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 Business News | February 2005 
Ad Reaction Claims Super Bowl Casualty
 Stuart Elliott - NYTimes
 Even before kickoff, the Super Bowl has its first advertising casualty. In a highly unusual last-minute reversal, the Ford Motor Company withdrew a commercial from the game late yesterday in the face of complaints.
Ford canceled a spot for a new Lincoln truck, scheduled for the second quarter of Super Bowl XXXIX on Sunday, because of charges from an advocacy organization that it exploited the sex scandals embroiling the Catholic Church.
The withdrawal of the commercial, showing how a mischievous girl's prank caused a clergyman to be tempted by a 2006 Lincoln Mark LT pickup, underlined how tender sensibilities are after the controversy over Super Bowl XXXVIII. Advertisers and agencies want to make sure they are not faced with the same loud outcry generated last February by Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the halftime show and by a string of spots with characters like a flatulent horse and a crotch-biting dog, which many viewers condemned as vulgar and tasteless.
Typically, Madison Avenue barrels boldly into the Super Bowl, unleashing a barrage of glitzy, expensive commercials that do just about anything to capture the attention of what is usually the biggest audience of the year for any television program. The goal is to take advantage of perhaps the only day each year when consumers embrace advertising rather than flee it.
But as advertisers and agencies gear up for Super Bowl XXXIX, their usual self-confident strut has resembled more of a gingerly tiptoe. Lincoln Mercury executives said earlier yesterday that they would not withdraw the commercial, calling it light-hearted entertainment and disputing critics' interpretation of the spot. But hours later, Ford Motor made the decision to withdraw.
"In the end, we decided that while we don't agree with their assessment, we're understanding of their opinion," said Sara Tatchio, a spokeswoman for Lincoln Mercury in Dearborn, Mich., referring to the critics. "We want to make sure the attention is on the truck, not on the controversy."
Lincoln Mercury has not decided whether to run another commercial in place of the Mark LT spot, Ms. Tatchio said, or whether to proceed with plans to put up the commercial on a special Web site over the weekend. Ford Motor will run a commercial for another brand, Volvo, in the third quarter of the game.
The withdrawn commercial, by the Dearborn office of Young & Rubicam, part of the Young & Rubicam Brands division of the WPP Group, was intended to introduce the Mark LT, a successor to the failed Lincoln Blackwood pickup. In the spot, an actor dressed as a clergyman finds a key to a Mark LT in the collection plate after services, then covetously appraises it in the parking lot - only to learn from a congregant that it was a prank by his mischievous daughter, rather than a donation.
The spot ends with the clergyman posting "Lust" as the theme of his next sermon.
"Our members find it offensive," David Clohessy, national director of the advocacy organization complaining about the commercial, said before the withdrawal became known. His organization is called Snap, for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Mr. Clohessy, who commented after watching a version of the commercial on a Web site about Super Bowl advertising, superbowl-ads.com, complained that the actor was dressed as a Catholic or Episcopalian priest and described the child, an actor about 6 years old, as looking "shy and compliant."
After learning that Ford Motor had withdrawn the commercial, Mr. Clohessy said the decision would "spare a lot of people a lot of pain."
"We certainly understand that people can interpret the ad in different ways and we never alleged maliciousness," Mr. Clohessy said. "But anything that avoids rubbing salt into a deep wound is good."
Ms. Tatchio said the actor in the spot was meant to be "a nondenominational clergyman," not a priest. And John Fitzpatrick, the Lincoln Mercury general marketing manager, said the commercial had been tested with consumers, who described it with words like "fun" and "humanity."
The spot was also approved by the standards and practices department of the Fox Broadcasting Company, the News Corporation unit that is selling about 30 minutes' worth of commercial time - at a record average rate of $2.4 million for each 30 seconds - during the game.
Even before the decision to withdraw the Lincoln commercial, advertisers were voicing caution.
"The advertising in this year's Super Bowl will be much safer than in the Super Bowl a year ago," said Karen Gough, president for the Americas at the Ciba Vision unit of Novartis in Atlanta. Novartis will run a commercial to promote its new O2 Optics brand of contact lenses.
The brighter spotlight being shone on the commercials "was absolutely a consideration" in deciding whether to advertise during the game and what to say, Ms. Gough said, adding: "We've taken great pains to make sure about our spot. We feel very comfortable with the scrutiny." The Ciba Vision commercial, to appear in the first quarter, is created by Grey Worldwide in New York, part of the Grey Global Group, and depicts attractive urbanites enjoying their new contact lenses.
Another first-time Super Bowl advertiser, Napster Inc., also sought to make sure its commercial, promoting the new Napster to Go music subscription service, would pass muster in a more fraught environment, said Alan Cohen, chief marketing officer for Napster in Los Angeles.
"We've done our homework on the advertising in terms of talking to consumers about how the message would resonate," Mr. Cohen said of the spot, produced internally and scheduled for the third quarter.
"The advertising is very true to the Napster brand," he added. "We have not compromised at all."
For all the efforts to avoid offending any of the estimated 140 million Americans who may tune in to all or part of the Super Bowl, some commercials will be more daring. For instance, the battle of the sexes figures in several spots being planned by Anheuser-Busch for its beer brands.
At least two advertisers - the Tabasco brand of hot sauce sold by the McIlhenny Company and GoDaddy.com, a Web site registrar owned by the GoDaddy Group - plan to center their spots on female pulchritude, albeit with tongues firmly in cheeks.
"Good taste should reign most of the time, but I'm not a prude," said Paul C. P. McIlhenny, president and chief executive of the company bearing his surname, which is based in Avery Island, La. Tabasco returns to the Super Bowl after a seven-year hiatus with a commercial in the third quarter about a bathing beauty's tan lines. The ad was created by the Dallas office of DDB Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group.
"We think our spot is fun and alluring," Mr. McIlhenny said, "but doesn't go nearly as far" as those criticized last year did. The primary reason for the reticence, he added, is that his commercial must appeal not only to the men "who use Tabasco at the table," but also to the women who buy most food products.
"Women, they're the gatekeepers, making the decisions at the grocery stores, and we want them to open those gates for us," Mr. McIlhenny said. "When you're advertising to young men for beer, you want to push the envelope; we want to help sales in the short run and help brand equity in the long run."
Several other advertisers are aiming their Super Bowl spots at women or at a dual audience. They include Cosentino U.S.A., a division of Cosentino S.A. of Spain, with a commercial featuring athletes for the Silestone brand of quartz surfaces, created by Freed Advertising in Sugar Land, Tex.; Diamond of California, with a commercial for Emerald nuts that features a father and daughter, with cameo appearances by characters like Santa Claus, created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco, part of Omnicom; and Diet Pepsi, sold by the Pepsi-Cola North America division of PepsiCo, with commercials featuring celebrities like Cindy Crawford and Eva Longoria of "Desperate Housewives," by the DDB New York office.
That is not to say the men who compose the majority of the Super Bowl audience will be ignored. There will be 10 or so spots from Anheuser-Busch aimed at men for beer brands like Budweiser and Bud Light.
And a prescription drug that treats erectile dysfunction, Cialis, will return to the Super Bowl for a second consecutive year, with a spot by Grey set to the 1963 rock tune "Be My Baby." |
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