Cross-posted at Jack and Jill Politics, Huffington Post, and DailyKos.
Last week, after Glenn Beck called President Obama a "racist" who has a "deep-seated hatred for white people," we asked ColorOfChange members to call on Beck’s advertisers to pull their funding from his show. More than 50,000 people have already joined the call, and today we have great news to report — advertisers are starting to listen:
Three companies who run ads during Glenn Beck — NexisLexis-owned Lawyers.com, Procter & 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 Procter & Gamble and Progressive Insurance called the Beck advertising placements an error that they would correct.
Since we released our statement announcing the news this morning, another company, S.C. Johnson (Pledge, Ziplock, Off!) told us that it was a mistake for their ads to be running on Beck’s show, and that they’d make sure it wouldn’t happen again in the future. (UPDATE: Our contact at S.C. Johnson wanted us to clarify that they have had no knowledge of their ad running on the Glenn Beck show (they wanted to verify this for themselves), and if it did happen, it was not something they requested.)
This is great progress, and it shows how effective it can be when thousands of people tell advertisers not to support this kind of hateful rhetoric. Now we need to step up the pressure on Beck’s other advertisers. While Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble and Progressive Insurance were quick to respond, many others have avoided answering us, or refused to budge. We’re currently in conversations with advertisers, and the more people they see joining this campaign, the more reason they’ll have to listen.
If you haven’t done so already, please sign our petition to Beck’s advertisers, and ask your friends and family to do the same. Moving forward, we’ll keep you informed about effective ways you can pressure the advertisers to withdraw their support from Beck’s show.
Here’s what Lawyers.com, Procter & Gamble, and Progressive Insurance told us this week:
"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.
The decision by these three advertisers to distance themselves from Beck should help increase the pressure on others. The writing is on the wall — Beck should not have the backing of mainstream advertisers. If we keep the pressure on, we believe we can seriously threaten his platform.
Please join us.



7 Comments




Fantastic work! WTG!
which advertisers are stubborn? I want to know so I don’t buy their crap. (I’ll check the links you have too).
thanks!
Ouch! Business Media Institute and Newsbusters are using the same headline “Left Wing Attack Machine Target Glenn Beck’s Advertisers”
Thanks so much for doing such a wonderful job on this crucial issue and for sharing with us what you have done. Now off to sign the petition and Tweet the link to my meager list of followers…
Keep it up!
“Police officers were called to calm down an unruly crowd outside a health care reform town hall meeting in downtown Tampa, Florida on Thursday evening, according to local news reports.
Many of the hundreds of protesters said that they had been inspired by a conservative activist group promoted by Fox News host Glenn Beck and some received emails from the county Republican party, according to the St. Petersburg Times: “
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…..53478.html
What a retard. The US corporation of america is a failure and we are all indentured servants to it’s corrupt management and you wanna come down on a reporter who simply wants the truth be told?. Screw advertizers and screw you! Advertizers are manipulators who 99% of the time offer absolutely NOTHING that I NEED. The corporations behind the advertizing are no better than the douchebags who think they lead this country.
If no bills are actually being read and they do whatever they want, at our exoense, what does this make you? A STUPID ASSHOLE.
People have a right to be pissed at Obama & his pathetic attempt at leadership which has resulted in a doubling of our already trillion$ debt and only helped to enforce the government and their financial ‘partners’ and did nothing for the country much less the people.
FUCK U & YOUR PETITION
i believe that beck is just saying what we are all thinking, i applaud beck for standing up for the truth, and if the advertisers want to boycott the glenn beck show, than i will boycott the advertisers it goes both ways. so if the advertisers are reading this, good luck on trying to survive.