Remember when Papa John's CEO John Schnatter said the company was pulling its NFL advertising after unleashing on Commissioner Roger Goodell during the company’s earnings call?
Yeah, turns out that may have been bullshit.
As Ad Age points out, it later emerged that Papa John’s was simply removing the NFL’s logo from some of its marketing, not withdrawing television ads, exposing Shnatter’s bluster for what it truly was: A hollow PR stunt. Another example of a CEO saying what he felt needed to be said to appease furious SJWs threatening to boycott the league, its advertisers and business partners after it appeared to kowtow to President Donald Trump’s demands that it institute a rule banning National Anthem protests.
And based on comments from NBCUniversal executive Linda Yaccarino, Papa Johns isn’t alone.
Linda Yaccarino, NBCU’s chairman of advertising sales and client partnerships, said no advertisers have pulled their spots, despite threatening to do so.
Yaccarino … said that none of NBCUniversal’s NFL advertisers have pulled out of NBC’s Sunday Night Football or Thursday Night Football games. However, a “list of advertisers have made themselves very clear: if you continue covering the political coverage of the issue, we will not be part of the NFL,” she said.
“Because think about it: they have half the country that is cheering about that, and they have half the country that is emailing them, saying, don’t do that. So that’s a real thing."
Yaccarino also said that she thinks the protest have affected ratings, even if she can’t prove it. Which is strange, because since Colin Kaepernick first took a knee, kicking off the protest trend last season, ratings for various networks that carry NFL games have slid more than 11%.
CBS CEO Les Moonves said he had observed no hesitation from NFL sponsors. “I don’t know of one sponsor that has pulled out of any spot that they had, Moonves reportedly said. “I don’t think it’s affecting advertising or their desire one iota."
There is clearly a lot of posturing going on here. Advertisers apparently aren’t ready to take the dramatic measure of yanking their spots, but they hope to pressure the league by making noise about doing so. And TV networks don’t want stockholders to think they’re bleeding advertisers, but they too figure they can turn up the heat on the NFL by making the situation seem somewhat dire.
At this point, with protests having faded somewhat from the front pages (special circumstances in Houston aside), the likeliest scenario is probably that advertisers refrain from pulling their spots.
However, if the number of players protesting grows – say following another incident of a police officer killing an unarmed black man – the network might be in real trouble.
via http://ift.tt/2m4qxRf Tyler Durden