Word count: 944 | Reading time: 4 min read
Pretzel Logic
Stuart Schlaffman has a message.
Wake up, America, says Schlaffman, owner of The Mood, a South Street purveyor of lingerie, candles and sex toys. When it comes to media mergers, there’s censorship to be had.
Schlaffman was only trying to advertise his store and make a good honest living when he learned that lesson the hard way.
Radius Communications, the company he contracted back in December to purchase cable time, was purchased by Comcast.
And Comcast told him that it didn’t like his ads, which he’d paid Monsoon, a Philly “brand-building” media house, thousands to produce. Even though Schlaffman also paid a $7,000 down payment to Radius, Comcast deemed the ads — all with the tagline “Wake up, America. There’s sex to be had” — inappropriate, especially for suburban viewers.
Which meant that the only one getting fucked, so to speak, was Schlaffman, who was hoping to pair the cable campaign with the launching of his Web site to give him a boost for Valentine’s Day, his biggest holiday of the year.
(Try as he might, Comcast spokesman Vic Skowronksi was unable to get comment from anyone at either Comcast or Radius. Radius did not return a phone call seeking comment.)
Schlaffman’s campaign is made up of five 15-second spots, all featuring very average people doing very average things when a deep, disemboweled voice tells the viewer that all these people really need is to get laid.
“When you think about it, the ads they refused to run pertained to someone’s rear end.”
The ads are fairly clever and, when you compare them to a lot of the slop you see on television, really rather tame. A copy of the ads was given to me by Steve Puccia, Monsoon’s chief development officer (a former City Paper colleague and an old buddy of mine whom my kids refer to as “Regular Steve”).
In the first ad, a man in a car is stuck in traffic, yelling. “You wouldn’t be so angry about getting cut off today if you got rear ended last night,” intoned the voiceover.
The second ad showed two parents cleaning up toys in their kid’s room. The woman looks at a toy rocket while the announcer says, “Isn’t it about time you two picked up some toys for yourselves?”
The third ad is a shot of a man and a woman on a couch. “You ought to be ashamed, watching football all weekend when there’s an all-star tight end next to you.”
The fourth ad shows two women looking through a window at shoes. “You’ve got enough shoes. What you need is some booty.”
The fifth ad focused on a man working out in a gym. “You’ve worked really hard on that tight ass of yours. Isn’t it about time someone else did?”
Schlaffman’s ad campaign ran into trouble even before its Jan. 17 launch date.
Schlaffman says that three days before they were supposed to run, Radius, which had already signed off on the ads, came back to him and said, Stuart, we have a problem.
Because of restrictions placed by Comcast, Radius was no longer offering the original 3 p.m. to midnight run, instead shunting The Mood to the more adult-oriented 9 p.m. to midnight run.
Not only that, but the ads were too racy for Montgomery County residents and as such, would not be allowed to run there.
“Demographically, they really messed me up,” says Schlaffman. “We are not a sleazy store. We just happen to have funny ads. We pertain to romance and all that stuff. We have toys, but they pushed me into an area where a shadier person might watch. The mainstream person is my customer. That is what this store is designed for. The housewife at home.”
Schlaffman, along with the folks at Monsoon, say they protested Radius’ retooling, to no avail.
On the morning of Jan. 17, just 10 hours before the ads were supposed to run, Schlaffman’s campaign took another hit.
He was told that Comcast was purchasing Radius the next day. And that Comcast was not going to run ads telling people that there was sex to be had.
“They killed the ads,” says Schlaffman. “They killed my whole media campaign. Killed it.”
Schlaffman was left with an option.
Scrap his entire campaign, or settle for a watered-down version. He chose the latter.
Gone is the “Wake up, America” tagline.
Gone is the ad with the two women looking at shoes.
Gone too are the more homoerotic ads — the one with the man in traffic and the one with the man working out.
Schlaffman definitely sees a pattern.
“It’s homophobic, without a doubt,” says Schlaffman. “When you think about it, the ads they refused to run pertained to someone’s rear end.”
(The only rear-end-referenced ad that remains is the football couple on the couch.)
Schlaffman says he is furious that he is being censored, and says that this is what you get with media mergers.
“If I had done the same thing to them, I would have a major problem on my hands,” says Schlaffman.
Puccia is equally peeved.
“What about the ads they run for strip clubs like Wizzards and the Purple Orchid, that show half-naked women?” Puccia asks. “What about Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake? What about all the shows with sex and murder? Let me tell you something. If this wasn’t just a small campaign, if this was a major advertiser, we wouldn’t be having these troubles. We’d be hearing, ‘Wake up, America, there’s money to be made.’”
