Susan Smith, Staff ReporterCOMPANIES USING dancehall entertainers in their marketing campaigns are not willing to abandon them altogether in light of concerns expressed about the content of their lyrics.
This is the case with the group of companies who spoke out against violence in dancehall music according to Odette Dixon, managing director of Creative Projects Limited and public relations representative for the group.
Last week a group of six companies, Courts Jamaica, Cable and Wireless, Digicel Jamaica, Pepsi-Cola Limited, Red Stripe, and J.Wray and Nephew threatened to withdraw their support from the local music industry if entertainers persisted in using lyrics which incite violence.
Some may argue, however, that the companies displayed double standards when they mentioned no plans to ban these very individuals from representing their products in marketing campaigns.
In short, pulling the ads which include the entertainers guilty of this practice would display consistency of purpose. But Mrs. Dixon says the companies have no intention of excluding them from their marketing campaigns. "I don't think so. That is not their individual intention," she said, responding to the question posed by Sunday Business on whether companies will pull the ads featuring the guilty artistes.
However, director of marketing at Courts Jamaica Limited, Judith Forth-Blake, thinks steps should be taken to disassociate from entertainers when they begin to incite violence even if it is at a cost to the company. "We can't have double standards when it comes to crime. It doesn't matter if a cost is involved," she said. She pointed out that Courts Jamaica does not have any dancehall entertainers representing Courts at this point but that was not a policy decision by Courts. "We use them sometimes depending on the promotions," she said.
NO PLANS FROM SINGER
Singer, which was not among the six corporate bodies who took a stand against vulgarity and homophobia in the music industry, says it has no plans to withdraw any of its entertainers from its marketing campaign.
Sharon Spence, marketing manager for Singer, said "We have a contract with Bounty Killer and we will keep it until it ends. We don't promote their inciting violence but we can't just end an entire marketing programme like that." Mrs. Dixon explained that each company is in the process of working out its own code of conduct for entertainers in their future campaigns
She also said that the companies are mindful of the unpredictability of people's behaviour, and are trying to work out how entertainers are used in the future for marketing campaigns. "When the advertisers sign an entertainer, they don't have any idea that the entertainer will be guilty subsequent to that," noted Mrs. Forth-Blake.
Mrs. Spence said Singer would be more cautious in the future with the contracts. "We don't have an exit clause in our contract. For next year we have to ensure we have an exit clause in our contracts to safeguard against misconduct associated with our products."
Attempts by Sunday Business to contact other members of the group on the matter were unsuccessful.
