The chairman of a resurgent company that is planning to revive a brand of cough/throat drops that has been on hiatus and take it national did not take kindly to the opening question during a CNN Republican presidential primary debate in South Carolina, and has now promised to exclude CNN from its advertising plans.
Rider McDowell, the Chairman of Pine Brothers, was exercised because CNN’s John King opened the debate with a question to Newt Gingrich about allegations from his second wife. “That John King would squander an opportunity to discuss important issues with a legitimate Presidential candidate, and instead probe into that candidate’s rumored sexual proclivities, is shocking,” he said.
McDowell noted that he had been planning to include CNN in an advertising push to come during the fall of the year, but has decided instead to skip using CNN in order to send them a message.
Explained McDowell, “The reflex negativity has got to stop, and as the mainstream TV media is the largest purveyor of negative news, it has to stop there. Americans are deeply concerned about the real and profound issues at hand, whether it’s the economy, nuclear proliferation or the public school system.”
RBR-TVBR observation: Pine Brothers is getting a little publicity out of this (from us, at least), but we’d tread in this area very carefully if we were running the company. We’re sure the company would like to sell their product to anyone who wishes to buy it regardless of race, creed or political affiliation.
We don’t recall the topic of lozenges coming up in any debate we’ve heard during our entire life. And although the chairman of this company thought the John King question was out of line, perhaps we as a member of the lozenge-buying public wanted an answer to that exact same question. When we are in a specialty store like, say, Frank’s House of Lozenges, we will remember Pine Brothers for the wrong reasons and pick some other brand. We think in the end, Pine Brothers would be wise to not provide us with a reason to do that.
Just saying…
