One company that has become caught up in the controversy swirling around the Fox News show “Hannity” indicated it will change its marketing approach moving forward.
“Financial services firm USAA, facing a backlash to its decision to pull advertising from Sean Hannity’s show … says it is withdrawing from other opinion-based television programs,” the AP reports. “The company, which sells insurance and other products to members of the U.S. military, veterans and their families, had cited its aversion to opinionated programming in backing away from Hannity.”
The talk show has drawn scorn from the left for the host’s focus on a discredited story about a murdered Democratic National Committee staffer, as we reported previously.
“The conservative watchdog Media Research Center noted that USAA ads had run in recent weeks on left-leaning shows hosted by Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell and Chris Matthews on MSNBC,” the AP reports. “The ads were placed in error and that mistake is being corrected, said Roger Wildermuth, USAA spokesman.”
“Since the liberal advocacy group Media Matters for America posted a list of more than 150 of Hannity’s advertisers earlier this week, nine companies have said they no longer wanted to be sponsors,” the AP notes.
Although I didn’t agree with them dropping ads from Hannity, I’m glad they are at least dropping ads from other opinion shows. I’m a USAA member and while I wasn’t planning on boycotting them, I know that a LOT of members were planning on canceling their policies with the company. And the irony is that a good chunk of USAA members are conservative, and Hannity is very supportive of the military, so the company inadvertently insulted much of its base.
I know probably as many liberal members of the military as conservative ones.
USAA is still catching hell on Facebook. They will not live this one down! You can’t claim to support Veterans and then cave to liberal fascists. Bad move IS AS.
Don’t see how “caving to liberal facists” (I don’t agree with the characterization at all, but I’m not going to argue that) in this particular situation is somehow opposed to the company’s mission to “support Veterans”.
In order to provide the best possible service to their members, USAA has to keep their finances healthy, and that means being smart in their marketing spends, right? NOT doing that would be a disservice to their members as well, because that’s wasting money that could go to more services.
So if “caving” means helping the company continue to help Vets, then they should. Corps taking political positions rarely works out well, because while it rarely helps attract new business, it ALWAYS puts off at least some folks so it’s a wash at best and a liability at worst. I don’t know how good/bad USAA is at serving the financial needs of US vets but their advertising choices do not really have much of a bearing on that, in reality.