Last week, Spirit Airlines’ modern-day Mad Men lost their marbles when coming up with an ad campaign that pokes fun at the ongoing bullying scandal in Miami.
The NFL Players Association has now registered an objection to the company.
NFLPA spokesman George Attalah says via Twitter that he and Ahmad Nassar, Executive Vice President at NFL Players, Inc., wrote Spirit Airlines “voicing our displeasure at their tasteless ad.” The union asked Spirit Airlines to make a donation to anti-bullying organizations.
Dated November 12, the letter calls the ad “distasteful, offensive, and pathetic.”
The ad, which began to circulate late last week, tells customers, “Don’t be bullied by high fares” and “Fly incognito out of Florida, or any place for that matter.”
The words appear in Dolphins colors, and a photo accompanying the ad shows a guy wearing a white helmet with aqua and orange stripes.
We agree with the NFLPA’s position, and we hope Spirit Airlines takes appropriate steps to rectify its effort to profit via a goofy play on words that makes light of a serious societal issue.