School of Journalism

UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-COLUMBIA      January 29, 2004 *

 

 

                 NEIGHBOR-TO-NEIGHBOR TV SPOTS

 

                      Advertiser Pressure

 

     In April, 1990, a political action group, Neighbor To Neighbor, contacted a TV station in the seventh largest market in the country and asked to purchase time for a spot that urged consumers to boycott Folger's Coffee, a Procter & Gamble Co. (P&G) brand.  The spot showed a cup of coffee with dollar bills stuffed in it, and as the audio related the message, a pool of blood surrounded the cup of coffee—pretty gory.  The spot claimed that the money from taxes and the purchase of El Salvadorian coffee beans helped support the country's bloody civil war and, by implication, El Salvadore's government.

     Neighbor To Neighbor did not have a lot of money to spend, but could purchase a few prime-time spots.  They appealed to the station with the argument that the media had a responsi­bil­ity to give access to diverse opinions.  The reason that Neighbor To Neighbor was willing to spend money was because the media in general and television specifically had given totally inadequate coverage to the issue of the war in El Salvadore and, especially, to the brutality of the right-wing government against the valiant rebels.

     The station was concerned about the issue of access and was inclined to favor the point of view of the liberal advocacy group.  The fact that Ed Asner did the voice over on the commercial also appealed to the station, which was affiliated with CBS (where Ed Asner starred in a sitcom).  On the other hand, the station was concerned about P&G's reaction to the spot, because P&G spent a total of about $1 million with the station annually, which P&G threatened to cancel if the station ran the commercial.

     Station management knew that many television stations around the country and several stations in its market had refused to run the commercial.  The general manager asked several department heads and a few key people at the station to watch the Neighbor To Neighbor commercial and to come to a meeting to help make a decision on whether or not to accept Neighbor To Neighbor's commercial and the organization’s money.

 

                          ASSIGNMENT

 

1. What questions should be asked at the meeting of key people?

2. What are the main issues involved in this case?

3. What process should station management go through to make a decision?

4. Did P&G do the right thing in threatening to pull its advertising?

5. Should the station take the business, and, most important, what is the rationale for taking it or not taking it?

 

 

* This case was prepared by Charles Warner