Cox News Service

Estate approved ads with MLK as pitchman

By Scott Leith / Cox News Service 03-29-01

ATLANTA - The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is showing up in an uncharacteristic new role: corporate pitchman.

In a pair of recent commercials, the late civil rights leader helps tout cell phones and a company that provides telecommunications networks.

The companies secured the rights to use King's image and voice from his estate in Atlanta, which controls the use of King-related writings, documents and recordings. The estate also reviewed and approved both ads.

King biographer David Garrow, an Emory University historian, worries the ads will harm King's image.

"To what degree does it make people think Dr. King was somebody available for rent to corporations?" Garrow said.

The new ads are noteworthy in part because the King estate hasn't approved many like them. Observers recall just one other for a profit-making organization: a 1997 ad for Apple Computer. Unlike the new ads, Apple used a fairly low-key approach that included images of several luminaries in its campaign, including Gandhi and Albert Einstein.

The King estate declined to comment about the new ads. The companies running them -- Cingular Wireless and Alcatel -- describe their ads as tasteful and appropriate.

"We were looking for somebody and a moment in time that really embodied power and empowerment," said Brad Burns, senior vice president of communications at Alcatel. "There was no better choice than Martin Luther King Jr."

Others find it jarring to see King commercialized. "There's questionable taste in both of these situations," said Bob Thompson, director of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television. "This seems to me to be relatively sacred territory."

The latest King-themed ad began March 19 as part of a campaign for Alcatel, a French telecom company. In print and TV ads, King is portrayed during his famous "I have a dream" speech in Washington. The crowd was digitally removed to fit the theme of the ad, which is about making connections.

Separately, Atlanta-based Cingular Wireless is running an ad that features a snippet of the same speech. King isn't seen but his voice is heard in a mix that includes well-known phrases from Kermit the Frog, Shakespeare, Homer Simpson and others. The idea is to use examples of famous expressions to market cell phones.

Ben Bagdikian, a media critic and former dean of journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, said the ads "cheapen the original sentiment and spirit of King's image and his words."

Bagdikian said it is different to advertise using such historical figures as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Bagdikian believes King's legacy is still a matter of historical interpretation, unlike that of long-ago figures like Washington.

"It's inevitable that there will be a whole generation ... who will consciously or subconsciously associate Martin Luther King with a product," Bagdikian said.

Under Georgia law, the King estate has the right to control the use of King's image and words. Licensing is handled via Intellectual Properties Management in Atlanta, an arm of the King estate. Experts said it is impossible to estimate how much the estate might have received for the ads.

The appeal of using King is clear. Vance Overbey, executive director of advertising at Cingular, said King offered the "most profound and historical and impactful" example of self expression, which is a theme of Cingular's ads.

Overbey said there have been few complaints about the campaign, which was created by ad agency BBDO in New York and Atlanta.

Barbara Lippert, a writer for the trade publication Adweek, criticized the Cingular ad.

"I was offended by the placement of Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream!' right before Homer Simpson's 'Doh'?" she wrote in an ad review. "Every 'self-expression' does not have the same value."

The use of King's words as a money-maker has been questioned in the past, too. The estate once approved an animated film about King, and MTV did a special on him as part of a network series.

The estate also has sued some organizations, including USA Today, for using King's words without permission.

The estate previously has defended its licensing activities, noting King had a book deal, a record deal and a literary agent when he was alive.

Alcatel said the King ad will be replaced soon by other commercials in the series. The Cingular ad is likely to run through June.

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001

Answers

Sounds like a phony ad campaign.

LOL

-- Anonymous, March 29, 2001