Controversial Roadhouse Rememberance day radio ad

[Regular_John]

WTF is wrong with people? How would anyone who's spent more than a year in this country not realize how poor taste this would be? Unless thing's have changed since my time in the advertising industry it's not like the Roadhouse did this in a little silo. They didn't just record the spot on a laptop and send it to amp sight unseen.

Somebody wrote the copy, somebody did the voice recording, somebody did the editing, somebody else reviewed it at each one of those steps and it STILL made it to air?

[CaptainCrunch]

To be honest it was a moronic ad choice, approved probably by an inexperienced minimum wage day manager who thought it would be edgy and cool.

In no way does it really represent anything for me, more stupid then disrespectful, more ######ed then forgetful.

My heart has been lifted in that every remembrance day ceremoney that I've attended over the last few years has had greater and greater attendance, I've seen more of the young generation attending, I've seen more parents bringing their kids, and more families taking their grandparents or other elderly members of their family with them.

I was touched last year by two young kids shyly walking up to a veteran while their parents hung back with the mom sniffling a bit and offering up their tiny hands to shake the veterans hands. I'm touched that I see random younger generation people at the end of the ceremony walking up to an old vet male or female stooped over with age, their chest covered in medals and simply saying thank you, and the vets gaining a little strength.

I think that the reverence for this day and for the last of these old vets is accelerating instead of declining, maybe its because the war in afghanistan and the tragic losses there have bought it to the forefront. I think the the current government has done a better job of promoting the military and its importance in our lives.

An idiot bar that I would never go to making an idiotic decision is not going to change my mind on that.

[SeeGeeWhy]

Originally Posted by pylon

Thank you. It is nice to see there is still some younger people that actually understand the monumental sacrifices this day symbolizes.

To this day, it boggles my mind the time and respect we give to a magic flying fat man, and an anthropomorphic rabbit that delivers chocolate, fictional fantasy characters. Yet we have these amazing veterans, that saw horrors we could never imagine in our lifetimes, and their sacrifice is boiled down to a furniture sale, or a binge drinking event to a huge segment of the population.

It is sad. Even the company I work for is guilty, and I now have burn off a vacation day every year, so I can attend a ceremony and pay my respect, since they have oped to trade remembrance day on our holiday schedule, for the oh so important Boxing Day. It's pathetic.

I still leave the office in the morning to go to the ceremony at Central Memorial Park every year even though my office slides the day off over to the xmas week... brutal.

And I don't see what is controversial about the ad - I am pretty sure there is not one person out there that would disagree that the ad is done in poor taste, is brutally disrespectful and is completely off the mark.

[SeeGeeWhy]

I was wearing my poppy a bit early this year and a new immigrant working at the donair place I was getting lunch at asked me if it was part of Halloween. At first I was taken back, but it felt pretty good to be able to explain to him what the tradition is about and why it's around. He was really interested and thought it was a great thing and asked if I had anyone special I was remembering so I got to tell him how my brother is in active duty and is in Afghanistan right now. Was a cool little bonding moment for two strangers.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by jaydorn

WTF is wrong with people? How would anyone who's spent more than a year in this country not realize how poor taste this would be? Unless thing's have changed since my time in the advertising industry it's not like the Roadhouse did this in a little silo. They didn't just record the spot on a laptop and send it to amp sight unseen.

Somebody wrote the copy, somebody did the voice recording, somebody did the editing, somebody else reviewed it at each one of those steps and it STILL made it to air?

I think unfortunately at every stage somebody thought "this is pretty sickening, but somebody must have OK'd it".

[The Goon]

I didn't hear/see the ad, but I drove by the Roadhouse yesterday and saw the billboard outside announcing $8.25 triples on November 10 (and they called it something like "Holiday Weekend Thursday") and thought it seemed inappropriate to promote.

[Reaper]

As someone who walks by the Roadhouse on my way to work I am going to have to make an effort to save my feces and toss an open bag on their door handles. EVERY. MORNING.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by Reaper

As someone who walks by the Roadhouse on my way to work I am going to have to make an effort to save my feces and toss an open bag on their door handles. EVERY. MORNING.

So what if you broke my heart?
So what? Guess what?
I took a s**t on your doorstep.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by pylon

Thank you. It is nice to see there is still some younger people that actually understand the monumental sacrifices this day symbolizes.

To this day, it boggles my mind the time and respect we give to a magic flying fat man, and an anthropomorphic rabbit that delivers chocolate, fictional fantasy characters. Yet we have these amazing veterans, that saw horrors we could never imagine in our lifetimes, and their sacrifice is boiled down to a furniture sale, or a binge drinking event to a huge segment of the population.

It is sad. Even the company I work for is guilty, and I now have burn off a vacation day every year, so I can attend a ceremony and pay my respect, since they have oped to trade remembrance day on our holiday schedule, for the oh so important Boxing Day. It's pathetic.

This post makes me proud to be from a province that has legislated that stores can be open any day of the year they wish, any hours they wish, if you want to be open from 9:00am on Christmas Eve and not close until 3:45pm on January 14th, that's your prerogative.

The one exception is Remembrance Day, where you are not allowed to be open at all. Period. Not give time off to attend a ceremony, not closed for the morning and reopen in the afternoon, closed the whole day. If there was one day I had to pick for such a distinction it would be Remembrance Day.

Frankly I don't think that stores should be allowed to sell Christmas merchandise, display Christmas decorations, play Christmas music, or advertise Christmas sales until Remembrance Day is over. (For the record, I have the same belief with the other holidays too, only one at a time, none of this Christmas/Thanksgiving/Halloween/Remembrance Day stuff we see in stores now)

[pylon]

Before they get pulled down from the Suns comments section:

Hi Taxxed (and to all those we may have offended), I cannot express enough how sincere my apology is about the radio ad we ran. Yes, it was in poor taste and my management team should have realized that ahead of time and not even gone down that road. As soon as it was brought to our attention that the radio ad was in poor taste, we immediately pulled it.

We have issued a formal apology on our website home page (http://www.roadhousecalgary.co...) and in addition to that, I would also like to say that I personally have the highest level of respect for our military, our veterans, and the families of all those who have sacrificed so much for our freedoms, both past and present.

As a individual and as a company philosophy, I/we involve ourselves in the community on many, many fronts in support of not just our military and veterans, but many, many other charitable organizations, and I will continue to do so in the future.

I understand that there are consequences when mistakes happen, both personally, and in business, but I hope that, if nothing else, my apology is taken as a sincere effort on my part to show that I am not a piece of trash.

Sincerely,
Chris Dobson (Owner, The Roadhouse)

And after someone mentioned to put his money where his mouth is.... and donate all Nov 10th proceeds to the Vets Food Bank:

Hi Old_Gows, darksideofthespoon, and JM2B, My staff does have autonomy to run things based on their job description. If I didn't empower them to do that then they wouldn't be able to do their jobs very well (yes, I recognize the irony in that statement, as in this case, the job was done poorly).

The truth is, as mentioned earlier, as soon as I learned about the promotion and the accompanying radio ad, and the offense it had caused Mr Preston. I immediately pulled the ad and all related promotions.

This was a mistake, and like most mistakes, we did not realize it until it was too late.

I'm not saying I'm without fault. I'm the owner, and I take responsibility for my staff as much as any business owner would. I'm just trying to relay in an honest fashion the events leading up to this error.

That said, I have of course discussed this matter in great detail, and with great concern and emotion to our staff. I expressed my disappointment at this promotion, and the fact that we lost sight of what is appropriate. The individuals involved are greatly, greatly upset at themselves for not recognizing the offensive nature of the radio ad, and the promotion as a whole.

Having said that, these are good people just trying to do the best they can. They are not hateful; they are not without the sensibilities I'm sure we all strive to emulate; they did however make an error in judgement.

Once again, to all I may have offended, I apologize both personally, and on behalf of my staff.

Sincerely,
Chris Dobson (Owner)
The Roadhouse

A gentle buck passing.

I would fully grant this guy a pass, IF he actually did follow through a donate 5 or 10 grand to a veterans cause. I still wouldn't go to that craphole, but I also wouldn't run it down for all eternity, and make it known that I would never recommend anyone ever have a corporate event there.

I just cannot sit back, and honestly believe, that this guy was that far out of the loop. How could someone from the radio station not make a quick call and say... "Chris (Dobber is what I think he likes to be called) you might wanna rethink this one." That apology seems very PR firm'ish to me.

[troutman]

Not surprising when your business model relies on attracting d-bags.