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Advertisers chose not to buy into the US' Iraq invasion

By Stuart Elliott
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, NEW YORK
Sunday, Mar 23, 2003, Page 12

Scores of major marketers are planning to shelve billions of dollars worth of advertising for periods ranging from a day to a week during the war with Iraq.

And some marketers, including Sheraton, did not even wait for the hostilities to begin, postponing the start of new campaigns for anywhere from two weeks to three months.

Exceptions may be made for commercials during big events like the Academy Awards, as advertisers ranging from American Express to Yahoo have said they plan to run their ads, assuming that the Oscars are televised.

When marketers do resume advertising, they and their agencies will be scrutinizing the content of the ads as perhaps never before to avoid inappropriate tone or imagery. The rationale for their caution, discussed gingerly if at all, goes beyond fears of being associated with coverage of the war as it affects US troops. They are also anxious about ads that would appear in coverage of possible terrorist attacks on American soil.

"It's unspoken but we know that's a possibility," a senior executive at a giant agency said.

MasterCard has asked media outlets to withhold all its advertising for one week after the outbreak of hostilities, said Elisa Romm, vice president for brand building in North America at MasterCard International in Purchase, NY

"We don't run our `Priceless' campaign in news coverage," she added, referring to the series of light-hearted television and print ads carrying that theme, "and the news would be all the time, so our media strategy would change."

The agency for MasterCard is McCann-Erickson Worldwide Advertising in New York, part of the McCann-Erickson World Group division of the Interpublic Group of Cos.

The American Express Co planned to suspend its advertising for 48 to 72 hours after the fighting broke out, said Desiree Fish, a spokeswoman in New York.

At Charles Schwab, "`Is it necessary and is it appropriate?' will extend to all our client communication, not only our advertising but also our direct mail and e-mail," Glen Mathison, a spokesman for Schwab in San Francisco, said.

Schwab has "standing requests to pull our ads for seven days" after the war broke out, Mathison said, "and then we would re-evaluate based on what's going on."

Oscars ads

But Schwab, MasterCard, American Express and Eastman Kodak are among the advertisers proceeding with their plans to run commercials during the Academy Awards coverage on ABC on Sunday. The companies said they had reviewed the content of their spots and deemed them appropriate if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and ABC determine that the show ought to go on. The Schwab agency is GSD&M in Austin, Texas, part of the Omnicom Group, while Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide in New York, part of the WPP Group, works for both American Express and Kodak.

Despite the aversion of most advertisers to running humorous ads during the first days of war, and the decision by Starwood Hotels and Resorts to delay the introduction of such a campaign for the Sheraton chain to April 21 from April 1, some companies said they were sticking with their light-hearted commercials.

Yahoo executives decided on Tuesday night that if the Oscars broadcast proceeds so too would its commercial introducing Yahoo Personals, the company's online personals-ad service, said Terry Semel, chief executive at the company in Sunnyvale, Calif.

"It's sweet, it's charming, you'll smile, maybe you'll laugh," Semel said of the commercial, created by Euro RSCG Black Rocket in San Francisco, part of the Euro RSCG Worldwide division of Havas.

Precedent

While many marketers talk about being sensitive to events, sensitivity, like beauty or the movie that deserves the Oscar for Best Picture, is often in the eye of the beholder. The case study many advertisers and agencies invoked as they pondered their war plans was the 1991 Super Bowl, which was played after Operation Desert Storm started.

The Pepsi-Cola Co division of PepsiCo and the Coca-Cola Co both had planned to run humorous commercials during the game as well as stage phone-in promotions. But after the war began, Pepsi-Cola shelved its promotion and proceeded with its funny spots, while Coca-Cola did the opposite.

Coca-Cola's replacement commercials, somber text-only spots, were widely derided, while the outcome of its promotion was ignored. Viewers and critics, however, judged Pepsi-Cola's silly spots appropriate for the Super Bowl's upbeat environment, and of course it did not hurt that the war was turning out to be a victory for the US and its allies.

This time around, Pepsi-Cola "is developing plans for what would be appropriate" during the Oscars, "dependent obviously on what's going on" Sunday, said Bart Casabona, a spokesman in Purchase, NY

The company is scheduled to run spots for Aquafina bottled water and commercials for the flagship Pepsi-Cola brand with the singers Beyonce Knowles and Shakira. All the spots are from Omnicom agencies: Aquafina, by Element 79 Partners in Chicago; Knowles, by Spike DDB in New York; and Shakira, by the New York office of BBDO Worldwide.

Speaking from the other side of the America Online fence, as a carrier of advertising rather than as a buyer of advertising, Sarfaty said the company has decided that for the first 48 hours after the outbreak of war, "there will be no advertising on the AOL welcome screen, in AOL news and in select other locations."

Joe Mandese, editor of Media Markets Daily in New York, a newsletter published by Primedia, estimated that war coverage would displace $114.1 million worth of television commercials each day from national broadcast and cable networks as well as local broadcast stations.

Mandese said he expected commercial-free coverage to run six days, at a cost of $684.6 million, followed by perhaps as much as six weeks' worth of programs with lighter commercial loads than usual, displacing $2.4 billion worth of spots.
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