Advertisers Drop Glenn Beck

Posted by Tana Ganeva, AlterNet at 9:00 AM on August 6, 2009.

Looks like Glenn Beck might be forced to dial back his right-wing psycho clown routine. The Color of Change, which ran a petition last week urging corporate sponsors to drop Beck, has just announced that three companies have agreed to stop advertising on Beck's Fox show.

Three companies who run ads during Glenn Beck -- NexisLexis-owned Lawyers.com, Proctor & Gamble and Progressive Insurance -- today distanced themselves from Beck. LexisNexis has pulled its advertising from Beck and says it has no plans to advertise on the program in the future. Both Proctor & Gamble and Progressive Insurance called the Beck advertising placements an error that they would correct.

Two of the companies seem pretty embarrassed about it. According to the Color of Change press release, Lexis Nexis and Proctor and Gamble claim their ads appeared on Beck's show by mistake:

"Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention," said John Michaels, Senior Communications Manager at LexisNexis in an email to ColorOfChange.org. "We have suspended further advertising during Mr. Beck's program."  

"We have no plans to continue advertising on Mr. Beck's show," Michaels continued in another email. 

When executives at Procter & Gamble were contacted by ColorOfChange.org, they said that any ads run during Glenn Beck were run by mistake, and that they would correct the problem going forward. 

"No P&G ads should have appeared on this program in the first place," said Martha Depenbrock, Brand Building Stakeholder Relations for Procter & Gamble in an email. "To be clear, if any of our advertising appeared on the Glenn Beck show, it was in error and we appreciate you bringing this matter to our attention.  We will do what we can to see that it doesn't happen again." 

Progressive Insurance said any ads running during Glenn Beck were a mistake by Fox News Channel -- a mistake they have asked the network to fix immediately.  

"Our (advertising) order specifies no Glenn Beck," said Linda J. Harris, Media Director at Progressive Insurance in an email to ColorofChange.org. "We have confirmed with the network that our spots should not be running there," Harris said in a later email. 

Ruh-oh.

The Color of Change launched their campaign after Beck accused President Obama of being a racist with a "deep-seated hatred for white people." According the organization, over 45,000 Color of Change members called on Beck sponsors to drop his show.

Will this spook Fox Network into forcing Beck to remold his image?

Tagged as: glenn beck, color of change, advertisers