Long John Silver's Restaurants recently aired a television commercial featuring their new lunch sandwiches. They chose to depict a police officer "stealing" someone's Long John Silver's sandwich.
HUT KS 911 brought this to my attention, and mentioned that the Fraternal Order of Police in his area was not too happy with the commercial. We both understood this, having been through the Kellogg's Breakfast Cereal "fat dispatcher" fiasco a few months ago, ourselves. Since the e-mail and telephone campaign to inform Kellogg's of the displeasure of the Public Safety Communications community worked so well, we thought we ought to assist our Law Enforcement partners with their situation.
When I sent out the regular Dispatch Chat Session logs from America Online on October 1st, I included this information:
ANOTHER COMMERCIAL TO PROTEST! - Long John Silver's Restaurants are depicting a police officer "stealing" someone's meal. Granted, it's meant to be humorous, but here's a letter from one of our regulars that will provide us all with the e-mail address to protest the ad.
I don't know know if you've seen the ad where the officer takes food from a citizen, but I found it disgusting. It gives all officers a bad image.
I found a place to send comments to LJS. The URL is:
http://www.ljsilvers.com/comments.htm
This is a form you can fill out. I have sent the following text, and encourage other dispatchers to take a similar stance.
Remembering our battle with Kelloggs, and the help officers provided to us, I would like to see participation from us to help them with this."
Okay..... so, everyone, get your typing fingers ready and let Long John Silver's know how we feel about it!
D'ya think that's enough, folks? I intend to make contact with that URL again and mention that I know full well that advertising is a competitive business, and their competitors just got mine.
For anyone else on this bandwagon, here's the URL:
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So, there ya have it, folks!
(c) 1996, 1997 gryeyes@redshift.com
Subject: Ad campaign for Long John Silver's
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 1997 20:48:41 -0500
From: HUT KS 911
To: "Linda Olmstead, AOL"
"I am disgusted with your current ad involving the officer "stealing" food from a citizen. This type of ad campaign hurts the credibility of officers. They work hard to gain the trust of the citizens. One ad like this can destroy the trust that has taken years to develop. I will not be eating at any Long John Silver's establishment until this current ad campaign has been pulled."
"I'm disheartened at the recent TV commercial that depicts a peace officer taking a meal from someone he's stopped for a traffic infraction.
Your marketing people may have considered it to be "cute" or amusing, but it's not amusing to those of us in Public Safety careers. This just fosters an unfortunate, and widely held, belief by the public that law enforcement personnel are "on the take" or otherwise open to dereliction of duty.
The "children of the Media" out there will probably find it hilarious, I'm sure, to make comments to officers stopping them for legitimate traffic infractions.
Not too long ago, Kelloggs discovered how unhappy the public safety community was with THEIR unflattering depiction of dispatchers; expect a similar campaign against this advertisement."
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OCTOBER 13th, 1997
"On another subject, has anyone gotten any feedback from Long John Silver's restaurant TV advertisement about the police officer taking someone's meal? HutKS911 and I have both gotten postcards from the company....which read:
"Thank you for taking the time to share your comments about "Trooper," the television commerical used to promote Long John Silver's new Grab & Go sandwiches. Let us assure you, it was never our intent to malign law enforcement officials. Police officers are courageous and professional in performing their duties. We have nothing but the highest regard for their
work. But because television advertising is a competitive medium, it requires we grab the consumer's attention with funny, entertaining, riveting and informative ads. Commercials rairely attempt t project the "reality" of everyday living. The story line of our commercial was never intended to portray "reality." It's strictly played for laughs. If you were offended, please accept my apology and convey my thoughts to your friends.
Bruce Hinton, Senior Director of Public Relations."
http://www.ljsilvers.com/comments.htm
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OCTOBER 14th, 1997
Long John Silver's pulls trooper ad
from Louisville Courier - Journal 14 October 1997
by Patrick Howington
Long John Silver's is retiring the sandwich-swiping police trooper in its TV commercial, which drew fire from Law-enforcement groups.
The commercial, for the company's "Grab and Go" sandwich promotion, shows a trooper telling a motorist he's stopped for speeding at a Long John Silver's drive-through and to "put the sandwiches on the car and step away." The officer then walks to his cruiser with the sandwiches, saying, "I've got to check this out."
The Lexington, KY based seafood chain got more than 1,000 letters and calls about the ad, most of them complaints about its portrayal of law enforcement, said Bruce Hinton, the chain's director of public relations.
However, Hinton said the complaints weren't why the ad, which began running Sept., 15 in 120 markets, is leaving the air early.
(Editorial comment: "yeah, right!")
He said the company had produced a second commercial for several test markets where the trooper ad began running this summer. The company decided to "get the full value out of" the second commercial by running it nationwide now.
Hinton said commercials usually run about six weeks. The trooper ad will be phased out this week.
Deborah Richardson, a spokeswoman for the national Fraternal Order of Police, said the organization would "be very pleased if they pulled it. (It would) let us feel like they at least had some feeling about . . . what they were portraying law enforcement as."
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