FFA says its members waged a letter-writing campaign that included emails and faxes to flood the channel’s advertisers with angry messages regarding their support of the show. Thirty of the companies have since stopped advertising during the time slot, according to FFA, as a direct result of the form letter.
“The Girls Next Door” offers a peek inside the lives of four of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends who share his mansion with him.
In the letter, FFA calls the show “sexually explicit,” even though it contains no nudity or sexual situations. The show typically revolves around lighthearted fare such as the planning of a Playmate’s birthday party.
“Playboy started the porn industry with their first magazines being less explicit than a Cosmopolitan,” the letters stated. “However, once Playboy got a foothold into the market with magazines in many stores, the publication slowly turned more explicit and other publishers joined them. Playboy’s new unrestricted, advertiser-supported television show must be opposed now before it is accepted in the marketplace, allowed to become more explicit and copied by other porn companies.
“This program, which supports the world's largest porn company and the related hedonistic lifestyle, gets its life from the companies that advertise on the show,” the FFA continued.
The FAA issued a press release claiming that the following companies are no longer allowing E! to run their ads during the program: The Coca-Cola Co., Progressive Insurance, Geico, Hewlett-Packard, Amerifit, Loreal, Cingular, Mars, DSW Shoes, American Honda Motors, Best Buy, Bell South, GlaxoSmithKline, Conagra, Dyson vacuums, Schering-Plough Corp., eHarmony, Priceline.com, TJ Maxx, IHOP, Dairy Queen, The Hershey Co., Rustoleum, SC Johnson, American Suzuki Corp., Nestle, Fruit of the Loom, Regis Corp., WhiteWave and Children's Place Retail Stores.
The FAA added that some of the companies, including Conagra, wrote back.
“Thank you for your note expressing concern about our advertising appearing on a new Entertainment Channel show, ‘Playboy’s Girls Next Door,’” wrote Conagra Corporate Affairs Director Julie DeYoung. “This program was not part of our media buy, and the network placed our advertisements on this new television show without our knowledge. We have no plans to advertise on this program again.”
The FFA has vowed to continue the campaign against the show by targeting its remaining advertisers.
“The Girls Next Door,” meanwhile, continues to be a ratings success for E! Originally penciled in as a limited-episode summer launch, the show has averaged 800,000 viewers per episode, more than twice E!’s normal primetime average, and the channel recently announced that it has ordered a full season of new episodes.