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Menstuff® has compiled the following
information on Snapple's encouragement of hazing in
their advertising.
Snapple and Deutsch:
Paddling Backwards
We Wrote Snapple on
7/17/02
Their
Response
Books,
Issues
Snapple and Deutsch:
Paddling Backwards
( Advertising copy from Snapple.com
website: "My college buddies and I used to play a
game that looked a lot like this. It’s nice to
see youngsters carrying on some of our
traditions.")
Black, Latino and NIC fraternities/sororities
have fought inch by inch and year by year to stop
the practice of paddling where it exists in Greek
life and to even question if paddles are
appropriate when placed on sale in campus
bookstores.
Now, out-for-the-bucks Snapple and their
not-so-creative agency Deutsch have a print and
billboard poster called "FRAT" depicting two
bottles with hair and Delta Omega Delta ball caps
looking smug over a prostrate pledge. A broken
paddle sits nearby and other paddles, all with
Greek letters, fill out the picture. The campaign
is aimed at teens, and that worries me.
This is precisely the audience most susceptible
to thinking that paddling and enduring paddling are
cool things to do. What better way to justify their
immature actions then to have Snapple characters
portray as harmless an activity that is criminal in
many of the 43 states with hazing laws?
So what's next from good old Deutsch? How about
two Snapple bottles dressed in tuxes and duct-tape
stovepipe hats thrown through a car windshield
after the Junior Prom? No, that isn't funny, and
I'm just making a point. Nor are all the bleeding
kidneys or lacerated buttocks that get reported
each year because a handful of Greeks are as
brainless as Snapple's ad team, who, we bet, never
pledged a fraternity.
Here all these years we thought the advertising
industry was getting serious when it talked about
having an ethical code. How about showing good
faith, Snapple and Deutsch, to remove the ad on
your own.
A friend of mine in Wisconsin said this about
the Snapple video and movies portraying Greeks as
barbaric thugs: "The general public has a
stereotypical image of fraternities. This is so
reinforcing to that image. That commercial sends
many messages to the subconscious memory. We are
very visual people. And it is being sent to the
kids. Are those the values that fraternities want
as part of their membership? Because the message
is--this is what [Greeks] are about."
I for one encourage all of you to call Snapple
(800.Snapple. 9a-4:30p M-F EST/EDT).with a request
to halt the "FRAT" segment of the ad campaign. Or
write: Ernest J. Cavallo, President/CEO, Ken
Gilbert, VP Marketing, and Whit Beebe,
Director of Advertising, Snapple Bottling Group,
Inc., 709 Westchester Ave, White Plains,
NY 10604, 800.964.7842 or 914.397.9200, fax
914.397.9220, www.snapple.com
 .
Advertising Agency: Kelly Donovan, Director,
Deutsch Inc, 111 Eighth Ave, New York,
NY 10011. 212.981.7600, fax 212.981.7525.
Source: Hank Nuwer,
www.hazing.hanknuwer.com
The ad as it currently appears on their web site.
snapple.com.
Go to the Frat sceen: www.snapple.com/index.asp?pageid=2&subid=2a&contentid=2a
Enlarged photo: www.snapple.com/images/5_1024x768.jpg
LARGE photo
Listservers on the subject: Yahoo groups.yahoo.com/group/fraternalnews/message/685
,
mail.shsu.edu/pipermail/sigmas/2002-May/000066.html
,
groups.yahoo.com/group/fraternalnews/message/687
and "Advertising with Apryl Duncan"
advertising.about.com/library/weekly/aa050101a.htm
We
Wrote Snapple on 7/17/02
Your "Frat" ads aren't funny. Most national
fraternities made boards illegal in the early 60s.
Apparently none of your staff made it into a
fraternity. The bitterness still shows after all
these years. Letting someone use your advertising
dollars to vent their personal issues, is sad. And,
it sure isn't funny, if it is supposed to be. But,
why Snapple would want to promote illegal activites
is beyond me. Please explain
Their Response
Nothing, yet as of 9/25/04 or 1/30/16
* * *
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