Earlier this week, Bill O'Reilly, host of political talk show, The O'Reilly Factor and easily one of the biggest audience draws to the Fox News channel, was unceremoniously ousted from the network on the tails of a series of allegations that Fox and O'Reilly had paid $13 million in settlements to sweep sexual harassment allegations brought again him under the rug. However, O'Reilly was not the network's only loss as with his departure came the loss of $150 million dollars worth of advertising revenue as advertisers began backing out of the show left and right, unwilling to be associated with O'Reilly's alleged behavior.
According to an NPR interview conducted earlier this week with Jeanine Poggi, a reporter for Advertising Age, the departure of these advertisers was more or less responsible for bringing about the end of The O'Reilly Factor, as they made O'Reilly a greater liability for the network than an asset. Poggi suggests that advertisers responded the way that they did in an effort to avoid associating their brands with poor or illegal behavior, appease consumer outcry, and try to remain brand-safe, a term that implying the avoidance of potential controversy that could negatively affect the brand.
http://www.npr.org/2017/04/20/524936023/the-power-of-television-advertising-walkouts
In reading this, I couldn't help but think of the widespread use of images of unity and acceptance in this year's Super Bowl ads in light of the results of the recent presidential election and the derogatory and discriminatory rhetoric that had become normalized since the ascension of President Trump. What brand such as 84 Lumber attempted to do in creating a sense of inclusiveness through their ads, despite the fact that their consumer base is likely largely conservative does not seem that different from what the advertisers backing The O'Reilly Factor were attempting to do in dropping their support of the series. I think this trend of remaining politically correct is going to continue to be a factor in both the type of advertisements we see moving forward throughout the next four years, but also the kind of moves that advertisers and agencies make to protect their brands' reputations.
I don't have a background in PR, but I assume it's a big factor in the decision for brands to discontinue contracts with anyone who's under any type of accusation - whether it's sexual assault, infidelity (ahem, Tiger Woods), lying (ahem, Ryan Lochte), doping (ahem, Lance Armstrong), making racial insensitive remarks (Paula Dean) and so on and so on and so on. I understand a brand wanting to dissociate from a scandalous scene, especially if the accusations are found to be true - but I've always wondered why they pull out so quickly. Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"? ••• I did a quick google search to see if any celebs have regained their endorsements after losing them, but came up short. So either it's never happened, or it's not common enough to break through the 100s of controversial stories.
ReplyDelete