March 29, 2024

GM and Mountain Dew Pull Ads After Criticism for Racial Insensitivity

The General Motors ad was a promotion for the Chevrolet Trax, a small sports utility vehicle that is sold in countries including Canada, where the ad made its debut on television on March 4. The ad takes place in the 1930s and featured a modern remix of a song from that era that included references to Chinese people using of phrases like “ching, ching chop-suey”

Advertising Standards Canada questioned General Motors about the ad, prompting the company to change the ad by removing the lyrics from the song while keeping the melody. Even so, as word of the offensive lyrics spread within the company, General Motors decided to pull the ad altogether from Canadian television and on Web sites in Europe, where the vehicle is also sold. The vehicle is not sold or advertised in the United States.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, General Motors apologized for the ad and said, “We are conducting a full review of our advertising approval process to ensure this does not happen again in the future.”

The ad was created by Commonwealth, Chevrolet’s global advertising agency since 2012, and a part of the McCann Worldgroup of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

The second ad that was pulled on Wednesday promoted Mountain Dew, part of the PepsiCo Americas Beverages division of PepsiCo, which featured a battered woman, bandaged and on crutches trying to identify the person who hurt her; the lineup includes African-American men with names like LBoy, Tiny and Beyonte — and a goat.

The woman, who is white, is stricken with fear as she looks at the men and the goat. A voiceover for the animal says in a menacing tone: “It’s me. You should’ve gave me some more.”

“I don’t think I can do this,” the woman says, visibly frightened. Toward the end, the goat threatens the woman to “Keep your mouth shut.” The woman begins to yell repeatedly, “I can’t do this,” followed by a sequence of shrill “Nos” as she hops out of the room. The officer then takes a sip of the beverage.

The ad was created by Tyler Okonma, known as “Tyler, the Creator,” a hip-hop producer and rapper. In a statement released Wednesday morning, Mountain Dew apologized for the ad and said that it had been removed “from all Mountain Dew channels and Tyler is removing it from his channels as well.” News of the company’s decision was first reported by Adweek.

Mountain Dew has also come under pressure because of its relationship with another rapper, Lil’ Wayne. The company has an endorsement deal with Wayne, who has been criticized over obscene lyrics that refer to Emmett Till, the African-American teenager whose 1955 murder helped foment the civil rights movement. On Wednesday, the rapper issued an apology to Mr. Till’s family for his lyrics, adding, “I will not use or reference Emmett Till or the Till family in my music, especially in an inappropriate manner.”

Mountain Dew is the latest brand to deal with controversial hip-hop lyrics. In April, Reebok dropped the rapper Rick Ross after he performed lyrics on the Rocko song “U.O.E.N.O” that referred to drugging a woman and having sex with her.

Chevrolet is not alone in its ad woes, either. In March, the Ford Motor Company apologized for an online advertisement that it ran in India that featured three bound and gagged women in the rear of a vehicle driven by Silvio Berlusconi.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/02/business/media/gm-and-mountain-dew-pull-ads-after-criticism-for-racial-insensitivity.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

As SpinMedia, Web Publisher Aims to Lift Smaller Sites

In the race for Internet advertising, could a few dozen runner-up blogs win in the end?

That is the goal of Buzzmedia, a Los Angeles-based company that owns or sells advertising for more than 40 Web sites that cater to young pop-culture obsessives, like Celebuzz and JustJared for celebrity news and Stereogum, Idolator and Brooklyn Vegan for music.

Individually, many of its sites do not lead their categories. For news about alternative music, for example, Stereogum lags behind Pitchfork in audience and influence; for celebrity gossip, Celebuzz trails TMZ and others.

But altogether, Buzzmedia’s sites draw 41 million people each month, according to comScore. That is more than some of Buzzmedia’s main competitors, like Gawker Media (32 million) or Mashable (5.6 million); BuzzFeed had 25 million visitors last December, according to comScore, although BuzzFeed says the number was 40 million.

On Monday, in a move that could help elevate Buzzmedia, the company will rename itself SpinMedia, after Spin magazine, which it bought last year. It will also introduce a site for preteenagers, HeartsandFoxes, as well as technological changes to try to keep readers lingering longer and track them as they move from one device to another.

“The content experience in 2013 needs to be anywhere, anytime, on mobile, desktop or smartphone; it needs to be current and instantaneous,” Steve Hansen, the chief executive, said. “What we need to do is evolve the user experience to take advantage of that.”

Dealing with one publisher for dozens of sites can make business easy for advertisers, said Tony Effik, a managing director at the digital advertising agency R/GA.

“The problem with dealing with niche pop-culture sites is that, if you’re a big brand, you don’t want to go and do 50 deals with people like this,” Mr. Effik said.

But SpinMedia must also convince advertisers that its 41 million readers are more than just dozens of disconnected audiences. The company has also had growing pains lately: it raised $15 million in investments, but laid off 50 employees, almost 20 percent of its staff.

To connect the audiences of its sites, SpinMedia’s new platform can track reader behavior and recommend articles from across its network. Someone reading a Celebuzz item about Justin Timberlake, for example, can be pointed to similar articles on JustJared, Spin or Celebslam. Advertisers can also sponsor particular topics across multiple sites.

Like other Web companies, SpinMedia is emphasizing video, as well as branded content — features created with advertisers, which are increasingly common but controversial for blurring the line between advertising and editorial content.

“We know that consumers don’t care if the content they are consuming is editorial driven or brand driven as long as it’s great,” said Doug Rohrer, SpinMedia’s chief revenue officer. (In an interview, SpinMedia executives also said their sites preserved editorial integrity.)

The value of a large aggregated audience remains unclear compared with a more dedicated one.

Spin, for example, has notched up its competition against Pitchfork since July, when Buzzmedia bought the magazine (and within weeks shut down its print edition). Spin’s 870,000 readers now closely challenge Pitchfork’s 1.1 million. But comScore’s figures show that visitors to Pitchfork spend more than quadruple the time as visitors to Spin.

Pitchfork also shuns many now-standard Web site features, like comments on articles. And while Pitchfork also publishes branded content, its president, Chris Kaskie, said the company turns down many such deals over the issue of control.

“Our job is to protect our readers and make sure that whatever we do is adding value to their experience,” Mr. Kaskie said. “Doing anything more than that would make us feel ugly. Whether that makes for a more effective ad campaign is not something we really want to think about doing.”

Of course, SpinMedia wants to be the winner, not just the runner-up, and Mr. Hansen said the company’s changes are meant to help reach that goal.

“You can’t have a portfolio of brands that are all market leaders,” Mr. Hansen said. “That being said, I want to focus on Idolator, Celebuzz, Buzznet, in their respective categories. They have the potential to evolve into market leaders. We have to do a lot of work. That is what this company is focusing on.”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/business/media/as-spinmedia-web-publisher-aims-to-lift-smaller-sites.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Advertising: A National Push Seeks to Separate Sake From Sushi

FOR Americans who drink sake only at Japanese restaurants, the thought of ordering it at a bar or buying it at the supermarket may seem as out of place as using chopsticks to eat Cheerios.

But now Ty Ku, a six-year-old sake brand, is hoping to change that with what it says is a first for any sake brand: nationally televised advertising. Starring CeeLo Green, the singer and record producer who also is a Ty Ku co-owner, the campaign is called “Share on,” a reference to a sake custom of pouring it for others, but not for oneself.

A new commercial opens with a chef at a sushi bar handing a bottle of Ty Ku to Mr. Green, who seems about to hand the bottle to someone off to the right of the screen. A hand reaches in and, as the camera pans to the right, pulls it into another setting, where the hand turns out to belong to a woman in a bathing suit dangling her legs in a pool, Mr. Green at her side. Batonlike, the bottle is handed to other settings where Mr. Green is surrounded by beautiful women, including a nightclub.

“Share with me and I’ll share with you,” Mr. Green says. “Share on.”

The commercial, by Filter Creative Group, a Los Angeles marketing and advertising agency, will be introduced Wednesday on cable networks including AMC, BET and the Food Network. Direction is by Mikael Colombu, with production by Vision Film.

For Ty Ku (rhymes with haiku), which has advertised only in trade publications on a limited basis, the campaign is its first aimed at consumers. Beyond indicating that it will be multimillion-dollar campaign, the brand declined to reveal specific expenditures.

The commercial begins at a sushi bar because “it is the most traditional way to drink sake and what Americans are most familiar with,” said Alan Miller, a co-founder of Filter.

While the primary message of the spot is the conviviality of sharing sake, Mr. Miller continued, the way that it “flows from scene to scene” is meant to demonstrate that sake is as versatile as other alcoholic beverages.

Ty Ku is based in Manhattan, but its sake is brewed in Japan. Andrew Chrisomalis, the chief executive of Ty Ku, said that while the sake itself was “authentic in the most important way, we want to promote a modern approach and spin.”

Americans typically encounter sake served hot in small porcelain cups, or cold in shotlike glasses, which may lend to a misperception that it packs a wallop.

“When people see what looks like a shot glass, they think of something as a harsh whiskey or some other high-proof spirit,” Mr. Chrisomalis said. “But the truth is that sake is brewed much more like beer and is consumed much more like white wine.”

Most Ty Ku sake varieties are 15 percent alcohol by volume, slightly more potent than most wine and slightly less potent than most fortified wines like sherry and Marsala.

In the new commercial, as with most of its marketing material, the brand shows the sake served chilled and in wine glasses, and directs restaurants and bars where it is carried to do likewise.

“It helps relate to you that it’s O.K. to drink four ounces at a time,” Mr. Chrisomalis said.

Ty Ku has a 3.3 percent share of United States sake market, according to Nielsen data cited by the brand. In 2012, it sold about 100,000 cases, equal to what it had sold in the preceding five years combined. Ty Ku projects it will double to 200,000 cases this year.

Such rosy projections are based on recent successes the brand has had with retail distribution. Mr. Green joined other owners to successfully pitch retailers including Target, Kroger and Walgreens, according to Mr. Chrisomalis.

To announce a promotional partnership with Patti Stanger, who stars on “The Millionaire Matchmaker” on Bravo, a 2012 news release from the brand quotes Ms. Stanger, who also became a part owner, as saying, “The Ty Ku sake portfolio is low calorie, gluten-free, sulfite-free and tannin-free, so it fits my healthy lifestyle.”

A 2010 news release announcing a similar equity and promotional partnership with Perez Hilton quotes Mr. Hilton as saying he had switched from vodka to Ty Ku “because these products are low calorie and I can enjoy without guilt!”

And in an appearance on the “Rachael Ray Show” in October, Mr. Green described the brand as “healthy,” and Ms. Ray added with a laugh, “I love feeling good about the cocktail because it makes you feel even better about the second.”

Alcohol Justice, an industry watchdog group, opposes alcohol brands promoting associations with weight loss and wellness. “It’s problematic because there’s a tendency to overindulge in a product when it’s considered low calorie,” said Michael J. Scippa, an Alcohol Justice spokesman. “As long as there’s still alcohol in it, they run the risk of causing health problems rather than solving them.”

With varieties that retail for $17 to $65 for a bottle roughly the size of a .750-liter wine bottle, Ty Ku is poised for what Mr. Chrisomalis called the “premiumization” of the sake category. He cited as a model the way Patrón, introduced in 1989, spurred a trend for premium tequila.

“We want to be the first premium sake call brand,” Mr. Chrisomalis said. “Like someone says, ‘I’ll have a Patrón’ or Jack Daniels, or Johnnie Walker, we want them to say, ‘I’ll have a Ty Ku.’ ”

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/business/media/a-national-push-seeks-to-separate-sake-from-sushi.html?partner=rss&emc=rss