Brand Central Station

Now, to get thing started, let me be clear about one thing:

My wife is not a prude.

We’re not conservative, right-wingers by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, we go to church more Sundays than not and we both vote Republican (usually), but that doesn’t make us bible-thumping, jack-booted neoconservatives who see sex and deprivation at every turn and long for the good old days of Eugene McCarthy.

But my wife blew a gasket this weekend at the pool. Memorial Day is supposed to mark the beginning of the summer. Time for the kids to strip down to their swimming trunks and hop in the pool, washing all that nasty education from the last nine months from their minds until late August.

Summertime is supposed to be fun. And when you’re five to thirteen years old, like our kids, it’s still supposed to be fairly innocent.

That’s what my wife and I think, anyway. And that’s why when she heard an ad blaring on the radio at the pool that she couldn’t take it sitting down. The ad, by the way, was promoting a “male enhancement” product. And the ad ran not once, but three times in one hour.

My wife was not happy.

Nor was I when she told me about it. After all, why can’t I find clients who have so much money to waste that they’d blow an entire schedule on Memorial Day, running three ads an hour on a station that didn’t even target their core audience? But I digress …

After enduring the nasty, double entendre the third time, my wife got out of her seat and said something to the lifeguard. Then she said something to the other mothers at the pool. And they all said something to the manager.

Then guess what happened? The manager ordered the lifeguard to change the station and NEVER play that station again.

Ouch.

My wife was still pissed asked two other establishments to ban that station from their in-house PA systems later that day. Both establishments have complied. And now she’s even more motivated. Trust me, this station does not want her pissed at them. I know how horrible it can get and they just don’t want to go there.

Before dinner last night, my wife told me this story and asked me what else she could do. I told her to write a letter explaining her complaint and the actions she had taken to the station manager and to send a copy of the letter to the local newspaper. I explained that as soon as the station manager realized that he had offended some listeners – and more importantly, was losing audience because of it for ALL of his advertisers – I suspected he would do something about it.

And why copy the newspaper? Because it’s important to go public when you attempt to hold the media accountable. More importantly, it’s important for people to know that as consumers they have the power to do something when their sensibilities are offended. Frankly, the only thing I find more offensive than bad commercials are consumers who claim they are helpless when it comes to doing anything about them.

My wife, I’m proud to say, is not that kind of consumer. She’s actively engaged in the marketplace and taking a principled stand against something she thinks crosses the line. That’s her right and, quite frankly, her responsibility as a citizen and consumer in this country.

My wife … I think I’ll keep her.

Later.

This information is (c) 2004, Brand Central Station, all rights reserved. If you are interested in receiving news and analysis directly from BCS, please log onto our website (www.brandcentralstation.com) and sign up for our weekly newsletter, the BCS TuesdayReport.