appeal.
Over the past ten years or so, I worked at two different ad agencies that handled Sargento Foods. They impressed me as a well-run company guided by smart people. They make an excellent product that competes with marketing behemoths like Kraft General Foods, and they are based here in Wisconsin.
Their good name benefits not at all from being a sponsor of Beck's crazy talk. I politely wrote to them asking why they would even want to be associated with him. I didn't ask them not to be a Beck sponsor, but approached the issue from the "this guy's a pox on your brand" angle.
Initially, I received one of those "yeah, thanks, we'll share that with marketing" responses. But a day later, I received this:
We deeply appreciate your reaching out to us and sharing your comments and concerns about Sargento ads appearing during "The Glenn Beck Show." We sat down with the marketing department to talk about it and I learned that we buy time periods not specific programs. But in any event, they’ve made the decision to exclude that program from our future ad rotation. Simply stated, Sargento ads won’t be airing during that show. Again, thanks for contacting us.
The email included a personal salutation, as well as a specific name of a customer relations director. That may seem insignificant, but it is not. They were taking the time to personally reconnect. To me, it's a sign of taking this issue seriously.
In the end, FOX likely will still keep whatever money Sargento Foods is spending, with or without spots on Glenn Beck. But companies like Sargento, and as diaried here as well... State Farm, are listening. And they recognize that it does their brands no good to be associated with the broadcast equivalent of terrorism.
I'm proud Wisconsin-based Sargento, as well as another former client of mine, State Farm. I'm happy that I can continue to feel good about being a customer of theirs.
cross-posted at Kerfuffle