WyBlog

How to contact Letterman's sponsors about the boycott

The "boycott Letterman's advertisers and sponsors" movement is getting legs. Hey, it got me my first Instalanche! To make it really effective we need to politely contact his sponsors and advertisers to voice our displeasure with his disgusting attempts at "humor". Again, the key is to politely state that you will be boycotting their products or services until they disassociate themselves from David Letterman and CBS.

And if a company does dump Letterman, we should publicly commend them for their decision to stand up for decency and respect.

Here's what I could find regarding that list of sponsors I got from Redstate.

On the Border Restaurants — Here's their web contact form. Their guest relations representatives can be reached at 1-800-983-4637, Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Central Time.

Best Western — They have a Web Contact Form for their corporate advertising programs. This looks like a direct line to the folks who write checks to CBS! It says, "We welcome any questions or comments regarding Best Western International's corporate advertising campaign." Remember, be polite.

Intel — They have an entire web site dedicated to "Corporate Responsibility". I'd say that avoiding guys who make jokes about raping teenagers would be a pretty "responsible" thing to do. Contact info is here.

DiTech — Here's their web contact form. Under "select a topic" pick "feedback about our service".

Lexus — Lexus Customer Satisfaction can be reached at 1-800-255-3987, Monday through Friday, 5:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., or Saturday, 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., Pacific Time. (Thanks to commenter "knot2awake" for the info.) They also have a web contact form. Remember too that Lexus also manufactures Toyotas.

Bowflex — Bowflex is a division of Nautilus, Inc. Their corporate contact form is here.

Mars Candy — M&M's are made right here in New Jersey. And my daughter likes them. But they won't be in our house any more until they cut Letterman and CBS off. Their feedback form is here or you can call them at 1-800-627-7852.

Embassy Suites Hotels — PULLED THEIR ADS!!! I have confirmation from their media relations folks. See the update below. This is awesome news! Please do not hassle them; they did the right thing.
Their Corporate Office is located at 755 Crossover Lane, Memphis, TN 38117. Phone (901)374-5000. They're owned by Hilton. Jim Holthouser is Senior Vice President, Brand Management. He might be interested in just how David Letterman is "managing" his brand. A few kind words of thanks are certainly appropriate.

Capital One — Not in my wallet! The corporate office is located at 1680 Capital One Drive in McLean, Virginia 22102 and the switchboard number is (703) 720-1000.

And be sure to read this comment by Brian72. Letterman is passionate about IndyCar racing and he's partners with IndyCar racing legend Bobby Rahal. Brian notes that IndyCar racing is an expensive, sponsorship-dependent sport. So boycotting the sponsors of Letterman's IndyCar team would really hit him where it hurts. I'll look into it and let you guys know what I find out.

Remember, when you call or write, be polite!

UPDATE 11 Jun 2009 14:26:
Embassy Suites pulled their ads! Score one for the good guys!

Ms. Ray, we sincerely appreciate you and your company's response to this issue as well. Thank you.

UPDATE 11 Jun 2009 15:07:
Let's join Hillbuzz.org in this fight

The folks at Hillbuzz.org are all over the Letterman sponsor boycott like white on rice. This is a bipartisan project.

They have lots of good advice and ideas.

How to write to corporate America by Sebastian Gray, for Gray Matters

List of David Letterman's Advertisers

A brief word on corporate brand management

MARS CANDY is a big advertiser on David Letterman's show. What is MARS CANDY's position on joking about raping 14-year-olds?

What would Al Sharpton do? We need to research the names of all C-suite execs and Board Members of Letterman's advertisers

There's a wealth of information in those posts. One caveat, Hillbuzz is still calling for a boycott of Embassy Suites, contrary to the official statement I received from the Embasssy Suites PR folks saying they are not sponsors of David Letterman. I believe Embassy Suites are good guys here and we should not boycott them.

UPDATE 12 Jun 2009 09:08:
Keep the pressure on, but remember Rome wasn't built in a day.

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous wrote to Lexus and received this somewhat dismissive response from one of their customer service reps.

It takes a while for a big corporation to register negative feedback. The important point is this gentleman's complaint was recognized. I'm pretty sure Lexus is tabulating the number of comments they receive about their sponsorship of Letterman. Eventually the aggregate data will percolate up to someone in authority.

That's why it's important to keep the pressure on, and doubly important for us to be unfailingly polite while doing so.

UPDATE 17 Jun 2009 16:52:
Latest Letterman boycott info — Please read!

Posted at 12:18 by Chris Wysocki   []   | Perm Link |
Technorati Tags: Letterman boycott CBS