How the Attack on Hannity Advertiser Keurig Backfired on Media Matters
“Keurig CEO Bob Gamgort on Monday apologized to employees”
The left wing media watchdog group ‘Media Matters for America’ has been trying to shut down Sean Hannity for years. Last week, when he interviewed Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore, they saw a golden opportunity.
They immediately seized on some of Hannity’s comments and targeted the coffee company Keurig, one of his advertisers.
The New York Times reports:
Hannity Fans Destroy Keurig Coffee Makers After Company Pulls Advertising
“Liberals are offended by this video of a Keurig being thrown off of a building. Please retweet to offend a liberal.”
That tweet, which was posted with a video of a Keurig Green Mountain coffee maker being dropped from the second story of an apartment building, was one of many sent over the weekend with the hashtag #boycottkeurig.
By Sunday night, it was a trending topic on Twitter.
Why call for a boycott of Keurig? And why would liberals be offended by the sight of an environmentally problematic, pod-based coffee maker meeting an untimely doom?
The story begins, as you might have expected, with Sean Hannity.
On Thursday, the Fox News host spoke about the allegations against Roy Moore, the Alabama senate candidate who, The Washington Post had reported that day, made sexual advances toward teenage girls when he was in his early 30s, including a 14-year-old.
Mr. Hannity, describing those actions on his radio show while speaking with a co-host, Lynda McLaughlin, seemed to justify Mr. Moore’s reported conduct by calling one of the encounters “consensual.”
Later, on his television show, Mr. Hannity said that the statement “was absolutely wrong” and that he “misspoke.” He then brought up the possibility of accusers lying for money, or for political purposes.
On Friday, Angelo Carusone, the president of Media Matters for America, the partisan watchdog organization that has campaigned against Mr. Hannity since at least May, began to criticize advertisers for sponsoring his show in light of his comments about Mr. Moore.
Here’s the tweet:
Angelo, thank you for your concern and for bringing this to our attention. We worked with our media partner and FOX news to stop our ad from airing during the Sean Hannity Show.
— Keurig (@Keurig) November 11, 2017
Hannity fans were furious that Keurig seemed to be siding with Media Matters and began destroying their Keurig machines:
Keurig is going after @seanhannity on orders from Media Matters.
You know what that means. #BoycottKeurig pic.twitter.com/5unQjwqatK
— The Columbia Bugle (@ColumbiaBugle) November 12, 2017
Maybe this best explains how I feel about #Kuerig decision. pic.twitter.com/97RF0YxF8H
— Big Fish (@BigFish3000) November 13, 2017
God bless the USA and the 2nd amendment ! Bye Bye #Keurig pic.twitter.com/1AvfUieOct
— trumpviewtower (@TrumpViewTower) November 13, 2017
The CEO of Keurig eventually apologized to employees for the craziness. Fortune reported:
Keurig CEO Bob Gamgort on Monday apologized to employees for any negative attention that may have come after the company publicly announced on Twitter that it was no longer running ads on Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News — a move that led to Hannity fans smashing their Keurig coffee machines en masse.
“The decision to publicly communicate our programming decision via our Twitter account was highly unusual,” Gamgort said in a memo reported by The Washington Post. “This gave the appearance of ‘taking sides’ in an emotionally charged debate that escalated on Twitter and beyond over the weekend, which was not our intent.”
“I apologize for any negativity that you have experienced as a result of this situation and assure you that we will learn and improve going forward,” Gamgort added.
Hannity addressed the issue on his show on Monday night. He asked his viewers to cease attacking their coffee machines and reported that Keurig will continue to advertise on FOX as well as other cable news channels.
He stressed that Keurig was a victim in this situation, that they had been duped by Media Matters into taking a side, which comports with the CEO’s statement. Watch:
This is what Media Matters does. They care about one thing. Silencing conservatives.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
The CEO of a major company was DUPED? Oh, please. His virtue signaling backfired. Every time a company does this, half their customers will be offended, it is a guarantee. Stay out of politics, no matter how hard Media Matters pushes. Push back.
Yeah, I can’t believe such a decision could be made without his approval or at the very least the approval of someone who reports directly to him.
Oh garbage. Who do you think decides where to advertise in the first place? Not the CEO, or anyone up there. And those same marketing staff decide what changes to make, such as this one. It doesn’t escalate to the CEO level until there’s a crisis like this one.
Hence, making the “duped” argument even more ludicrous. Poor, poor, CEO, so easily duped.
WTH are you talking about? This reinforces the obviously true claim that the company was duped. The decision to pull the ad from Hannity, and to use the corporate Twitter account to announce this, was made without the knowledge of anyone on an executive level, let alone the CEO, who had to step into clean up the mess.
an actual response would be to FIRE the staff that caused such unwanted publicity otherwise SJW signalling gone wrong.
If everyone who ever made a mistake was fired for it, it’d be a cold and cruel world.
“If everyone who ever made a mistake was fired for it, it’d be a cold and cruel world.”. Correction: “If everyone who ever made a mistake motivated by left-wing political preferenecs (as way too many do) was fired for it, it’d be a much healthier and peaceful world.” Politics must be kept out of business and many other fields of human activities, but lefties can’t help themselves and always try to push their views on everyone else. America is sick and tired of it and they will get it right back in their face every time. Better get used to it. One simple solution: leave politics out of the workplace.
“This gave the appearance of ‘taking sides’
Ummm – NO. There was no “appearance” about it. Keurig Green Mountain DID take sides – publicly. They deserved what they got and deserve more.
As to Hannity’s further comments asking supporters not to boycott Keurig, they are weasel mouthed and clearly intended to save his bacon with Fox.
Sorry Keurig – you LOSE!
Or he could be asking his supporters not to join the gutter dwellers at Media Matters with an opposing boycott. It’s possible.
Sean has been against ALL boycotts.
Boycotts are almost always done by Socialists and thus Sean is against them – no weasel words.
So Kuerig is sorry for PUBLICIZING that they are going along with radical leftist demands to stop advertising on Hannity but they are still not advertising? Sorry Sean. They don’t want conservatives buying their product. So long as they selectively refuse to advertise to conservatives I will selectively choose to shun their coffee.
It’s hard to believe that the Kuerig CEO was duped. He was all too willing to join the chorus if one tweet did it for him.
But really, why is coffee in a plastic so popular anyway? I’m not a coffee snob, and I buy cheap and expensive coffee alike. But I still like to taste it fresh. Plastic coffee give you the least chance for good taste in my experience. A press is best but even a drip through metal or paper filter is not much more difficult.
Ha.. I had a Keurig for about 2 days… They were pushing them at Costco and Mrs Wrangler got one. It turned out to be a bad move and it went back. The lady taking the returns at Costco didn’t even ask “why”. The Mrs asked if many were being returned and the lady just pointed to a group of them on the shelves behind her.
They make very small cups of coffee (it took 2 to make a mug-full); making a cup for 2 or 3 people took forever; it keeps water hot in stand-by, thereby sucking up power 24/7 (which should raise the ire of the environmental whacko crowd); and the little coffee containers take up much more space than the equivalent in ground coffee.
A 6-cup load in the drip machine gives us each a mug of Joe and one for me to carry out while we feed and muck out. A second 6-cupper to accompany breakfast and we are done for the day. The Keurig single-cup machine was not up to this task. In my opinion.
I tired of Hannity a long time ago…. will I have to watch now as a form of counter protest?
This is a reassuring example of how an engaged public, through social media, can be a check against the leftist/media smear machine.
Supposedly Volvo has now pulled ads. That’s not a surprise given their demographic tends more liberal anyway. Probably won’t hurt their business much.
https://www.waynedupree.com/volvo-tweets-then-deletes-pulling-hannity-ads/
Hannity didn’t say that Keurig was going to continue to advertise on his show, only that they will advertise on Fox. Big difference.
That I believe is the important point. I’m sorry to say but it sort of sounds like Hannity bit the bullet for FOX – trying to calm his viewers down so the company won’t pull all the advertisement from FOX.
If only the spineless GOP professional politicians had the backbone to standup against the media and activist groups…they would get the job that they were elected to do done.
They are too busy ensuring someone like Roy Moore doesn’t get in to the Senate! Far too busy padding their own nests to worry about things that actually matter to Americans.
“If only the spineless..”
Someday you’ll realize it’s not lack of spine, it’s they are on the other side.
Well, we did learn one thing: never use a seven iron to do a shotgun’s job!
Hannity has always said he didn’t support boycotts, so there’s that.
I hate these machines. It has nothing to do with Sean Hannity and everything to do with they are highly overpriced for a machine that doesn’t work well after 6 months (yes, I run the vinegar through). I’ve had three Kuerigs, and I wish I’d seen these videos sooner so that I could have properly disposed of them.
When a business makes a political statement to appeal to part of its customer base, then it deserves whatever negative repercussions occur.
Now, about these one cup cartridge coffee makers. They are the biggest scam on the planet. In the first place, the coffee maker itself is over priced, at $85-125. I have a couple of single cup coffee makers which cost me ~$10 apiece. They work fine and last a long time. Then you have the k-cups. It costs ~$80 for 100 k-cups, that makes 100 cups of coffee. I pay $9 for a premium coffee brand which brews 240 cups of coffee. At the moment, the biggest selling accessory for Keurig coffee makers is the refillable k-cup basket. I wonder why.
Just out of curiosity, where on earth are you getting “premium coffee” for around a dollar a pound?
Also, I get the Barista Prima, Italian or French (both very dark, extra-bold blends) direct from Keurig when they have their specials on (which happen every few months) and they come out to around 46 cents a cup (and you can actually make a proper cup from these, as opposed to the insipid “breakfast blends” which you can really only make on the smallest setting). In my household, where a maximum of one cup of coffee per day (okay, occasionally two on weekends) is drunk, we can afford 46 cents a day for fresh-brewed coffee.
It’s really up to the individual, but where I’m flummoxed is this extreme, sudden K-Hate brought about by political posturing. It reminds me of nothing so much as the inchoate Leftist rage against Chick-Fil-A… and is probably going to be just about as effective. Let’s don’t become the people we used to get a kick out of laughing at.
…and I’m still curious as to where you find dollar-a-pound “premium coffee” …
Amy. Maybe if someone drinks really weak coffee they can squeeze 240 cups out of $9 worth of “premium coffee”; or maybe those cups are small.
If someone tires of pouring out left-over coffee they should consider buying a microwave oven. 🙂 Or make only a half pot at a time. Just trying to help out here…
I was just curious. I sometimes make an urn of proper coffe for a monthly event I go to, and usually get about 24-25 serves out of a pound of Starbucks Verona coffee, which is around $9lb. Either he’s making his coffee 10 times weaker than I do, or he’s found a much less expensive “premium brand”!
I do agree that if you want more than one or two cups of coffee, a Keurig is a wasteful and slow way to go.
I use one of these machines only because I got it for free, and the closeout store near me sells boxes of 24 cups for $6. I would never pay full price for the machine or the cups. But it beats instant.
Well, if you like paying at least $0.25 a cup for a cup of off-brand coffee, that is your choice. Personally, I much prefer to pay $0.04 cents a cup for premium coffee. But, that is just me.
I recently bought an off-brand machine for kpods. I use my drip coffeemaker for the most part, but sometimes I’m in the mood for flavored coffee of one type or another. That’s where the pods come in… I just buy a variety pack so I have an assortment to choose from.
Yeah, it’s more expensive per cup, but since it’s just a few times per week it works for me.
I make a pot in an old fashion drip and have coffee galore for pennies all day and Including ice coffee after I put it in the fridge. I can make it strong or weak, which I never do,
See no reason to buy this crap… it’s like beanie babies, all the little girls had to have them
Starbucks is a rip off, all sugar all day $5… give me an old coffe house with a good cup of Joe
After going through many electric coffee machines we decided years ago to go real old fashion and cook our coffee right on the stove top in a plain pot. It is strong, to our liking and I have no belief our pot will break.
“The left wing media watchdog group ‘Media Matters for America…”
The very first sentence of your article is in error. Media Matters is a media hit-job organization (although occasionally they conduct hits while defending Dems from other allegations). They are partially funded by Soros, and have been in bed with Hillary Clinton for a decade at least.
They have as much credibility or objectivity as the SPLC.
Artificial estrogens. I gave up my Keurig two years ago after discovering the plastic in the cups contains artificial estrogens. I certainly don’t need that in my life. And the fact that there is always water inside means it gets gross and gunky and they’re impossible to clean out. Back to the Mr. Coffee for me.
Estrogen in plastic? That would explain the ongoing feminization of society. If that keeps up, no body will be able to fix anything.
Keurig is convenient and the taste of the coffee is okay. It is not for coffee fanatics, but more for those of us who tired of pouring out half a pot of coffee every day. We pay $30 for a box of 100 at BJ’s, making it an afterthought from a cost perspective. Don’t use a Keurig if you don’t like ’em, and boycott away if you want to send a message, but don’t try to tell people who know better that Keurig is coffee Satan. It’s a good choice for a lot of people.
I love the K-kups (at least I did until I found out about the estrogen) but I really hate the Keurig machines. They don’t last more than 6 months. I also bought a Mr. Coffee for k-kups (which have Keurig brewers inside). It was an even bigger piece of junk, but at least it cost about half the price.
Now I have a FlexBrew by Hamilton Beach. It’s much simpler and easier to clean. Less expensive too. I like it, but it’s only 5 months old.
On the bright side, my husband has been getting into cooking.
WOW on the estrogens! That explains all the pajama boys.
Not a fan of coffee , but I can demolish some Lipton Sun tea . thank god for Dandy Don Meredith.
Half the Trumpaloes who are boycotting Keurig can’t even spell it. Lol.
Oh, btw, the “œstrogen in plastic” scare, like almost all such scares, is pure BS. Just more fearmongering by the usual suspects, who seem to get off on scaring people.
There are a surprising number of gullible woo-driven kooks around these days on both the “left” and the “right.” A serious lack of critical thinking.