I saw this commerciala couple of weeks ago, and mentioned it to my wife. I’m certainly no prude, but I thought it was odd that a large, presumably conservative (banking) company would approve and present such an ad.
While “damn” doesn’t come close to making George Carlin’s list of 7 dirty words you can’t say on television, and is probably common in prime time shows and sitcoms these days, I was still a bit surprised to hear it in this context and said so to my wife.
Apparently God-fearing Christians complained to Capital One, and they lost the “damn”.
Cowards. If you’re gonna do it, do it! Don’t be a pussy!
“I think the people who will close their accounts for a single word aren’t necessarily the people Capital One wants to appeal to,” says Jim Marous, a senior vice president of corporate development at digital marketing agency New Control.
Frankly I find it a bit disappointing that so many people are offended, and feel the need to call for changes. We have bigger problems, folks.
Eh, I don’t really care if there’s cursing in commercials, but then, I don’t really care if there isn’t either. I suspect most people are the same, and those that aren’t don’t want there to be cursing. The number of people who really want there to be cursing in bank commercials is probably negligible, the number of people who really don’t like cursing is probably small but not that small, so it was kinda dumb for Capital One to have cursing in their commercial.
I hate this argument.
It probably takes less then three minutes to fire-off an angry email to Capital One. Solving world hunger isn’t going to be delayed appreciably because a couple hundred people took those three minutes to do that instead of working at the soup kitchen for slightly longer, or whatever.
Doesn’t come close? Not only is it not in the same ballpark as Carlin’s 7 words, it’s not even in the same state or the same country. I’m flabbergasted that “damn” is considered offensive at all, really.
That’s exactly what they are, as noted by the bank’s representative in the American Banker piece: Capital One Cleans Up Samuel Jackson Ad After ‘Damning’ Criticism, which also contains the quote from Jim Marous the OP cited. The bank rep also stated they “would continue airing the more ‘attention-drawing’ first commercials.”
Apparently an organization calling itself One Million Moms is involved:
I’m also surprised that “damn” is considered offensive enough for some people to complain about it; and that having decided to use it in the first place that the bank would clean it up after a few complaints.