Word: mobilization
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...elephant and the fable are both creatures of Mobil Oil Corporation, which recently produced a series of "issue oriented" commercials in fable form to accompany its Mobil Showcase television series "Edward and Mrs. Simpson." The elaborately-created ads, which feature stellar dance and mime groups, including the American Ballet Theater, promote the corporation's faith in laissez-faire capitalism and encourage the viewer to take stands against government control of profits, policy and company activities...
...Mobil's fables were not well received everywhere. Three of 57 television stations refused to air the commercials, claiming they are "too controversial" and that their one-sided treatment of issues of economic ideology does not belong on commercial air-time...
...have a policy against the advertising of ideological views in short commercials," says G. William Ryan, vice president and general manager of Hartford, Connecticut's WFSB-TV, the first station to reject Mobil's advertisements. If stations do not uphold this kind of policy, Ryan says, "the public could be swayed based upon the economic strength of certain advertisers." WDIV of Detroit, Michigan, and WJXT of Jacksonville, Florida, joined their sister Washington Post-Newsweek station in refusing...
...while the stations objected to the commercials, they had no objection to Mobil's top-quality program offering, which follows the celebrated romance and abdication of Britain's King Edward VIII. In fact, the stations made every effort to hold on to the six-part British-produced series. "We offered to let them substitute other commercials," Ryan says, "We recommended that they run the same ads they ran in their showcase series last year. We even offered to help them shoot new ads, if necessary." But Mobil refused the offers and withdrew from the stations its purchases...
...didn't want them censoring us, telling us what we should say," Tony S. DeNigro, manager of media programming for Mobil, says. "The commercials are elegant and sophisticated. They discuss important issues of the day," he says, adding, "We need a greater dialogue with the public to bring our point of view out. Stations have plenty of opportunity to air all points of view, but ours in not being aired...