Advertisers and media pull ads in response to Iraqi war

by Staff,, Brand Republic 21-Mar-03, 09:00

NEW YORK - Procter & Gamble has put a 48-hour ban on all its advertising, and General Motors, the biggest advertiser in the US, and Kraft have pulled their ads from news broadcasts as the war on Iraq begins.

According to reports, P&G pulled its ads after the first strike on Baghdad this week. It is the second biggest advertiser in the US, spending some $2.2bn (£1.4bn) annually.

Kraft Foods, which owns brands such as Philadelphia cream cheese, Oreo cookies, Jell-o and Kool-Aid, is to continue advertising in entertainment programmes, according to reports, but will not show ads during news bulletins. The same policy will apply to its print, radio and internet advertising.

However, some news programmes have chosen to run without advertising at all while they broadcast news of the attack on Iraq.

On the internet, some sites have suspended advertising. AOL Time Warner took ads off America Online's welcome screen as well as some of the news sites it owns, such as CNN.com and Time.com.

Yahoo! and Washingtonpost.com have removed advertising from the pages of their sites that are dedicated to covering the war in Iraq.

Not all advertisers are so sensitive to public opinion. Burger King has said that selling Whoppers is a friendly thing, and it will not change its advertising arrangements. IBM also said that it would keep its advertising plans.

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