Lipton Iced Tea Dixie Chicks Ads Pulled

AdAge.Com ^ | June, 19, 2003 | Hillary Chura

[TennTuxedo]

LIPTON ICED TEA DIXIE CHICKS ADS PULLED

Unilever Says It Will Continue Running Current Spots June 19, 2003 QwikFIND ID: AAO77M By Hillary Chura

BOSTON (AdAge.com) -- An ad for Lipton Iced Tea that features the Dixie Chicks is being pulled, according to people familiar with the situation. The country music group's lead singer in March during a concert was made comments critical of President Bush in the days leading up to the country's war with Iraq.

No comment A spokeswoman for Unilever, which jointly markets Lipton with PepsiCo in the Pepsi-Lipton Tea Partnership, would not comment on why the Dixie Chicks ad is not running but said, "Lipton has a number of different advertising and promotional plans in the works and has opted for now to run the commercials that currently are on air."

It's uncertain when or if the ad will run. The ads were to have debuted in May to coincide with the group's first world tour in three years.

Three current 30-second spots, which focus on getting back to a healthy way of living, started running in May in the slots designated for the Dixie Chicks ad, according to one person familiar with the situation. The person said the ads were rushed into production after comments made by Natalie Maines, the group's lead singer, caused a furor among some country music fans.

Texas dustup In a concert in England just prior to the start of the war in Iraq, Ms. Maines told the crowd: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." The group is also from Texas. Radio stations organized boycotts, and Ms. Maine's later issued an apology

J. Walter Thompson Co., New York, produced the Dixie Chicks ads as well as those on air now. The decision not to run the ad has had no effect on the Lipton's sponsorship of the Grammy-winning group's "Top of the World Tour." The plan was for the tour was to offer Lipton a portable integrated marketing opportunity that would have included an associated Lipton Iced Tea TV spot.

PepsiCo and JWT, part of WPP Group, did not return calls for comment.

Lipton Iced Tea spent $2.9 million in measured media last year, according to TNS Media Intelligence/ CMR.

[Eustace]

If it wasn't for the fact that Iraq DID NOT attack us and has never been tied to Al Queda and the sanctions "We" put on Iraq only made the innocent suffer , especially when "We" blew up their access to medicine , oh no , that's right Bin Laden was hiding there excuse me and the fact that , that country NEVER posed a threat to us , I might agree with some of the things you said.

WE have killed innocent people in their own country , that makes US guilty of murder and WE are not too big to reap what WE sow.

WE cannot arm saddistic tyrants and then steal the peoples resources in the name of Christ , because their dictator is a tyrant.

We have enemies , but they are a lot closer than Iraq.

[Farnham]

I've been reading your posts on this thread for about 20 minutes now, and I have a suggestion.

Face either East or West when you type. That way the antenae on your tinfoil hat align with the earth's magnetic field. That will help clear up the static.

As is, we're just getting a cacaphony of disconnected thoughts that really don't make a lot of sense.

[Eustace]

Sorry , I was trying to keep it at about an eighth grade level.

I'll try to talk down for you so you can understand next time.

[milan]

If it wasn't for the fact that Iraq DID NOT attack us and has never been tied to Al Queda and the sanctions "We" put on Iraq only made the innocent suffer , especially when "We" blew up their access to medicine , oh no , that's right Bin Laden was hiding there excuse me and the fact that , that country NEVER posed a threat to us , I might agree with some of the things you said.

WE have killed innocent people in their own country , that makes US guilty of murder and WE are not too big to reap what WE sow.

WE cannot arm saddistic tyrants and then steal the peoples resources in the name of Christ , because their dictator is a tyrant.

We have enemies , but they are a lot closer than Iraq.

This conversation is over.

Go here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/

They will agree with everything you just said, word for word. You will have friends there.

[milan]

Yes, Eustace. We are responsible for everything that is wrong in the world today...especially Iraq. < / liberalism>

[Farnham]

Bless your pea pickin heart!!!

You'd dumb it down just for me!?!?

Now I understand. I reread your posts and just imagined it was an eighth grade girl talking to me, and they made perfect sense. I just wasn't smart enough (like you) to realize that you were just attempting to show the perspective of a narcissistic, airheaded, thinks-she-knows-it-all-but-doesn't-know-didley teenager.

Brilliant!!

[Eustace]

It's funny how when people don't like the truth they try to put words in a persons mouth to discredit what they said and use mudslinging to distract from what's being said.

I'm willing to accept my responsibilty in all this and oppose it , that's not liberalism. Unlike you who blindly follow Bush and make excuses for anything he does.

I can't put the last 2000 years of history in a few paragraphs to explain the reasons why it's wrong to attack another country unprovoked and kill unarmed men , women and children. Hell , I think American's killled more Americans then the Iraqi's did.

The best I can do for you is suggest a couple of books: Hope of the Wicked by Ted Flynn and Rulers of Evil by Tupper Saussy.

If you are unwilling to learn then it will continue to be that those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Peace , I don't want to argue anymore.

[Eustace]

I've wasted enough time exchanging insults with people here , I won't continue with you.

Thank you for taking the time to disagree and discuss the topics here with me.

[milan]

Once again you have gone on a liberal rant. Saddam Hussein is responsible for the death of at least a million people. You are saying we should have left it alone. Maybe over the course of the next 30 years he could kill another million.

By you opposing the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime, you are opposing basic human rights. You are opposing saving more lives in the long run. You are opposing separating a madman from an unstable UN which would have found a way to lift sanction, leave the man in power...and anybody knows that he would pursue large scale weapons programs again.

Forget American involvement for a second. Should we have left Saddam in power? If you say yes, you are saying that it is okay for someone to murder innocent people who disagree with him.

Right now, if you were living in Iraq, and you badmouthed the president (Hussein), like the Dixie Chicks did, you would at least be thrown in prison. Chances are you would be executed. You are saying that we should do nothing about this.

As far as you not seeing how a dictator in the middle east does not pose a direct threat to Americans I will never know. The Iranians are a threat to us also. They give comfort and hiding to those that would do us harm. This is called aiding and abetting...and it is a crime. Yeah, we should deal with Iran right now too. Syria, Hamas, Islamic Jihad...North Korea too. If you don't see the threat they pose, you have problems.

This is what I gather from your viewpoint; if you ran across someone being murdered, you would do nothing about it. You would let it happen. But we are not talking about one person, we are talking about a nation that lives under the fear of a dictator.

2000 years of history has shown us one thing...people never learn from history. You are a perfect example. Was Hitler a threat in 1937? Nope, but if we tried to take him out, people like you would have screamed. We could have saved 50 million people if we had done just that though.

You are the one who has not learned from history. When you see a pattern of ruthlessness from a dictator who has the means to cause the death of millions, you cut his head off as soon as possible. We waited far too long for Iraq, and unfortunately we are waiting far too long for other nations.

Your "didn't learn from history" crap is completely backwards. You don't solve problems with madmen by avoiding going to war. You face them head on and early to save lives.

[MeekOneGOP]

Recent Dixie Chimps articles:

FR Search Keyword: 'Dixie Chicks'

07-07-2003
Shameless Chicks put on bold show -
'it's all about freedom. . .these women have chutzpah'

07-06-2003
Dixie Chicks still taking their licks -
did quip kill goose that laid gold records?

06-19-2003
Lipton Iced Tea Dixie Chicks Ads Pulled

06-11-2003
Toby Keith Says Natalie Maines is 'Miserable,' 'Irresponsible'

06-07-2003
Dixie Chicks ignored (and still in the doghouse)

04-26-2003
Dixie Chicks launch full-frontal attack -
"not...standing their ground...pushing it even farther"

[MeekOneGOP]

I knew things would start to go really bad from them once the liberals stopped inflating their album sales after the spotlight was off them (like a certain Senator from NY's book will too) and then they would go out with a wimper.

An article I posted yesterday backs you up on that regarding their sales, too.
Comment #1:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/940992/posts?page=1#1

Home had already sold a whopping 6 million albums when Ms. Maines slammed the president and the CD was six months old, which meant a steady sales deterioration would be no surprise. But sales have plummeted, and the disc's latest single is foundering. The fallout for the Chicks has been considerable:

• In the three months after the remark, the Grammy-winning Home album went from selling 124,000 copies a week to about 15,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Home had been a Top 10 seller since its August release, so its decline was imminent. But such a precipitous sales drop is a direct result of the controversy over the anti-Bush comment.

< snip >

It didn't help that Ms. Maines wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the letters F.U.T.K., which was widely interpreted as an expletive toward fellow country artist Toby Keith. Ms. Maines and Mr. Keith have traded barbs since August 2002, when she slammed his patriotic song "Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)."