Corporate America Turns Its Back on Limbaugh

CORE MESSAGE

What's bad for women and families is bad for business.

Connect: Executives make business decisions based on what's best for their bottom line.

Update: After Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute" and demanded she create sex videos for him to watch, over 50 companies pulled their ads and over 100 announced they want nothing to do with his show.

Define: American businesses are turning their backs on Rush Limbaugh because what's bad for women and families is bad for business.

Illustrate: Limbaugh's show ratings are down double digits, and American companies know that women make the spending decisions for their family budgets.

Debunk: This is how the free market is supposed to work: consumers holding companies accountable for where they advertise. That's capitalism at its best.

Bottom line: American businesses are turning their backs on Rush Limbaugh because his America isn't the America where we want to raise our daughters -- or where our companies want to do business.

Share: http://bit.ly/wjft5p |   |

ATTACKS AND RESPONSES

ATTACK: "Liberals are trying to censor Limbaugh."
RESPONSE:

• This isn't censorship, it's capitalism. American consumers are holding American companies accountable for where they advertise and companies are making the business decision to drop Limbaugh's show. 
• Executives make business decisions based on what's best for their bottom line -- and they're seeing that what's bad for women and families is bad for business. That's the free market in action.

ATTACK: "Liberals are hypocrites because media figures on the left are just as bad as Rush."
RESPONSE:

• No leader should be afraid to call out Limbaugh or any other media figure when they cross the line. Defending Limbaugh by criticizing other people is a failure of leadership.
• Anyone with a mother, wife, daughter, or sister knows that what Limbaugh did crosses the line -- no matter your ideology or political party.
• This isn't about sides. It's about decency and basic American values. This is about what kind of an America we want to raise our daughters in.

ATTACK: "Sandra Fluke is a political operative planted by Democrats."
RESPONSE:

• It figures that the same people defending Limbaugh are the same people who would automatically assume any woman as eloquent and poised as Sandra Fluke must be a puppet.
• Sandra Fluke is a Georgetown law school student who was asked to testify before a congressional committee about the impact the President's contraception policy would have on women, and that's what she did. She spoke her mind -- no one else's.
• Here's what was really partisan: Republicans' refusal to let her testify at their own hearing on contraception and their refusal to send a message to our children that this is not how to treat people.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

• In the wake of Rush Limbaugh's attackson Sandra Fluke:
  • His radio show ratings have dropped double digits as more listeners tune him out.
  • Over 50 companies have publicly pulled their ads.
  • Almost a hundred advertisers have told the company that syndicates his show to radio stations that they don't want to be associated with Limbaugh -- or any other offensive programming similar to his.
  • His show is starting to broadcast dead air during ad times -- meaning they can't even give away free ad space.
  • Two radio stations have announced they will no longer broadcast his show.
  • A recent poll shows Limbaugh's popularity among his core audience of Republicans has plummeted by nearly half, dropping even in Alabama and Mississippi.

• Republican politicians like Mitt Romney and right-wing media figures are refusing to stand up to Limbaugh -- while other members of the GOP leadership and conservative figures have condemned his attacks.
• Rush Limbaugh has been using his top-rated radio show to disrespect Americans for decades, including mothers and daughters, people of color, the most vulnerable, people who are suffering, immigrants, and the LGBT community.
• In the U.S., women make most of the purchasing decisions -- three fourths of household spending are controlled by women.
• Women aged 24 to 55 are the prize advertising demographic courted by corporate America, and for good reason.
• Women are also swing voters who represented 53% of the electorate in the last presidential election -- and even moderate Republican and Independent women are increasingly disenchanted with and turning away from the GOP.

 We develop messaging by aggregating, analyzing and distilling polling, tested messaging, and expert recommendations, and monitoring the media to identify what is and isn't working. See here for some of the experts and organizations we draw on.