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.
Have never watched this show, but now I definately have to catch it to see what all the hoop-la is about!
That's exactly what this show does. So how do you justify your point?
Better for a fool to keep his/her mouth shut, than to open it, and remove all doubt.
Pardon me, but your glass house is see through!
Thanks for the laugh this morning. Would you freepmail me the garlic mashed potatoes recipe?
So....Yum! has no moral qualms with exploiting the desperate plight of migrant farmworkers (Taco Bell) but they refuse to be associated with a risque television show?
Moral proportionality at its finest... /sarcasm
Ah, I love these South Park Republicans vs. Church Lady Republican threads...
FWIW, I'm with the "don't like it, don't watch it" Republicans. My husband watches it but it's a bit convoluted for my taste. I prefer Boston Legal and Reno 911.
Amen to that.
Don't worry about Askel5. She's a well-known troublemaker who spends lots of time at LibertyPost complaining about how stupid FReepers are. A more self-righteous (and actually, amusing) poster you'll never see.
I am glad you like the recipe.
I got so many requests that it is permenently on my profile page.
The other request I get is for my 'To Die For' Chocolate Chip cookies. Maybe I should put a link up for that one as well.
I don't put myself in either of those categories, but like the characterization. lol!
I am all for people voting with their wallets. I think it's an awesome power, and I am glad to have & use it.
I do, however, feel that it should be used by those who know what the heck it is they are protesting, and if a consistent standard were used, we would never have daytime soap operas, or Saabado Gigante on UNIVISION for that matter, becuase there is less risque material on DH than a whole bunch of other shows.
I would bet that 90% of those on the bashing side have yet to see the show and are merely following the blind leader of the flock.
You mean like the Bible? :)
Honestly haven't seen the show, but a friend of mine described it as a soft core porn show trying to have a plot.
Good for Yum! brands.
Yes it is. I enjoy the way the obnoxious lawyer, Alen Shore, goes right for the legal bottom line and ends up (most of the time) on the moral high ground. For better or worse, I identify with this character.
No one is "depriving folks of giving".....you can send a check to the Salvation Army in your area....it's really EASY, and a better way to give to a non-profit, anyway.
Isn't Boston Legal a spinoff from another show? I definitely recall seeing William Shatner playing a slightly wacked-out attorney on another show, but for the life of me I can't remember the name of the show itself.
That has to be the best character David E. Kelly has come up with yet. The actor is marvelous in the part as well. The show is so inventive. I dread the day that it devolves into the preachiness that Kelly usually starts when his creativity runs out. The Practice got downright nauseating the year before it died (though it was definitely revived in the last season when they introduced Alan Shore and Denny Crane.
The Practice.
Ditto!
but a friend of mine described it as a soft core porn show trying to have a plot.
for this very reason. In fact, I hardly watch any TV anymore. The other day, I sat down to watch a movie and was stunned by some of the commercial advertisements. Talk about soft core porn!
OK...I'm so behind. What does "OC" mean?
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