If you were following the Super Bowl ads closely this year, you would have noticed an advocacy ad for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, which depicted a drug dealer lamenting his recent lack of customers, because “kids are just getting high out of their medicine cabinets nowadays.” Which, well, no problem with that specifically—it’s a perfectly sound message reminding parents to be careful about their prescription drugs. Some big question marks do arise, however, when you consider the email that PETA received from FOX Television last month when we submitted our own series of ads to run during the Super Bowl:
“Time will not be sold on FBC network facilities for viewpoint or issue advocacy, and advertisers may not use their commercial time for addressing viewpoints or issues.”
So what’s going on here? Was FOX outright lying to us to get us off their case, or is there something I’m missing here? To make FOX’s double standard even more obvious, one of the three ads that we submitted (the series was designed to raise awareness about KFC’s cruel treatment of chickens) specifically addressed the issue of drug abuse. I’ve posted that ad below.
Here’s the letter we sent to FOX Broadcasting Company’s VP of Advertising Sales today, asking him, essentially, WTF?, and you can watch the entire series of ads that were banned from Super Bowl consideration here.
