Thanks, SaraJohnson. To be clear, I read Free Republic - I just never had posted before. And it wasn’t so much that I wanted to start a personal activism crusade as much as I wanted to inform others who are like-minded so that they knew and could act if they wanted. I, personally, have acted upon it, but I certainly don’t expect or assume others will.
Someone was able to post a copy of the email graphic in this same thread above so people could see what it said. I appreciate their doing that since I didn’t know how.
Just a follow-up:
I didn’t receive a call or email back from The Counter Burger so I called them and spoke to the marketing manager. He said he was “just going to call” me.
Basically, he said that it “certainly wasn’t” their intent to make imagery that looked exactly like Obama’s campaign and that they hadn’t realized it. When I asked if it was purely a coincidence that the colors and type of imagery were exactly the same (right down to which side was red and which side was blue, and where the logo was placed), he then shifted to a “We want to be relevant” tactic. He said that Counter Burger was founded upon the idea that people have a voice in how they want their burger done and that this was an extension of that. He said they didn’t see harm in encouraging people to contact their representatives to express their own opinion. I pointed out that the email they sent doesn’t tell them to express their own opinion but tells them the opinion to express - no- “demand” a certain opinion (basically - to vote for the Reid or Boehner plan), then uses suggestive imagery.
By the end of the call, he actually was spinning it (most of the call was spin) as that the promotion worked because the point was to get people expressing their opinion and I was expressing mine to him. I reminded him that while I had already expressed my opinion to my representatives, the only other expression of opinion being done was about the Counter’s marketing campaign and with my wallet by no longer patronizing The Counter. After a lot of spin and being challenged on it, he ended up admitting that the imagery may not have been clear. He said that when they send out the email about the free fries, they will use different imagery. He also added that they would “be more careful about wording” on the email.