Between a Rock and a Hard Place: P&G

It seems that Procter & Gamble, Walmart, Geico, and others are facing a bit of a dilemma regarding their television commercial placement. According to a recent AdAge article, these companies have been the target of boycotts Left and Right in connection with advertisements during Fox News Channel's Glenn Beck show.

Apparently Beck's "flamin' conservatism" has prompted some liberal activists - including Donny Deutsch of CNBC's The Big Idea - to boycott the companies who advertise during the show. In response, Walmart, Geico, and Men's Wearhouse have specifically pulled their commercials from that time slot. Other targets of the boycott, including P&G, SC Johnson, and Progressive Insurance, protest that they never intended for their spots to run during Beck's show in the first place.

And now the companies who pulled their commercials from Beck's show (whether or not they originally meant for their ads to run during that time) are facing another boycott: this time, from Beck's supporters who resent the pulling of the ads.

What's an advertiser to do? Especially an advertiser whose general primetime ads just happened to fall during Beck's show?

A few options come to mind:

1) Advertisers could choose to run or pull the ads based on who their customers are, and what those customers' political convictions are. If a company serves customers from all parts of the political spectrum, it could base the decision on the Customer Lifetime Value at risk from liberal boycotters versus conservative boycotters.

2) Advertisers could choose to run or pull the ads based on the companies' own political convictions. After all, you can't always waver based on the whims of your customers. Sometimes you have to stand on your own values, don't you?

3) Advertisers could maintain the status quo, leave the spots as originally purchased, and continue to buy ads during broad time slots, leaving the particular show times up to the luck of the draw. These companies are never going to please everyone, the boycotts have to blow over sometime, and, as someone once said, "there's no such thing as bad publicity."

Stay tuned for what happens next....