Could Your Brand Benefit From the Right Boycott? We Can Help - Advertising Age

The Media Guy

Here's How to Seek Out the Best 'Bad' Publicity Possible

Sometimes your enemies do the nicest things for you.

Take, for instance, the website One Million Moms, which the American Family Association (AFA) launched for mothers who are "fed up with the filth many segments of our society, especially the entertainment media, are throwing at our children." One of the current calls to action at OneMillionMoms.com : "Please send Ben & Jerry's public-relations manager, Sean Greenwood, an email letter requesting that no additional Schweddy Balls ice cream be distributed."

Outrage over an 'SNL'-themed ice cream flavor lead to more media coverage -- and possibly higher sales.

I bet a lot of people didn't even know Ben & Jerry's has a new ice-cream flavor inspired by a classic "Saturday Night Live" skit staring Alec Baldwin as bakery owner Pete Schweddy, who enthuses about his shop's signature treat ("No one can resist my Schweddy Balls") on "Delicious Dish," a parody of an ultra-low-key NPR cooking show. But thanks to widespread media coverage of this irresistible story -- OneMillionMoms.com pans "the vulgar new flavor" for turning "something as innocent as ice cream into something repulsive" -- now everybody knows about Ben & Jerry's Schweddy Balls. Good luck finding it in stock at your local supermarket.

Or consider Glenn Beck's recent take on the latest Levi's "Go Forth" commercial, which he says "glorifies revolution." (It shows scenes of urban unrest juxtaposed with partying kids while a gravelly voiced announcer reads the Charles Bukowski poem "The Laughing Heart": "Your life is your life/ don't let it be clubbed into dank submission...") "Never again, Levi's, will you get a dime from me," Beck declared on his show in a soundbite that ricocheted across the media. "I won't wear your stupid red tab." You could practically hear the Champagne corks popping at Levi's headquarters in San Francisco.

Ben & Jerry's Schweddy Balls ice cream

Do you wish you could get this kind of "bad" publicity for your product or service? Well, now you can!

I'm pleased to announce the launch of my new marketing consultancy, Brand Anti-Endorsement & Boycott Services (BAE-BS). The team of experts at BAE-BS works closely with marketers to identify obnoxious groups and celebrities and then raises product awareness among them with the aim of securing either a publicity-generating boycott or the wholehearted embrace of a competing product, as appropriate. Some examples of services that BAE-BS can provide:

• Does your company provide health insurance for the same-sex spouses of employees? We'll make sure everyone at the AFA and the Westboro Baptist Church knows.
• Can't afford an A-List celebrity to endorse your clothing brand? Well, you can almost certainly afford to pay a D-list celebrity to wear your competitor's brand. Perhaps you saw media coverage of Abercrombie & Fitch's recent offer to pay Michael "The Situation" Sorrentino of MTV's "Jersey Shore" to stop wearing its clothes. At BAE-BS, we call an undesirable celebrity's enthusiastic embrace of a product an "anti-endorsement" -- and keep in mind that not all such anti-endorsements happen, shall we say, spontaneously. BAE-BS has deep ties to the D-list entertainment community; for nominal fees, we can arrange to make sure your competitor's product becomes synonymous with the douchiest douchebags from today's celebrity scene.
• Do you offer coupons or discounts to customers? Some would say that you're guilty of redistribution of wealth, aka socialism, aka class warfare! BAE-BS will make sure that your company comes to the attention of Karl Rove and the Koch brothers.

  Our dedicated team of marketing and media strategists will work tirelessly on behalf of your company to seek out the best "bad" exposure possible. BAE-BS is your only choice for cutting-edge boycott-procurement and anti-endorsement solutions.

  Please contact us today for a free consultation.

  Email Ad Age media columnist Simon Dumenco at sdumenco@adage.com.

  Simon Dumenco is the "Media Guy" media columnist for Advertising Age. You can follow him on Twitter @simondumenco.