Posted on 03/11/2012 4:06:57 AM PDT by PJ-Comix
One week agao, on Saturday night, March 3, 2012, Carbonite announced its decision to break off relations with its key radio endorser. It appears to have been a fateful decision.
From Chuck Jaffe at MarketWatch, Don’t ‘rush’ to Carbonite shares (h/t commenter Eliot Ness):
When Carbonite Inc. stock took a quick plunge this week, there was an obvious consensus about what caused the move: The company pulled advertising from Rush Limbaugh’s talk-radio program after the controversial host made inflammatory remarks about a Georgetown University law student.
Yes, the market could have feared that Limbaugh’s fans would cancel Carbonite’s service, an online back-up solution for consumers and businesses, or mount their own boycott. Or maybe investors assumed Carbonite will suffer because it will no longer have access to Limbaugh’s audience.
Jaffe goes on to point out that Carbonite has underlying business problems which are driving the long term decline in the stock price, but quotes another analyst as pointing out that the result drop likely is attributable to the Rush controversy:
“There is no way Carbonite’s underlying business is changing as much as the stock trading says it is on a daily basis,” said David Trainer, president of New Constructs Inc., a research firm based in Nashville. “That says there is a lot of excessive trading going on; maybe it’s the Rush thing or maybe not. … For the average investor, a stock this young being pushed around by like this traders is a wing and a prayer.”
Reader Zane makes a related point at his blog:
However, the reality is, with the exception of a zealous few, there will be likely little customers to be had amongst the activists – certainly not the amount of customers that were reached by the Limbaugh show. By the time next Valentines day rolls around will the money spent by the activist come close to money spent by listeners of Rush- likely not even close.That being said,
One more thing : I don’t know if boycotting Limbaugh was a good business choice and I think, no one else knows either. What I do know is: making decisions based on the loudest screamers of the moment, does not usually bring about good business results.
That was my first reaction when Carbonite dropped Rush. How many of the DailyKos and Media Matters screamers actually used or were considering using Carbonite. Probably few.
Why did Carbonite make such a precipitous decision?
There are few things that cannot wait for Monday morning, yet Carbonite issued its statement on a Saturday night, in what appears to be a matter of executives’ personal and political opinions outweighing shareholder interests.
Shareholder are getting massacred as a result.
I actually began using Carbonite because of Rush; but was badly disappointed when my computer crashed and it did NOT backup my “Outlook Express” e-mails. I dropped it.
I’ve noticed they are suddenly advertising on Fox..Ironic, they are still targeting an audience who leans right.
Interesting - thanks very much for that.
You believe that and I believe that. The problem is that Rush does not, and he has on a number of shows gone into why. It’s a nice dream and one I share. But that’s 99.99999999% likely all it will ever be.
Obama was right about one thing. “WE” have to be the change we want and not hope for some savior. Sure we need leaders, but we have to ‘be’ those leaders. A Rush, Palin or Newt can’t do it without us.
In the future, will the Carbonite bad fallout be associated with DailyKos and Media Matters screamers in the minds of advertisers?
All of a sudden the last couple of days I have noticed Carbonite commercials on TV. Never saw them before.
There was a case years ago involving Newt Gingrich traveling by car in Florida. A couple, I surmised local Democrat amateur operatives, ‘accidentally’ illegally recorded a Mobile Phone Conversation and sent it to their local Democrat Congressman who, in turn, provided to the Congressional Democrat hierarchy. ALL of this was patently illegal by Federal Statute, yet they did it anyway. AND, they tried to use it against him even when they were caught at it.
The bottom line is this: a Democrat, a Democrat sympathizer, a Democrat Voter, nor a member of the liberal main stream media CANNOT be trusted, period. This also goes for companies controlled by Democrat pukes. If they have your data, they will eventually get around to sifting through it to see how it can be used to their benefit. Additionally, since the government, your enemy in fact now, is controlled by Obama, it would not surprise me one damned bit that the NSA and other government organizations aren’t already sifting through Carbonite data.
Just because you believe people might be out to get you or do you harm doesn’t necessarily make you paranoid. History shows us Democrats misuse and abuse freedom if given the chance.
The problem is that most of the country does have a clue who the "beast" is. They only hear the MSM who tells them that conservatism is the "beast".
Another “ex” sponsor, Sleep Train or Sleep Number, saw this “bad for business” handwriting on the wall after their bitch-slap of Rush and came crawling back last week, only to hear “get lost” from Rush.
I see more Carbonite and that scam lawyer forms company advertising on reality TV, but it remains that now they have voluntarily ID’d themselves as anti-conservative. Never a good thing to pissoff 1/2 your prospective customer base with either politics or religion.
The trouble with liberal business managers (as well as liberals in general) is that they mistakenly think they are so smart that the Law of the Jungle does not apply to them.
You may have Post Of The Day!
One of his DNC buddies probably called him up and suggested that he do this for the party.
One undeniable truth I hope is learned from this whole episode....
PC FASCISM AIN’T GOOD FOR BUSINESS!
They're advertising on the Speed Channel. Going after the NASCAR and other racing people who very much tend to lean right.
Problem for Carbonite is they're going to need to replace an audience of 20 million that has largely constituted their base, and that's hard to do.
Have you considered cancelling them now? You’ve given them notice about your feelings but still are allowing them access to your system. Just a thought.
Thanks for the tip about Amazon. I am weak on my linux applications but there are so many and I don’t play with linux nowhere near like I used to years ago.
When I did, it drove some of my techno-illiterate co irkers insane just having a live disc in my personal laptop and doing routine things since they would not try to understand anything other than windoze.
I think the writer needs to look again because from what I’ve seen many of the customers were Rush fans and did cancel when they pulled this.Liberals only whine and cry they are not loyal customers
That was my take, and I made a point to comment on a Yahoo article where all the left-wing nuts were Yahooing (ahem) about the departing advertisers.
I pointed out how stupid they were as those protesting had the attention span of a goldfish and in a week or so would be on to the next outrage-du-jour while the Rush supporters, with all the competition out there, would find other businesses to buy from and never come back.
“They are advertising on Fox News channel. First ad I have seen for them last night. Still wanting the conservative leaning audience...wonder why? ;)”
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Yeah, I’ve noticed the NUMEROUS Carbonite ads on Fox also. They appear to be as numerous as the acorns an Oak Tree produces in the death throes of its final dying season.
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