Facing a potentially brand-killing boycott of Rockstar Energy Drink by key sectors of its target demos — nightclubbing young gays and their non-gay, socially liberal cohorts — CEO Russ Weiner and his mother, CFO Janet Weiner — issued a statement last week in which they sought to distance themselves from the unabashedly homophobic views of radio ranter Michael Savage, who is their father and husband, respectively:
Savage’s radio sponsors should take note that not only has Savage himself said that associating his persona with a product “smears” it, lawyers representing Savage’s son have said that Savage’s connection to a product “defames” it.
“Some have erroneously associated our company with offensive language directed at LGBT people, specifically statements coming from Michael Savage, who is not and has never been a shareholder or officer of Rockstar Energy Drink. On behalf of our company and directors, including myself and CFO Janet Weiner, I would like to take this opportunity to disavow any offensive statements directed toward LGBT people, including statements from Michael Savage. Rockstar assures our customers and the general public that our brand will never be associated with any language that does not affirm the essential dignity of every person in our diverse national community.”
The Weiners’ statement was prepared as part of a deal with an ad hoc group of gay rights activists and editors of political websites who had advocated boycotting Rockstar because of the connections — familial, ideological and, allegedly, financial — between Savage and the company’s senior management.
The resolution of the conflict — which, in addition to the statement, includes assurances from the Weiners that Rockstar will treat its gay employees fairly, as well as a pledge of $100,000 in contributions to gay-rights groups — also represents a reversal of Rockstar’s hamfisted initial strategy to stifle the boycott: hiring the high-priced law firm of OJ Simpson “dream team” lawyer Robert Shapiro to threaten bloggers and activists with lawsuits.
As a result of this strategy, the Weiners created a bizarre conundrum. Not only did Rockstar’s lawyers assert that bloggers who pointed to the connection between Savage and his family’s energy drink “defame” the product, but Savage himself made a statement revelatory of self-loathing in which he described attempts to tie him to Rockstar as a “McCarthyesque smear campaign.” These assertions prompt a question: Why would Savage’s radio sponsors want to advertise with a host whose association smears and defames their products.
Bullying bloggers and activists — who generally have few resources other their soapboxes and bullhorns — was clearly the wrong strategy. As we suggested in Pensito Review last month, “Paradoxically, the Weiners’ intimidation-by-lawsuit strategy will almost certainly produce the very outcome they seem desperate to avoid: making the Rockstar boycott a headline story and the subject of endless chatter on cable news.” Our take then was that “[instead] of lawyering up, a smarter — and cheaper — strategy would have been to hire a PR firm that specializes in damage control.”
We’re not suggesting the Weiners took our advice, of course, but rather that what needed to be done was so obvious that even a fool could see it.
A broad-strokes timeline of events leading up to the resolution of the boycott follows…
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