5-15-13
Over the past several years, albeit with their own agenda, some in the radio industry have said talk radio has become too polarizing, costing the industry tens of millions of dollars. The department store Belk found out just how polarizing talk radio can be for an advertiser when it gets caught up in a talk radio controversy. Even when it never should have.
It all began when both sides of the political aisle thought an ad was played during The Rush Limbaugh program. The News and Observer in Charlotte reports that The Daily Kos, a hard-core liberal website that has targeted Rush for years, posted a story that mentioned Belk was running an ad. That was followed by liberals hammering Belk with the typical threat they would never shop at the store. However, a Belk spokesman told the paper, it never even ran an ad in Rush's show.
The News and Observer reports that Belk posted a message on Facebook explaining it doesn?t advertise with Rush, and the ad was run by one of the company?s vendors as part of a new campaign. ?We?ve asked the vendor to pull the ads featuring Belk from The Rush Limbaugh Show going forward,? the company wrote.
Belk's Jessica Graham told the Observer that the department store company doesn?t advertise on talk radio at all, conservative or liberal, and the company was surprised by the Facebook messages about an ad on Limbaugh?s show.
Read the full News and Observer story HERE
With that comment, the other side jumped in as conservatives who support Rush had their say. Belk?s Facebook was bombarded by conservatives who said they were no longer shopping at Belk because Rush was singled out. So, Belk had to explain Rush was not the target. Graham told the Observer, Belk wasn?t targeting Limbaugh?s show when it asked the vendor to stop running the ad in question and added, ?This is why we don?t advertise on talk radio.?
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