Posted on 11/29/2004 7:30:26 AM PST by NYer
Yum! Brands, the parent company of Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC, A&W and Long John Silver’s, has stopped advertising on the ABC Network show Desperate Housewives. The move comes after the company’s headquarters were flooded with e-mails and phone calls from concerned customers.
Jonathan Blum, senior vice president of public affairs for Yum! Brands, announced the decision in a letter dated November 17, 2004, to Bill Johnson, president of the American Decency Association (ADA). As posted on ADA’s Web site, the letter reads:
I wanted to inform you that Yum! Brands will not be advertising in Desperate Housewives going forward. We determined that the content of the program is inconsistent without Media Ethics Guidelines. As a result, we have notified ABC and have pulled advertising from the balance of year programming for Pizza Hut and KFC. Our Taco Bell brand had no plans to advertise on Desperate Housewives any time during the remainder of the year.
Johnson and colleagues with the American Family Association have been monitoring the show and informing their constituents of the companies supporting it through advertising. While he is pleased with this development, he still has concerns.
“This decision was a long time coming,” Johnson said, noting that the company went weeks without responding to any of the customer comments made on the matter.
Robert Knight, director of Concerned Women for America’s Culture & Family Institute, said this is good news.
“This is a perfect example of why concerned citizens should never give up, even when it seems their voice is not being heard,” Knight said. “Yum! Brands never responded to the tons of e-mail complaints they received, yet all the while the company was weighing the affect this show was having on the culture and its corporate reputation. They weighed the matter carefully and agreed with their customers.”
“We rejoice that Yum! Brands realizes the import of this decision,” Johnson added. “Desperate Housewives is nasty and destructive to the American family. Burger King made a similar decision weeks ago upon finding out the nature of the program,” he added.
While asking people to contact Yum! Brands and thank them for this move, Johnson also sounds a word of caution. “We now can only hope that Yum! Brands will also steer clear of Life As We Know It [also aired on ABC] and similar types of cultural-rotting programming,” he said.
He added that the ADA’s boycott of Yum! Brands would continue as long as the company continued advertising on Life As We Know It.
Other advertisers remain strong supporters of the new fall dramas. Target and K-Mart are the two most notable examples.
“Here are two companies … that are willing to recklessly place profits before principle. Dirtying the airwaves and sullying untold numbers of children doesn’t concern them much, but greed does,” said Johnson.
Take Action:
To contact Target and K-Mart:
Target Corporation
Mr. Robert Ulrich
1000 Nicollet Mall
Minneapolis, MN 55403
Phone: 612-304-6073 or 1-800-440-0680
Fax: 612-696-3731
To send an e-mail, click here.
Kmart Corporation
Aylwin Lewis
3100 W. Big Beaver Rd.
Troy, MI 48084
Phone: 248-463-1000
Fax: 248-463-5636
To send an e-mail, click here.
Please take a moment to send a note of thanks to Yum! Brands for dropping support of Desperate Housewives and encourage them to do the same with Life As We Know It. Correspondence should be directed to Jonathan Blum, senior vice president of public affairs, Yum! Brands Inc.
Two words: Denny Crane.
(Yes, we are completely hooked!)
Capt. Kirk's evil ancestor from the 21st. Century.....;^)
Over the weekend we were just talking about that very thing; he was MADE for that part, wasn't he? His body even fits it!
LOL!
It is a shame a family can no longer sit together to watch a game without sealzy thrash such as Janet Jackson or "Desperate Housewives."
Would that be the "Caramel Apple Empanada"? If haven't tried it yet. I saw it on their website and it looks deeeelicious!!!
They should have given the guy a medal instead of firing him!!
"24" - Stars Keifer Sutherland. It has been a weekly series on TV for the last 3 years, hopefully again. However, I don't watch the weekly because I so enjoy the rentals. There are 4 on each tape and there will be 6 tapes covering the 24 hr period. All of this series supposedly takes place in a 24 hour period. Each week is a one hour period.
If you rent (ask for the TV series section)- you can start on Season 1-12:00am. Or Season 2 or Season 3. Each is a different crisis.
Keifer plays Jack who works with the agency that handles national security threats (can't remember the name). One season was a nuclear bomb in the U.S., another was a virus.
I found out by recommendation from a friend stating that the only thing he had to see on TV was "24" and he recorded weekly.
You are in for some good, clean, exciting viewing. Remember Lonesone Dove? This rates up there with that IMHO.
Thanks.
That's it and it's killer!
You may have missed some of my other comments. I choose NOT to watch this show myself, and am confident that market forces will determine it's fate.
I hope that our discussion has given you pause to reconsider what type of entertainment you spend your precious free time with, and its importance to you and your family. Life is too short to spend your time with activities that dumb down one's morals, that serves only to deaden the spirit.
I wish you and your family well.
I spend most of my free time on Free Republic. TV is crap for the most part. I try and watch the local news to see what's going on, but other than the regular Fox lineup (you probably have issues with The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and Malcolm in the Middle), I really don't watch. DH is imo, funny. I've known women like this over the years, and it's fun to sit in my daughter's bedroom and laugh about it.
We aren't that emotionally insecure that we would be influenced by something we see on tv.
Best wishes to you and your family, also :-)
This show is like the The Revenge Of Joe Schmo which I couldn't understand why men liked it.
My goodness the people in this Desperado Housewives are just horrid! Do women really do things like that?
OK I know it is a TV show like Murphy Brown, but goodness.
So much intrigue and irresponsible behavior, it seem to sell stuff though.
Maybe some people are like this? Or maybe it is a parody like JS...
Good for them.
Shows like this are crap.
That money from the Kroc estate has strings attached. It was given with the purpose of establishing a whole new set of community centers in urban areas, IOW, the Salvation Army still needs the money. Naturally, that $1.5 billion made everyone think otherwise, and the Salvation Army donations last year were horrible. Somewhere in the Midwest the kettles came out in the middle of the year 2004.
I'm sure the cleavage mannikins on "Desperate Housewives" will donate the shortfall.
Someone else gets this show? Here I thought I was the only one to see that this is a parody of Dallas, Knots Landing and the daytime soaps. This show has less sex than quite a few other mainstream shows of the 90's, and up to the last couple of episodes was quite well written. I agree with some that it seems to be a one season run purposely. It just doesn't seem as if this show could grow into a new season.
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