ADVERTISER BOYCOTT BUILDING AGAINST DOG THE BOUNTY HUNTER SHOW

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Even as his show has been pulled off the air indefinitely, Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman is now being rocked by an advertising boycott in response to his racist tirade captured on tape and exposed by The NATIONAL ENQUIRER.

While A&E Network has indefinitely suspended production on Dog’s show, they have said the show is not completely dead.

But the makers of Sinus Buster capsaicin pepper nasal sprays have pulled their ads and say they won’t advertise on A&E until the network cancels Dog’s show permanently. In addition, Yum! Brands, Inc. has said it will no longer advertise on the Bounty Hunter. Yum!’s brands include Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC. Another of the show’s advertisers, Dr. Frank’s pain relief, has joined the growing boycott, pulling ads for several of its products.

Even as Dog’s lawyer and others around him scramble to do damage control, the advertisers aren’t buying it. Dog not only used racial slurs repeatedly in his conversation with his son but he also talked about how he didn’t want African Americans in his house or in his family.

It’s all been too much for many of the advertisers.

“They should pull the show completely and never air reruns or anything with Chapman ever again,” Wayne Perry, president of SiCap Industries, LLC, makers of Sinus Buster capsaicin nasal sprays says in a press release.

“A&E should wash their hands of this guy. Dog’s rant has personally disrupted my faith in people, and we will never associate any of our brands with any forum that supports racism in any way. As far as we’re concerned, the only way A&E will be in our ad budget next year is if they dump the Dog. This goes far beyond what Don Imus said on MSNBC, and they fired him immediately.”

“We wanted to launch our new TV spots for 2008 on A&E and on Dog’s show in particular,” Perry explained.

“He was a hero of mine until I heard a tape of him spewing racist remarks as if it meant nothing. I’m disgusted by him. He used the (N-word) multiple times in the most hateful way you could ever imagine. That’s when I decided to dump his show from our marketing plans,”

Virginia Ferguson, a spokesperson for Yum! Brands, Inc. said: “It’s despicable and we are no longer advertising the show.”

And when Dr. Kenneth Frank, owner of Dr. Frank’s pain relief, learned about the racial slurs made by “The Dog,” he vowed to pull ads for his several products off the show!

“My company does not condone that type of language because it breeds hatred, especially when it’s used in the context it was within their family,” Dr. Frank said.

“When we learned about the telephone tapes, we contacted our media-buying company and placed a restriction that our ads not appear during that program.”

A spokesperson for Ameriprise Financial revealed:

“As soon as we learned about the remarks made by the ‘Bounty Hunter’ we immediately made the decision to place a restriction so that our commercials would not run during that program.

“While we choose not to directly comment on those racial slurs that were so widely publicized, we would like to make it very clear that we’re an equal opportunity employer and do support diversity, and the actions we took to place a restriction on our ads are a fair indication as to our response to such behavior.”

Drew Palmer, owner of Palmer Advertising in San Francisco, isn’t surprised that most of those top advertisers have demanded that their ads stop being aired during that program, and he expects more will follow.

“I’m not a bit surprised so many top advertisers are dropping out of the game at this point, because serious repercussions always follow that type of controversy,” says Palmer.

“Obviously, companies don’t want to be associated with someone who’s being labeled a racist, because if their ads continue to air during that program they are in essence condoning what happened.”

The end will not be long in coming for Dog, predicts another advertising industry insider.

“That Dog the Bounty Hunter series is going down like the Titanic,” a NYC advertising insider told the ENQUIRER. “The last thing any company selling a product wants is their name brand seen during its commercial breaks.

“With some of the show’s top ten advertisers jumping ship already, the others will soon follow.

“It’ll happen as soon as they get their corporate acts together and realize Dog is a ticking time bomb for offending customers. Chapman’s basically dug his own career grave with his big mouth.”

Click here for more on this story and to listen to the tape.