[rant] Ford caves in to religious right - and I thought marketing boycotts did not work!
I just heard this on NPR, and now read it on CMO Magazine’s blog:
“Ford has announced that its Jaguar and Land Rover brands will no longer advertise in gay publications, by which they meant The Advocate and Out and Curve but which I always think means GQ or Men’s Health. This announcement came not long after the company had a sit down with members of the American Family Association (Motto: “America’s Foremost Right Wing Busybodies) which had called and then suspended a boycott of the car maker because of such ads and charitable works that it deemed a threat to heterosexuality.”
(also here in Washington Post)
Well - I sure hope for Ford that all those religious nuts will be buying Fords, because with two of them in my driveway, I will never buy one again!
Isn’t there enough evidence that boycotts rarely have a real economic impact?
[/rant]
Update - 12/08 [newrant] I will be doing a lot of my Christmas shopping at Target this year. Not because I am a regular customer - in fact I rarely set foot in the store - but because they are one of the only chains that did not cave in to another boycott to restore Christmas by those same religious extremists that pushed Ford to stop advertising in Gay mags - they actually want stores to use “merry christmas” in their advertising - ironic, if you ask me! (here for business week article, here, and here for int’l perspective) [/newrant]
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December 8th, 2005 at 11:23 am
I know I should know better by now - but I continue to be amazed by the utterly ridiculous behavior by the so-called “Christian” extremists - and companies that pander to them. Boycotts sound good - but have we ever seen any company post bad quarterly results due to one - or that had any significant lasting impact on the business in general? While I’m sure that there have been cases where such things worked at local/regional levels (the backlash against the Crawford, Tx newspaper that endorsed Kerry comes to mind) - overall, boycotts just make the boycotter feel like they’re doing something. And, this is just as true of boycotts by animal activists, liberals, etc. Perhaps Ford should have done a cost/benefit analysis re how much business they’d lose by withdrawing the advertising.
“Threat to hetereosexuality?” Dang, I missed the last recruitment drive by the local gay/lesbian group! Wonder what kind of member benefits they offer if I join? Association discounts on health care? Special deals on a Ford?
This is the same type of non-thinking that brought about the whole Christmas “threat” to begin with. Although I admit I - for example - find Bill O’Reilly entertaining (in very small doses) - I don’t see any signs of the far left liberal progressive nutballs (as O’Reilly calls them) “attacking Xmas” (Many of them are devout Christians, after all).
This sort of knee-jerk hubbub is bad for our society, bad for business.
All goes to it’s impossible to separate “personal” from “business” - be it religion, politics, culture or personal preferences.
December 10th, 2005 at 11:18 am
Shouldn’t these people focus on helping the needy during this holiday season instead of focusing on how companies “promote” the holidays?
December 14th, 2005 at 8:51 pm
Ford reverses it’s decision…and will continue to advertise in gay magazines!
Ok…so maybe I will not feel so bad about driving a Ford after all - they got the message - and they (FORD) reversed their decision not to cave in to religious extremists who wanted them not to advertise in…