Ford Tough II
Ford has found the reverse gear after last week's decision to not advertise Jaguars and Land Rovers in gay publications.
The company had attributed its decision a need to control to marketing costs. In May the American Family Association, a conservative Christian group, had announced a boycott of Ford vehicles and criticized the car maker for making contributions to gay rights groups, offering benefits to same-sex partners and recruiting gay employees.
Ford had said its decision to the pull the ads was not related to the pressure.
Wednesday, the company changed direction. The AP reports:
On Wednesday, Ford wrote the gay rights groups that the luxury brands "made a business decision about their media plans and it would be inconsistent with the way we manage our business to direct them to do otherwise."
Ford pledged to run corporate ads in the publications that will include the entire Ford lineup.
"It is my hope that this will remove any ambiguity about Ford's desire to advertise to all important audiences and put this particular issue to rest," wrote Joe Laymon, Ford's group vice president for corporate human resources.
At the All Spin Zone, SpinDentist seemed concerned about the conservative group's leader, Donald Wildmon:
I imagine he's obsessing about gay and lesbian citizens in some other way. The man really does have a problem. I'm told that the next step the American Family Association will make is to ban itself for lack of Christian values. Better do it soon before Jesus does it for them.
AmericaBlog, which championed the cause, has the most coverage.
MSN tests new blog, search features | The service will let users find blogs and syndicate content using the RSS format, as well as search blogs for specific ...