If you have been living without
electricity or any contact with the rest of the world for the past week, then
you have an excuse for not knowing that last week David Letterman made a
comment about getting the daughter of Alaska Governor Palin pregnant. The only
problem is the joke was about the Governor's fourteen year old daughter, which
legally makes that rape. Mr. Letterman claims he thought the older daughter was
on the trip and has made three separate on-air apologies, but that has not
stopped the firestorm of criticism against Mr. Letterman.
In the mean time, boycott calls of the Letterman
show are flooding the blogs and several conservative commentators are calling
for a boycott of the Letterman show. Meanwhile, Governor Palin has publicly
accepted the third apology, but the boycotts have taken a new twist.
In addition to the blogs, one website was created to
specifically address the boycott. The websites
www.FireDavidLetterman.com lists businesses which advertise
on the Letterman show and is encouraging people to boycott advertisers, which
is by definition a secondary boycott. There are two problems here. First,
Governor Palin has already accepted the apology from Mr. Letterman, so a
boycott here is no longer warranted. If Governor Palin accepts the apology,
which she did, the public claim is over. In order for any boycott to be
effective, it must have a goal which, upon reaching of the goal, ends the
boycott. Consumers tend not to accept open ended boycotts, and in this case the
underlying reason for the boycott is essentially over.
Second, the site is calling for a secondary boycott,
and those just do not work. If consumers want to boycott the Letterman show,
then they will simply not watch the show. Fred Taub, President of Boycott Watch
commented "Calls for secondary boycott usually indicate failure of primary
boycott attempts."
If low ratings occur, then the
show will lose revenue and the show may even lose money. Still, Embassy Suites
was first to comment with the following statement: "The Letterman issue is one
between CBS and the Governor and her family. As part of our ongoing advertising
buy, we have ads that appear on a rotation through hundreds of web sites,
including CBS.com at times. These ads should not be viewed as an endorsement of
either side of the issue. When a number of our guests complained about
advertisements on CBS.com, we temporarily removed the ads from our rotation
rather than become part of the controversy. This action should not be viewed as
an endorsement of either side, but rather a desire to let the parties resolve
the issue independently."
Embassy Suites played the
Political Correctness card by quickly pulling their ads, but they also make
made the mistake in their statement. Fred Taub, President of Boycott commented
on the Embassy Suites statement: "By stating 'these ads should not be viewed as
an endorsement of either side of the issue,' Embassy Suites gave validity to
what Mr. Letterman has already apologized for, which makes no sense. While
removing the ads temporarily was a good move, Embassy Suites also created a
moral equivalency claim by later stating their actions 'should not be viewed as
an endorsement of either side.' Would Embassy Suites have seen another side to
the famous Imus slur?"
Fred Taub points out that
most businesses have no idea how to respond to boycott calls. Mr. Taub further
stated "The Embassy Suites statement as a perfect example of a company rushing
to make a statement, probably at the advice of a PR agency, which clearly knows
nothing about and has no experience with boycotts. This statement may even hurt
Embassy Suites." |
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