Brands need to keep a handle on their advertising: the New Orleans example

Published on September 4th, 2005 by Jeff Clavier Marketing, Thoughts

Inappropriate2 As I was using Evite today, I kept on getting these two banner ads for Southern Comfort (a peach flavored bourbon liqueur, produced in St. Louis, Missouri ).

One of the tag lines of the ad is "Born in New Orleans, where anything can happen". Very out of line IMHO.

Southern Comfort might already be about to pull out this ad from the inventory of advertising networks (at least one can hope so), but this shows that companies have to be on top of their ads/messages all the time.

Update: Zoli points me to similar stories of "bad taste" ad placements, either produced by content matching algorithms or the insertion of a commercial message during a key news segment (as described by Stephen Baker on Blogspotting a few days ago).

Update: Situation just got upgraded to mini-crisis – there is now a call to boycott of Southern Comfort’s products until they remove their ad (and that job listing). I’m the first to link to it, we’ll see how long it takes the brand to react.

http://www.zoliblog.com/blog/_archives/2005/8/31/1185416.html Zoli’s Blog

The Scary Thing About Ads – part 2.

Seth Godin explains what he meant in his previous post that I cited

http://happy-hour.net/human_disaster/boycott_tasteless_ad_campaign_southern_comfort.asp Doug

We too are saddened by Southern Comfort’s lack of attention to their ad campaign. I’ve even found job listings on Craig’s List (posted a 1 day after the hurricane). What are these guys thinking? http://neworleans.craigslist.org/mar/88476604.html
We are asking for a boycott of Southern Comfort until they remove their ad campaign from the web and issue an apology for their lack of attention to this matter. http://happy-hour.net/human_disaster/boycott_tasteless_ad_campaign_southern_comfort.asp
ken barnes

Jeff I’m a fan of your blog but not this entry. I think it amounts to a “gotcha” – I know noone at SoCo but I do know they’re all people who to the (wo)man all feel as horrible about Katrina as you or I do. And like all of us they can’t control every last piece of execution once the wheels are in motion. It’s easy to shoot at people in the alcohol (tobacco or firearms (doh! pun)) business but the fact is we all face conflicts of interest each day and I for one don’t always emerge spotless- do you?
Let’s not use this as a time to point fingers and boycott things. Let’s keep doing what you’ve done with the Red Cross links Jeff- pushing for more strength and support (good on ya.)
Regardless, keep the thoughts and energy going Jeff et al. Great results take good and bad ideas alike to get there!
Ken
http://blog.softtechvc.com Jeff Clavier

Ken> Good to hear from you! Hope all is well.
More than a “gotcha” on SoCo, the point of my post is to demonstrate that brands need to keep a close control on their message because of events like New Orleans.
I was not implying that SoCo employees were not sensitive to the issue, I am sure they are.
http://www.zoliblog.com Zoli Erdos

Ken, and everyone, initially I also wanted to give them the benefit of doubt, but this is more then the wheels earlier set in motion; the job post is dated 8/2, the Friday AFTER Katrina, the day when the first aid supply and Guard troops started to arrive. I’ve updated my post and joined Jeff in supporting the boycott call.