Sunday, October 22, 2006

What is Dow selling at the World Series?


The next time Dow lays off a bunch of people or gets into a battle with the pipefitters union, remember this picture.

Why in the heck is Dow spending beaucoups of money to advertise during the World Series?

If you're a shareholder you could ask that. Or if you're an employee. Or even if you're a local public officeholder who gets asked by Dow for tax abatements and such.

There's no such thing as a stupid question, right? And those TV ads supposedly are really expensive.

Chevy's selling automobiles, HP is selling PCs, Gillette is selling razors during the Series. Those I understand.

Dow's not retail. It's a chemical manufacturer. You don't go into the hardware store asking for some Dow herbicide or some products made of plastic that were made possible by Dow.

So what's the motivation?

Their big ad campaign, which celebrates chemistry's connection to humanity (I think), presumably, I guess, is just supposed to make everyone think better of the Midland, Mich.-based company.

Because if you like baseball, you're probably alright.

Maybe the whole thing has to do with Bhopal and all the other stuff.

I could be wrong, but maybe not.

3 comments:

jdallen said...

When I used to work FOR Dow, instead of just AT Dow, and I saw the enormous amounts of money spent making glossy ads to put in every employees mail slot at work, and snail-mailed to every retiree, even to homes with two retirees/mailbox, or obviously high-dollar TV or radio spots, I always figured that the ad company was owned and/or staffed by a board member or a relative of a board member.

Why else propagandize your own employees?

Anonymous said...

Dow is Amerika, Banjo. Why is that so hard for youse to understand?

Anonymous said...

They were selling the same stuff that Kenny Rogers had on his hand in the first inning.