Tag Archives for Benson Consulting Group

Beer Commercial Brews Condemnation from Senior Organizations, Advocates

Published in the Pawtucket Times on May 13, 2002

This Bud’s Not for You.”

That’s what radio commentator Bill Benson told his vast WMKV-FM listening audience in Cincinnati, Ohio, last July when he called for Anheuser-Bush to pull a radio commercial that used elder abuse to pitch Bud Ice beer.

Sadly, this month Bill Benson reported in is Washington Aging Report that Anheuser-Busch again has brewed “bad faith” with the showing of another trashy television commercial.

Last July, Benson rallied aging advocates from across the nation to successfully force Anheuser-Bush, the maker of Budweiser beer, to pull a controversial radio commercial off the air.

Benson – a former acting assistant secretary for aging at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services who now heads the Maryland-based Benson Consulting Group- along with the AARP and aging advocates, condemned the St. Louis-based beer company for using ageism to sell its brews.

Last July, much to the surprise or Anheuser-Busch officials, wide-spread criticism erupted with the release of its advertising campaign, “She Married Steven Buck Simpson.”

The commercial featured a 22-year-old woman gleefully talking about how she physically, emotionally and financially abused her frail 93-year-old tycoon husband. Ultimately, the young woman leaves the country in her elder husband’s private jet taking away all his money.

Benson along with elder law attorneys, ombudsmen, and aging advocates, called the advertising campaign tacky, bombarding the station’s largest beer maker with calls, tells  letters and emails.

“Elder abuse is not a joking matter and your message to the country is inappropriate,” said AARP President Ester Canja in a letter sent to Anheuser-Busch CEO August A. Busch III.

When the dust settled this public relations fiasco, the commercial was quickly pulled.

But now a new television commercial has drawn the ire of Benson and his fellow aging advocates.

In a recent radio commentary, Paul Greenwood, who heads the Elder Abuse Prosecution Union at San Diego County’s District Attorney’s Office, told Benson of a commercial he viewed while watching a televised NBA basketball game on April 29 on TNT

Greenwood became annoyed when Anheuser-Busch ran a spot featuring young people ripping off vulnerable adults.

The offensive commercial began with a young couple seated on a dining room table with the aging parents of the young woman. The young man, evidently the daughter’s significant other tells her elderly parents that he and his daughter look forward to moving in and gaining the property when they die.  Then he apparently complements the elderly parents for still having “motor skills” and finishes by saying, “She tells me you are loaded.”

Every day Greenwood sees the impact of exploitation of older Americans, said Benson.  His unit has prosecuted 124 felony elder abuse cases in 2000, and 147 felony cases in 2001.  This year, the number of cases prosecuted may well reach 225. That’s why Greenwood got offended when the beer commercials trivialized the financial exploitation of the elderly.

Just as he did when the last commercial raised his ire. Benson put the spotlight on the new Anheuser-Busch spot, giving it a thumbs-down in his latest Washington Aging Report and calling on thousands of aging advocates , via the internet, to urge the company to drop the commercial.

At press time, Anheuser-Busch officials had no comment about the latest controversial ad campaign.

Maybe it is time for the beer maker to solicit proposals to seek the services of a new advertising firm, one that can create material that is both humorous and creative, yet not offensive.

At the very least, they should require the creative types who develop the company’s advertising strategies to attend sensitivity training seasons.

In his radio  commentary, Benson firmly stated “my taste buds will no longer taste Bud again.” With hundreds of thousands of aging advocates and seniors following his  lead Anheuser-Busch just might finally get it at least this time around.

AARP Pushes Busch to Pull Rude Commercial

Published in the Pawtucket Times on July 23, 2001

Everyone knows that sex and humor are used every day to effectively advertise products, ranging from blue jeans, CDs, perfumes and colognes, to America’s youth. Now an advertising firm is seeking new outrageous ways to pitch beer for their Fortune 500 client.

Anheuser-Busch, Inc., the maker of Budweiser beer, is known for its fun and humorous commercials to sell Bud beer by using computer-generated talking lizards and young men yelling “Whassup.” But the Washington, D.C.-based AARP and senior advocates across the country found Anheuser-Busch’s new radio commercial using elder abuse to pitch its beer to be unacceptable. The nation’s largest senior advocacy group, representing 33 million older Americans, called the radio ad portraying a young woman abusing and exploiting her elderly infirmed husband, “offensive” stating that it just goes so far.

In “She Married Steven Buck Simpson,” a young woman gleefully talks about how she is physical, emotionally and financially abusing her frail elderly husband. Here’s the text for the commercial spot describing the abuse intergenerational relationship:

“Last year I married oil tycoon Steven Buck Simpson. He was 93. I was 22. And it was true love, hmm, or so I led him to believe until the wedding. After that, I fired his lawyer and cardiologist. I let his house insurance lapse, alienated him from his children, and sent him out for a walk so I could get freaky with the pool boy. Umm, I deflated the tires on his wheelchair, soaked his dentures in turpentine, and hid his oxygen.”

“Let’s see. I replaced his blood pressure medication with Red Hots, fed him high fat, high cholesterol foods. And finally, liquidated 100 percent of his assets into a Swiss bank account, dropped his dog King off at the pound, and left the country in his private jet, where I promptly renewed my membership in the Mile High Club.”

At this point a m  a states, “Ooh, ooh man that’s cold!” With the sound of a cap being popped off a beer bottle, an announcer responds, “But not as cold as Bud Ice. Ice brewed for a smooth crisp, refreshing taste. Bud Ice, there ain’t nothing colder. Anheuser-Bush.” Quite a way to sell a brand of beer.

When the commercial, playing in several markets, caught the attention of AARP the group’s president Esther Canja, wrote to CEO August A. Busch III of Anheuser-Bush, informing him of her disappointment that the beer company would “make light” of the very serious aging issue of elder abuse.

“Elder abuse is not a joking and your message to the contrary is most inappropriate.” Canja bluntly told the CEO noting that the incidence of elder abuse is increasing at an alarming rate. She cited a National Elder Abuse Incidence Study that estimated that 450,000 older persons are abused or exploited each year.

“While humor has its place, your ad goes to far,” Canja said, urging Busch to withdraw the offensive ad from the marketplace. “You certainly would not sponsor a commercial that portrays a parent physically abusing a child or even mistreating a family pet,” she added.

In Rhode Island, senior advocates were also incensed about Anheuser-Busch’s radio commercial. “This ad, which is so corrosive to the well-being and dignity of our seniors, crosses the boundary from humor to just plain bad taste,” Kathleen S. Connell, AARP Rhode Island director, told the Times. “I join AARP President Esther Canja in calling the company to scrap this piece of junk,” she said.

Adds Rhode Island Ombudsman Roberta Hawkins, of the Alliance for Better Long-Term Care, the Anheuser-Busch commercial is unacceptable.” The well-known Rhode Island senior advocate stated that elder abuse, although not publicly acknowledged by the media, is a widespread and a tragic problem. “If you spent your days the way we do listening to horrible situations just like the ones you think are so funny, your opinion of this commercial would change,” she added.

An e-mail writing campaign initiated by Bill Benson, a former deputy assistant secretary for aging at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and president of the Maryland-based Benson Consulting Group, during his July 13 Washington Radio Report, has finally caught the attention of the St. Louis, Mo-based beer company.

Benson e-mailed his weekly radio report, “This Bud’s Not for You” to hundreds of his colleagues informing them about the offensive commercial. Word spread like wildfire across the Internet. After numerous attempts to contact Anheuser-Busch, the company finally responded with a written statement. Bill Etling, a spokesperson for the company stated, “It is never our intention offend anyone with our advertising. Anheuser-Busch has discontinued use of this ad and has no plans to use it in the future.”

As the dust settles after Anheuser-Busch’s recent public relations fiasco. Benson hopes that the beer company will reexamine who they choose to write their advertising. “I am sure that they are clueless about how people would react. I bet you this is the last time that Anheuser-Busch uses radio advertising to take jabs at vulnerable seniors,” he says.

“It is clear that the combination of senior advocates and the use of the Internet to spark an e-mail writing campaign nipped Bud in the Bud,” Benson said.

Scully Selected to Head Federal Health care Agency

Published in the Pawtucket times on May 14, 2001

Thomas A. Scully, a Washington, D.C.-based health care association executive who holds a law degree from Catholic University and has previous experience on Capitol Hill as a senate staffer and as a high-level White House official, has been tapped by the new Bush administration to run the Health Care financing Administration (HCFA), the federal agency providing health care to 74 million Medicare, Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

The nomination of Scully, president and CEO of the Federation of American Hospitals, a trade group that represents 1,700 for-profit hospitals, went to Capitol Hill in early May.  When confirmed as HCFA administrator by the U.S. Senate, Scully will replace Nancy Min DeParle, who left last October for a teaching stint at Harvard University. With her departure, a string of acting directors temporarily took the reins of the federal agency.

At press time, Jill Kozney, a spokesperson for Chairman Chuck Grassley of the Senate Finance Committee, stated that a confirmation hearing has not been scheduled yet. “Not every piece of paper work is in, but the chairman would like to act on the nomination as soon as possible,” the Senate staffer says.

A Washington Insider

As Washington insider, Scully brings a potpourri of health policy experiences to HCFA. The health care association executive comes with legal expertise gleaned from his legal practice, which focused on regulatory and legislative work in health care. Scully also brings an understanding of the intricacies of Capitol Hill, gained by serving as a staff assistant to U.S. Senator Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), and as associate director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and later as deputy assistant to the president and counselor to the director of OMB under the senior Bush administration.

Ties to the former Bush administration were forged when Scully served on the communications staff of the Bush-Quayle campaign in 1988 and as deputy director of the congressional affairs for the president-elect’s transition team.

“Scully is smart, quotable, and politically savvy,” says Edward Howard, executive vice president of the Alliance for Health Care Reform. “He’s described as a problem solver rather than an ideologue,” Howard adds.

Howard expects Scully to turn his attention to internal problems at HCFA, because the agency has “substantial management problems.” He notes that HCFA has lost a number of good people and Congress will most certainly give the agency new tasks to handle.

“At least Scully will not have to spend one and a half years to learn about the programs he supervises, because he knows them well with his past OMB experience and at the Federation of American Hospitals,” Howard adds.

Bill Benson, former deputy assistant secretary for aging and president of the Maryland-based Benson Consulting Group, warns “Don’t look for Scully to, be much of a consumer advocate,” because he will be sympathetic to providers because of his ties to the hospital provider community.

“That does not mean Scully’s going to be in any position to get hospitals any more money but he will be more attuned to less regulation and more flexibility in rules, and regulations or health care providers,” Benson states.

According to Benson, one of Scully’s first tasks will be to carry out Health ad Human Service Secretary Tommy Thomson’s wish to reorganize HCFA because “this agency is one that everyone loves to hate, especially Republicans.”

Providers Rally Around Scully

Meanwhile, provider groups give thumbs up to Scully’s nomination as HCFA administration.

“Tom Scully has a unique combination of both real-world perspective and public service experience,” states Rick Pollack, executive vice president of the American Hospital Association. “That makes him a great choice for HCFA administrator.”

“From crafting Medicare regulation and budgets to building strong relationships with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, Tom has the right mix of knowledge or the job,” Pollack adds.

In a letter being distributed to U.S. senators, who must vote to confirm Scully, Dr. Charles H. Roadman, II and AHCA Legislative Counsel Bruce Yarwood states: “As HCFA administrator, Tom Scully will have the responsibility for leading dramatic change.”

The opportunity for HCFA reform is the brightest it’s been in years,” Roadman predicted, expressing confidence that the controversial survey and enforcement apparatus will be closely scrutinized by Scully and the Bush White House.

In a public statement, the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging’s senior vice president Suzanne M. Weiss states that her nonprofit provider group looks forward to working with the new HCFA administrator.

“As we look for ways to improve the current nursing home and inspection and enforcement system and reimbursement system.  We hope Mr. Scully will be o pen to our efforts in his new position,” Weiss says.