This story appeared in the Bedford/ Pound Ridge Record Review newspaper on Friday August 17th 2007, and is reprinted here with permission.
Freedom of speech violation or just doing business?
By EVE MARX of the Bedford Record Review
Mark Stevens is ticked. The Pound Ridge resident and CEO of MSCO, a Rye Brook-based international management and marketing firm, took a hit earlier this year when an ad for Mr. Steven’s latest book, “YourMarketingSucks.com,” on a billboard in New Rochelle was abruptly removed. He said Clear Channel Outdoor, the company responsible for the billboard, never notified him they were taking it down.
The reason, a spokesperson for Clear Channel, Jennifer Gery, said, was, “Some officials complained.”
In addition to running a company, Mr. Stevens is the author of 20 books including “Sudden Death: The Rise and Fall of E.F. Hutton,” a Wall Street Journal best seller and Library Journal business book of the year. His enormously popular “Your Marketing Sucks,” published by Crown in 2003, is a perennial best seller in paperback and overseas. The “Your Marketing Sucks”billboard has been displayed in numerous markets around the U.S. including Manhattan, and two locations in New Rochelle.
“The billboard was up and we were getting a lot of response from it,” Mr. Stevens said last week. “It got people going to our Web site and generated a lot of Web site traffic to the MSCO Web site. Then one day I was in a conference room in my offices in Rye Brook and I got a call from a guy who demanded to speak to my assistant.”
Mr. Stevens said the man was “furious.”
“He said he was driving along and he saw the ‘Your Marketing Sucks’ billboard and he flew into a rage. He started screaming. He said he had his 5-year-old daughter in the car and that my billboard had ruined her life.”
Mr. Stevens said he never got the name of the man, who said he was a vice president of a division of Berkshire Hathaway, an Omaha, Nebraska based company whose chairman and CEO is Warren Buffett. “He said my billboard ruined his daughter’s life but his phone call basically ruined my day.”
Mr. Stevens said he tried explaining to the man that the word “suck” was not an obscenity.
The caller wouldn’t hear it.
“He demanded I rip the board down,” Mr. Stevens said. “He said that if I didn’t, he would bring the wrath of the entire Berkshire Hathaway empire down on me and my business. I told him I don’t take to threats kindly and I said goodbye.”
But that wasn’t the end of the story.
Soon afterwards, without notice, Clear Channel tore the billboard down.
Mr. Stevens only became aware of this turn of events by accident when he took a drive to see his billboard and found it blank.
“I thought it was a mistake,” he said. He called Clear Channel and was told his message was down because of official complaints. Besides his grievance that its removal was in violation of his contractual agreement, Mr. Stevens feels his First Amendment rights have been violated. “Where do you draw the line?” he said. “It’s like taking every newspaper in the country and burning it because you don’t like the headline.”
Since then, Mr. Stevens has been interviewed by USA Today, Reuters, and numerous radio networks about the incident. What really ticked him off was that Clear Channel gave him no reimbursement, no apology and no explanation.
In similar situations across the nation, residents and lawmakers have been demanding signage deemed to be offensive be taken down. In some cases, the signs do not have to be removed, but must be set a certain distance from the highway. There may be other restrictions. For example, a billboard in Manhattan displaying bare bottoms with smiley faces never saw the light of day after a judge last July temporarily blocked its installation because the nearby Times Square Church objected. In 2001 the billboard industry added an anti-obscenity clause to its code of principles. The clause has been both vilified and applauded depending on who is doing the complaining.
“I feel completely angry,” Mr. Stevens said, although he said Clear Channel agreed to put up another billboard in another location with different text.
“They did not notify me which they are contractually obligated to do,” Mr. Stevens said. “It’s crazy, but there were two billboards in the same community that had the same message. One is still up and the other is down.”
Mr. Stevens said at one point he was planning to take Clear Channel to court, but then they gave him a free board. “There are other companies that do billboards,” Mr. Stevens said. “I could have gone to any one of them. My company has a major campaign and there hasn’t been a single problem anywhere else in the country except for New Rochelle.”
Mr. Stevens said there is nothing pornographic about the word “suck,” which he believes lies at the heart of the issue. “The word is not pejorative. There’s nothing pornographic or insulting to anyone except for marketers whose ideas don’t work.” He said he can’t be responsible for things that other people have a problem with. “There are people who have a problem with dogs who aren’t dressed,” he said. “There’s a whole movement against dogs not wearing clothes.” He also pointed out that a diet book called “Skinny Bitch” is now a hot best seller.
“Somebody at Clear Channel is clearly afraid of somebody in New Rochelle,” Mr. Stevens asserted. “I have no idea who called me that day on the phone. I feel like I’m on trial and I don’t even know who the accuser is.”
When contacted by The Record-Review, Jennifer Gery, the Clear Channel spokeswoman and an employee of Brainerd said that she was no longer commenting on the situation and that a Clear Channel executive would have to respond to any questions. So far there has been no response.
“I know political correctness has risen to tidal wave proportions,” Mr. Stevens said. “Still, ‘YourMarketing Sucks.com’ is not the worst thing anyone is going to hear or see all week.”
This story reprinted with the permission of the Bedford/ Pound Ridge Record Review.
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First of all Mark, your freedom of speech right is being violated. You should fight this. It is ridiculous that your billboard was taken down without you being told AND that you are not being given a refund. You should sue them because you will win.
Second, you are the luckiest guy in the world as I am sure this is generating a ton of publicity for you and your firm and will lead to you landing many new clients.
To those of you who are reading this, you should learn something—make your marketing controversial. It makes people take notice and it can generate a ton of publicity for you.
Peter Geisheker
CEO
The Geisheker Group Marketing Firm
What about the book The No Assohole Rule – now that’s offensive!
I know Mark and have been a client of his and respect him, but this time I think he’s wrong for two reasons. 1) any message should be given in the context of the receiving audience. Clearly in this case, the wider audience, i.e. the surrounding community, found the message to be offensive. Mark can rightfully say that the entire community is not the audience the message was intended for, but use of mass media communications eliminates the ability to target the message. Mesages need to consider the recipients, all of them. 2) Freedoms as guaranteed in the bill of rights have corresponding responsibilities. The freedom to say anything you want at anytime to anyone you desire simply does not exist. One has to be responsible for the message in its’ context. If one community finds an expression of speech offensive, the sender may have to alter the communication for that audience. That’s the responsibility side of freedom of speech. It’s one of the tenants of this great country is to use our freedoms wisely and for what it’s worth, I don’t believe this is a wise use of that particular freedom.
Mark, I certainly hope you get that billboard back up. It should not have been taken down and I highly doubt any precious child’s life is going to be ruined by that word.
I frequently use the word lightheartedly and seriously myself, but I think when you boil it down there’s no doubt that the whole “sucks” reference in popular culture really does originally refer to a sexual act, and that root reference is not just limited to some misty, hazy origin from decades or generations ago, either.
Thanks for the opportunity to contribute.
Hey Mark,
CONGRATULATIONS on creating so much free publicity for this – it is amazing.
I first heard about you because I actually saw your billboard and thought how brilliant it was.
Keep up the great work
Bruce
Bruce Hultgren
CEO
PocketAngels.com
One wonders what was going on in the mind of the irate person who protesting the sign. He’d better seal his daughter in a room until she reaches adulthood because if he finds this offensive… just wait. Such nonsense. But as they say virtually any publicity is good publicity and this publicity certainly does not suck.
There was a similar issue in Chicago with a law firm specializing in divorce.
The ads probabably would’ve been alright if they for for cars or something…
Someone thought they were making light of the sanctity of marriage and
encouraged people to have extra marital affairs.
Anyway… the firm took the ads off the billboards and now they are driven all through
downtown (that’s where I saw them) on the mobile billboard trailers.
google: ‘chicago law firm advertising’ to see them.