NEW YORK
San Francisco Chronicle
DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer
Wednesday, February 2, 2005
(02-02) 17:45 PST NEW YORK (AP) --
Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday yanked a planned Super Bowl advertisement that depicts a clergyman tempted by a new pickup truck after some victims of clergy sex abuse complained it made light of their trauma.
The company wants to keep the focus on its new truck model rather than any controversy, said Sara Tatchio, spokeswoman for Ford's Lincoln division.
The ad shows a set of car keys placed on a collection plate. The clergyman finds a new Lincoln Mark LT truck in the parking lot, and lovingly caresses the exterior.
The car's owner then enters the picture, with his little girl poking her head from behind him -- the implication being she had dropped the keys in the plate. The clergyman hands over the keys, then is depicted adding the letters L and T to a message board advertisting an upcoming sermon, to spell lust.
The Chicago-based Survivors Networks of those Abused by Priests believed the little girl's presence in the ad with the clergyman and word "lust" had sexual overtones and that Lincoln was playing off the news of religious sex scandals to sell cars.
Posted by kshaw at February 2, 2005 08:10 PM