Home Depot seems to have had a change of heart. They're now unequivocally telling their customers that they will not advertise on Bill O'Reilly's show. Oddly, however, they're now also claiming that they never advertised on O'Reilly's show.
From: Jarvis, Ron @homedepot.com] Sent: Monday, July 30, 2007 3:00 PM To: JH Subject: RE: PULL SUPPORT FOR OREILLY
Thank you for your email , we will not and have not advertised on the Bill O’Reilly show.
And here's another:
From: Defeo, @homedepot.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 8:07 AM To: JH Subject: FW: PULL SUPPORT FOR OREILLY
Good morning, Thank you very much for your message. The Home Depot has a policy that prohibits the running of its advertising on programs that express strong opinions or political views. Please note that this includes Bill O’Reilly’s program. Thank you, Ron
Funny, though, that Home Depot already admitted to advertising on O'Reilly's show in the hateful email they sent customers just a few days ago - you know, the one where they blamed you for hurting the environment:
Dear C (me),
Thank you for contacting The Home Depot Customer Care.
We appreciate you taking the time to forward your concerns regarding The Home Depot's sponsorship of Bill O' Reilly's show on FOX.
The Home Depot has a strong passion for being environmentally responsible both in the Company's operating principles and in responsible retailing through our industry-leading Eco Options initiative, a program that allows customers to easily identify products that have less of an impact on the environment and empowers them to help make a difference in their own homes. We have led many initiatives with interest groups to develop standards and set environmental goals for ourselves and suppliers. Some of these at great expense and sweat equity to the company.
Our advertising campaigns have one simple objective to communicate with audiences in the most effective way possible. The Company is receptive to many forms and styles of media as we seek a balanced representation of programming to reach our customer base.
Unfortunately campaigns like this one cause us to take time away from our sustainability goals and address a variance of political views.
Sincerely,
Atul Customer Care
Gee, Atul, it seems that your story is changing fast.
Perhaps Home Depot is doing "run of network" ads that appear across the FOX networks, with FOX choosing which shows the ads run on. A lot of companies like to use this kind of advertising to claim that they don't advertise on particular shows - it's a smoke screen and a lie. If this is the case here, then Home Depot needs to specifically inform us that they have asked FOX not to run any Home Depot ads on The O'Reilly Factor.
Having said that, Home Depot has some explaining to do if it thinks Hannity is any better than O'Reilly. FOX, across the board, smears gays, blacks, attacks the environment, and more. Home Depot needs to dump the hate network now, across the board.
From: Defeo, Ron [mailto:Ron_DeFeo homedepot.com] Sent: Tuesday, July 31, 2007 8:07 AM To: JH Subject: FW: PULL SUPPORT FOR OREILLY
Good morning, Thank you very much for your message. The Home Depot has a policy that prohibits the running of its advertising on programs that express strong opinions or political views. Please note that this includes Bill O’Reilly’s program. Thank you, Ron
Wow, wouldn't everyone love an employer like this? No matter how badly you perform and no matter how much money the company loses, you get paid a few hundred million dollars, case closed. The Home Depot board eventually fired former hotshot CEO Bob Nardelli after six years of misery but Nardelli probably could care less since the board, the folks still running the company and supporting Bill O'Reilly, dished out one of the fattest work agreements without any connection to performance and left Nardelli $200+ million richer.
So the next time you are looking for supplies, think about the lack of common sense or spirit of American fairness that Home Depot gives to their execs. When you look out at some of the most extreme cases of CEO-worship, the kind that infuriate hard working Americans who have to work for a living and prove themselves at their jobs every day, Home Depot and the infamous contract with Nardelli always is right up there in the top tier, just below Lee Raymond of Exxon who retired with $400m. Why can't Home Depot understand average Americans who believe in fair pay based on success instead of showering mediocre CEOs with millions despite a lack of success?
It comes as no surprise that Home Depot supports Bill O'Reilly in this fiasco because they seem to have great experience with disastrous PR campaigns. No wonder they are so rude to working Americans who have honest values and who are upset with this smear campaign. So while we are waiting for Home Depot to explain their biased support for O'Reilly, maybe they can also tell Americans why they are part of the problem in America of giving handouts to CEOs regardless of their successes or failures. Is Home Depot really supporting American values?
This is rather huge news (even more about it here). The most important advertiser to fall, and the most difficult, is the first. Now the rest (Home Depot) have to explain why they don't care as much as Lowes about threats against Hillary Clinton's life, why they don't care about suggestions regarding launching a terrorist strike against the US Capitol, why they don't care about wishing Rosie O'Donnell dead. Lowes is refusing to associate itself with hate speech and with death threats - why is Home Depot so comfortable with it?
Funny that Home Depot had no problem pulling its ads from BET (that would be black people), but when it comes to O'Reilly's hate, Home Depot blames YOU. So now we know that Home Depot DOES pull its ads. But it only pulls them from black TV networks, not TV networks that ATTACK blacks, not TV networks whose anchor's Web site contains threats to kill Hillary Clinton. No, that's okay for Home Depot.
Find more O'Reilly advertisers here and contact them all. Tell them about O'Reilly's hate, about the death threats against Hillary, about the suggested act of terror against the US Capitol, about wishing Rosie dead. Tell them Lowes pulled their ads over this horrendous show of hate. Why won't they?
As for Home Depot, let them really have it. They blame YOU for even having the nerve to contact them.
O'Reilly just two days ago vowed to destroy Daily Kos. He has slandered everyone of us, every one of you. He has compared you, our readers, to the KKK and the Nazis. He has claimed that we actually encourage people to post comments advocating the assassination of Vice President Cheney, and that when we're told about such comments, we refuse to remove them - a total lie. The man has jumped the shark in his desperate attempt to remain relevant in an America that no longer turns to FOX for its fake news. FAUX's reign of terror, O'Reilly's reign of terror, the far-right's lying, hateful reign of terror is over. We're not afraid of the hateful liars any more. Contact his advertisers now.
Oh, you're gonna love this. Home Depot is now telling its customers that if you have the audacity to complain about BillOReilly.com's death threats against Hillary Clinton and suggestions of a terrorist attack against the US Capitol then YOU are the problem.
Here is the letter Home Depot is sending its customers:
Our advertising campaigns have one simple objective to communicate with audiences in the most effective way possible. The Company is receptive to many forms and styles of media as we seek a balanced representation of programming to reach our customer base. Unfortunately campaigns like this one cause us to take time away from our sustainability goals and address a variance of political views.
Get it? If you complain about Home Depot sponsoring Bill O'Reilly's hate, then YOU are hurting the environment because you're wasting their precious time.
Somebody in corporate communications is going to get fired.
Apparently threatening to take a gun to Hillary Clinton and suggesting we burn down the US Capitol building is okay to post on Bill O'Reilly's Web site, but complaining about those terrorist and assassination proposals gets your banned. Which brings into question just how serious Bill O'Reilly is about the death threats being posted on BillOReilly.com since an attempt to find those threats is cause for being banned. Where's your free speech now, Bill?
Why are jetBlue and Home Depot insisting on supporting people who seem more concerned about liberals than they are terrorists? Perhaps you should ask them. Here is jetBlue's contact: corporatecommunications@jetblue.com
