Advertisers Flee Website Promoting Latest BET Show, " Hot Ghetto Mess"

Early indications are that advertisers want nothing to
do with Black Entertainment Television's latest venture into original
programming, a show called "Hot Ghetto Mess." State Farm and Home
Depot ordered BET to take their ads off of a page on BET.com promoting
the show .

The promotional page for the show features a blackface cartoon and
says that "Hot Ghetto Mess is like the traffic accident you can't look
away from."

The blog, What About Our Daughters?, and the National Congress of
Black Women asked advertisers to remove advertising form BET's " Hot
Ghetto Mess" promotional page,. Less than twenty-four hours later,
BET was forced to remove prominent banner ads which had flashed
advertising for State Farm, The Home Depot, Yum Brand's KFC, Target,
AT&T, and Daimler Chrysler. Both State Farm and The Home Depot said
that BET had erred by placing their company's ads on the " Hot Ghetto
Mess" site without their knowledge or permission.

"As a result of a technical issue with their ad-server, BET
inadvertently placed our ads within areas of their site that we did
not specify," said Christi Tricoli, Media Manager for the Home Depot.

State Farm was just as quick to demand that BET remove the company's
advertising from the page. According to Edward Gold, Advertising
Director for State Farm, "Hot Ghetto Mess" does not meet the
company's advertising guidelines and objectives and the company wants
no association with the program.

"We have reviewed the content of this program, which we just heard
about, and we will NOT be airing any State Farm advertising during
this program on BET. We have also directed our agency to have BET.com
remove any State Farm advertising to appear on the web page on
BET.com," Gold said in an email to the blog, What About Our Daughters?

Protests and petitions aimed at getting the show pulled before its
debut on July 25th have popped up all over the internet , but BET has
not relented to the outrage surrounding the show. BET continues to
solicit videos and photos from viewers. Viewers are encouraged to send
in photos and clips of people who look, sound and appear "bad " and
"ugly according to BET.com. The show will be hosted by Charlie
Murphy and according to the "Hot Ghetto Mess" promotions site, the
show will guide viewers through "shaking booties, thug life,
baby-mama drama and pimped-out high schoolers."

FYI. Please contact KFC (YUM BRANDS) to let them know that their ads are still appearing on the "Hot Ghetto Mess" website in the ads left in the left sidebar of the "Hot Ghetto Mess" site. Be nice about it though. The advertisers are at least being responsive to our requests.
Thanks for calling folks, YUM Brands must have gotten on BET for leaving their ads on the page. Now ALL ads are gone from the Bet.com page for " Hot Ghetto Mess." I have told y'all since the beginning of this blog that advertisers are running this show. I am waiting to see which companies are going to be so morally bankrupt that they would be willing to place ads on a show called "Hot Ghetto Mess".

Update No. 2. HA! It is spreading. After i pointed out that State Farm ads were still appearing on the BET.com page promoting DL Hugley's new show, SOB, BET.com has pulled all of the banner ads off of the SOB page as well. I am so sorry to the programmer over at BET.com who thought they were going to be able to leave early for the holiday.

For new readers, I want to remind you to take a look at some of our "Greatest Hits" posts. here are some of my personal favorites: Should Hip Hop be Eradicated?, New Loyalty Oath for the Black Blogosphere?, DL Hughley is Wrong: White Folks May Have a Point, Where in the World is Rev. Al- Sharpton Watch Day 01, Sharpton Watch is Over!, OH Snap: Video of protesters confronting Dieon Sanders and Dl Hughley in Ft. Worth. and my inaugural post: After Imus: Now What.