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Citgo Pulls Gas Ads That Fueled Librarians’ AngerAdmitting it was “a mistake that we do regret and will not make again,” Citgo Petroleum has pulled a yearlong advertising campaign that claimed its credit card was “more useful than a library card”—but only after a South Carolina librarian took offense at the wording of signs that were placed at the top of area gas pumps and on billboards. In a February 24 open letter to Citgo Chairman Aires Barreto, Spartanburg County Librarian Todd Stephens said that the campaign, which offered a $5 credit to anyone opening a credit-card account, was arrogant and insulting. Citgo Public Affairs Manager Kate Robbins wrote in a March 7 letter to the editor of the Spartanburg Herald-Journal that the message “was not intended in any way to diminish the importance of libraries or the use of library cards,” adding that it “should have said that the payment card is as useful as a library card.” “To find that Citgo has unintentionally incurred the displeasure of librarians and library card holders is a highly dismaying and unpleasant experience,” Brand Development Manager Don Rucks said in a March 10 letter of apology to Stephens. “They could have said I was overreacting,” Stephens told the March 14 Herald-Journal. “They could have said this was ridiculous. But they acknowledged it, fixed it, and now we can move on.” Posted March 19, 2004. |
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