After "protests" by the Muslim activist group Council
on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Total Sports has
"agreed to stop using" a print and Internet ad that showed
Muslims "'praying' to a basketball," according to REUTERS.
CAIR said that it received "numerous complaints from Muslims
offended by the ad's use of Islamic religious rituals" and
asked Total Sports to "pull the ad and apologize to the
Muslim community." Total Sports Chair & CEO Frank Daniels
"responded quickly with an apology and vowed to pull the
ad." Daniels, in a letter to CAIR: "Total Sports did not
intend to offend anyone with its depiction and certainly
apologizes if the advertisement did so. We do not intend
for the image to appear again" (REUTERS, 2/23).
THE SKINNY ON TOTAL'S CAMPAIGN: The ad was one part of
Total Sports' new "Total Devotion" campaign, via L.A.-based
tricorbraundesign, that includes print, radio, Internet and
TV executions. Online ads broke February 9 and print ads
February 18, while the radio portion is set to debut
February 28 and TV spots in the fall. Media outlets
targeted for the campaign include Sport magazine, ESPN
Magazine, Maxim, The Sporting News, ESPN Radio, the N.Y.
Times Online, AOL, Lycos, NBC Internet/Snap.com, Go2Net,
About.com and selected newspapers (Total Sports).
