The BadAds Weblog: December 2000

Ads Go Round and Round

Taxis are wrapped in ads, and they carry billboards on their roofs. But wait a minute! There's still (God forbid) a tiny, advertising-free space on these vehicles – their hubcaps.

Well, that pressing problem has been solved. Two enterprising companies, HubCapAds and AdCaps.com, are selling ads on this overlooked real estate. A patented device within the hubcap ensures that the hubcap remains upright and readable.

What you can do: Here are some of the companies that are advertising on hubcaps. Please write them a letter and let them know that you don't appreciate being forced to look at ads everywhere you go.

Binion's Horseshoe Casino and Hotel
Toll Free: 800-622-6468
Fax: 702-384-1574
E-mail: reservations@lvcm.com

The Tampa Bay History Center
Phone: 813-228-0097
E-mail: thistory@gte.net

Chevrolet
General Motors
300 Renaissance Center
Detroit, MI 48265
Phone: 313-556-5000
Fax: 313-556-5108
G. Richard Wagoner Jr., President and CEO

The companies selling the hub cap ads are:

HubCapAds
Phone: 702-360-3031
E-mail: sales@hubcapads.com

AdCaps.com
PMB 173
19046 Bruce B. Downs Blvd.
Tampa, FL 33647
Phone: 813-907-8304
Fax: 813-907-8205
E-mail: adcaps@tampabay.rr.com

December 14, 2000

Historical Coca-Cola

This article by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman is a real eye-opener. If Coca Cola's "historic contribution" to the Library of Congress makes you spitting mad, don't actually spit – get out a pen and paper and write a letter to:

The Coca-Cola Company
1 Coca-Cola Plaza
Atlanta, GA 30313
Contact: Doug Daft, Chairman & CEO
Phone: 404-676-2121
Fax: 404-676-6792

Thanks to Jim Dwyer (aka, Rev. Junkyard Moondog) for forwarding this article to us. Reprinted with permission.

The Real Thing: Democracy as a Contact Sport
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

A couple weeks ago, we received an invitation to attend an event at the Library of Congress.

Coca-Cola was about to make an "historic contribution" to the Library of Congress, and the Library, and Coca-Cola, were inviting reporters to cover the event. We accepted the invitation.

We learned from the morning papers that the "historic contribution" was a complete set of 20,000 television commercials pushing Coca-Cola into the American digestive system.

Remember the one where the kid hands Pittsburgh Steeler Mean Joe Greene his bottle of Coke, and in return, Mean Joe tosses the kid his football jersey? Or what about on a hilltop in Italy where the folks start sing "I'd like to buy the world a Coke and keep it company"?

The event was at the Great Hall of the Thomas Jefferson Building – named after the Thomas Jefferson who, in 1816, wrote: "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws our country."

Anyway, we pull up at the appointed hour (7:15 p.m. on November 29, 2000) at the Thomas Jefferson building, and there's a traffic jam created by stretch limousines blocking the entrance.

In addition to lowly reporters, the 400 or so guests included ambassadors, members of Congress, corporate chieftains and other dignitaries. Good thing we dressed up.

The Main Hall is this absolutely stunning room, with marble staircases. A string quartet is playing. Waiters are serving Coke in classic bottles. The food is fabulous – lamb chops, trout, Peking duck. We rub shoulders with the Ambassador from Burma.

The "aristocracy of our monied corporations," as Jefferson put it, had taken over the place, and Coca-Cola wanted to make sure that everybody knew it.

After all, Coke could have just donated the ads to the Library and left it at that. But this wasn't about Coke's largesse. It was about public relations – whether the public would view the company as a racist company (Coke had just agreed to pay $192.5 million to settle allegations that it routinely discriminated against black employees in pay, promotions and performance evaluations) or a junk food pusher (consuming large quantities of sugared Coca-Cola has led to ours being one of the most overweight generations in history) – or instead, a generous contributor to the Library of Congress.

James Billington, the Librarian of Congress, was called on to deliver good things to Coke, and he did. He turned over the keys of the Main Hall to Coke, and Coke decked the place out with its logo, stitched in red beside the logo of the Library of Congress. Television sets were placed throughout the hall, the better for the Ambassadors and members of the Democratic Leadership Council to check out the commercials.

Billington was selling the soul of the library to one of the world's most powerful corporations. In addition to the ads, Coke was establishing a fellowship at the Library for the study of "culture and communication" – one fellow will receive $20,000 a year for the next five years.

Gary Ruskin, director of Commercial Alert, was outside the event, protesting. "It is not the proper role of the taxpayer-financed Library of Congress to help promote junk food like Coca-Cola to a nation that is suffering skyrocketing levels of obesity," Ruskin said. "It is crass commercialism for James Billington to degrade Jefferson's library and founding ideals into a huckster's backdrop."

But without shame, Billington introduced Doug Daft, the president of Coca-Cola, who said that "Coca-Cola has become an integral part of people's lives by helping to tell these stories." Nothing about profits. Nothing about overweight kids. Nothing about racism.

After Daft spoke, the room went dark, and the ads ran on the television screens. Nostalgia swept the room. When the ads were finished, the lights went back on and the crowd cheered.

About 80 high school students, dressed in Coca-Cola red sweaters, filled the marble staircases and sang – "I want to buy the world a Coke." Again, the crowd cheered. Doug Daft, standing downstairs, came back to the microphone to continue his statement. We were upstairs at this point, and we looked down at him and asked, in a loud voice – "Why are you using a public library to promote a junk food product?"

The room went quiet. Library of Congress police charged up the marble staircase. Doug Daft put his hand to his ear and shouted back to us: "What did you say?"

In a louder voice, we shouted back: "Why are you using a public institution to promote a junk food product?"

The next thing we know, we are on the ground. The Library of Congress police had tackled us. Again, the crowd cheered – not for our question, but for the tackle.

We were dragged downstairs, past the Ambassador from Burma, and hauled outside, where police officers from the District of Columbia were waiting for us.

Out of the Thomas Jefferson building came running a man from Coke. "This is a private event," the man from Coke told the police. "I'm from Coca-Cola."

At first, the police wanted nothing to do with the man from Coke. But the man from Coke insisted. They huddled.

Apparently, the man from Coke didn't want us arrested for asking an obvious question. Apparently, the man from Coke didn't want a public trial. The man from Coke was standing up for our First Amendment rights to ask his boss a question.

The police said we were to leave the grounds. And we weren't to come back. Ever.

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1999).

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

December 14, 2000

Ads on Wings

Airport advertisers are becoming more high-tech – and intrusive – when it comes to grabbing your attention and your wallet.

"At virtually each moment travelers were exposed to ad messages, from backlit exterior posters as they pulled up to the terminal to posters the entire route through the terminal to boarding," writes Kathy Prentice in Media Life Magazine. "Travelers saw the customary airport dioramas, which are similar to two-sheet posters. But they were also exposed to a new generation of video and plasma screens in numerous high-traffic areas, from the corridors connecting boarding areas to aircraft to baggage-claim areas." There are even ads on the luggage carousels, courtesy of New York-based CarroSELL.

Companies that bombard you with ads when you travel include Boeing, Embassy Suites, Hertz, Foxwoods Casino, Rolex, Coke, Pepsi, Compaq, Busch Gardens, Alcoa, Haagen-Dazs, Oscar Mayer, Western Union, Adidas, U.S. News & World Report, The Economist, Sprint, Circus Circus, Prudential, Guardian Insurance, the U.S. Postal Service, and Diners Club. Companies that buy ads on luggage carousels include Absolut Vodka, Banana Republic, Oldsmobile, OmniPoint, Web financial news TheStreet.com, Nissan, Omnipoint, Net2Phone, and Geico Insurance.

What you can do: Send the advertisers a letter telling them that you don't appreciate being greeted with a glut of ads for their company whenever you travel. There are too many airport advertisers to list their contact info here, but you can find their information at Big Yellow or Hoovers.

December 11, 2000

Great News

Just to show you how grassroots opposition works to decrease intrusive advertising, here's an excerpt from an article called "Branding Kids for Life" by Stephen Manning, which appeared in the November 20 issue of The Nation.

In fact, this fall has been a good one for grassroots opponents of corporate commercialism. The Madison, Wisconsin, school board voted in August to terminate its exclusive beverage contract with Coca-Cola, making it the first school district in the country to cancel an existing marketing deal. The board cited "overwhelming public opposition" as the reason for its decision. That action came hard on the heels of successful campaigns to stop proposed school-marketing deals in Oakland and Sacramento, California; Philadelphia; and the state of Michigan, where a cola contract involving 110 school districts was shot down. In October the American Dental Association passed a resolution urging its members to oppose the marketing of soft drinks and junk food in schools, and the American Psychological Association, under pressure from many of its members, agreed to form a task force to examine whether it is unethical for psychologists to advise companies that market to children. Meanwhile, ZapMe!, the in-school marketing company, abandoned its educational business after failing to convince enough schools to accept its offer of free computers in exchange for delivering student eyeballs to advertisers.

So there you have it: Letters and phone calls from people like us are making a difference. Keep up the great work!

December 3, 2000

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