GM Yields To Concern About Ad

Mental Health Groups Objected to Spot On Suicidal Robot

In its Super Bowl ad, GM drew criticism for trivializing suicide by having a poorly performing robot sell condos and then jump off a bridge in despair. Mars scrapped its ad, left, featuring two men who lock lips over a Snickers bar. (General Motors Via Associated Press)

The latest Super Bowl score: Advocacy Groups 2, Advertisers 0.

In the second capitulation by a corporate behemoth in less than a week, General Motors yesterday agreed to modify a TV commercial it aired during Sunday's Super Bowl to address complaints from interest groups.

Mental health organizations had peppered GM with protests about the ad, contending that it trivialized suicide. In the commercial set to the strains of Eric Carmen's "All by Myself," a clumsy auto factory robot throws itself off a bridge in despair after being drummed off an assembly line. GM said it would edit the ad to eliminate the bridge sequence.

The ad was the second to push the corporate sensitivity meter into the red. On Monday, a subsidiary of the candymaker Mars Inc. scrapped a commercial and related Web videos for its Snickers bars that gay rights organizations had called "homophobic." The commercial depicted two men who react cartoonishly after inadvertently kissing; the company's Web site featured an alternate ending in which the men violently beat each other.

Controversy prompted by the two ads highlights the speed with which opposition can coalesce around a perceived offense. It also suggests the flip side: how swiftly corporations can move to head off even embryonic controversy. Mars took less than a day before deciding to deep-six its ad; GM initially resisted complaints this week but decided in fewer than five days that "the issue being raised was a serious one, from a group of credible people," as company spokesman John M. McDonald put it yesterday.

Although more than 93 million people -- one of the biggest TV audiences in U.S. history -- saw the ads during Sunday's game, a relatively small number of people complained about them. As recently as Wednesday, a GM spokeswoman told USA Today that her company had no plans to change the ads because the automaker has received "more than a handful" of complaints "but not a tsunami."

Michael Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Arlington-based National Alliance on Mental Illness, was unsure how many of the group's members objected to the robot commercial, but he said his organization joined with others in protest. "You could see the momentum rise" during the week, he said. "There was a communal sense of outrage that anyone could do something this irresponsible and, frankly, this dangerous."

But the number of complaints might be beside the point, say executives who handle "crisis" public relations.

"What it comes down to is: Is the fundamental allegation considered resonant or is it just exquisite sensitivity?" said Eric Dezenhall, whose Washington-based firm advises companies and trade groups that are dealing with controversy. "The second variable is: Do the offended groups have political power?"

The Snickers ad met both tests, he said: "The gay lobby is so powerful and well-organized that if you tick them off, you have hell to pay in the marketplace. They are profoundly influential consumers."

It's less clear that mental health advocates can sway consumer behavior, Dezenhall continued, "but I would probably be inclined to counsel a client facing an attack by the mental illness lobby to take it very seriously because they can make a lot of noise."

Crisis communications specialist Gene Grabowski says even brush fires can become raging conflagrations, thanks to YouTube, blogs and 24-hour news outlets.

"It's becoming a great risk to anger any group," said Grabowski, a senior vice president of Levick Strategic Communications in Washington. "The dollar amounts at stake are huge. Groups are empowered and can create a lot of interest with the media. They can create a lot of pain."

He and Dezenhall agree that GM and Mars did the right thing: They contained the controversies, and quickly. General Motors planned to run the robot ad during tomorrow's Grammy Awards but said yesterday it will substitute another ad.

"Why take the chance when you can't afford to take the chance?" Grabowski said. "Rather than protract the story, it's easier to move quickly."