Kentucky State Senator Wants UPS To Pull Its Christian Laettner Ad
Posted by nvr1983 on March 15th, 2012By now, you have probably already seen the UPS ad featuring Christian Laettner‘s iconic shot in the 1992 Elite Eight to propel Duke to the Final Four (and eventually a repeat championship) over Kentucky. If you have not, you soon will, but the ad throws up a bunch of physics formulas and shows the play from beginning (the Grant Hill pass) to end (Laettner running around like a madman) in slow-motion and excruciating detail as part of their ongoing and irritating “Logistics” campaign. When we first saw it, we figured that Kentucky fans would not be pleased, but that they would get over it.
Don't Base Your Ad Campaign Around Laettner In Kentucky
It turns out we were wrong. At least one Kentucky fan was very unhappy with it. Now, all fan bases have their fans that get a little too emotional about things, but usually those fans do not have a platform to air their grievances. Enter Ernie Harris, a state Senator from Kentucky, a UPS pilot, a Kentucky graduate, and chairman of Kentucky’s Senate Transportation Committee. Harris has already voiced his displeasure to a UPS lobbyist in the state and while he stopped short of saying he would take any action against the company, which is trying to pass two bills in Kentucky, others do not appear to be quite as forgiving.
Gene McLean, a lobbyist, Kentucky fan, and former writer for The Lexington Herald, has already sent out e-mails to many of his friends and others in the legislature urging a boycott of UPS. For their part, UPS is defending the ad in their blog. We imagine in the long run this “controversy” will not have any effect on UPS in the state of Kentucky, but if you read some of the comments and how some readers do not understand that UPS is an international company and not just one that does business in Lexington you might change your mind.
H/T to Dennis Yedwab for pointing this out to us on Twitter.
As a UK fan I even have to laugh at this. Yeah it was a hard thing to swallow, and I’d love to have revenge this year, but some fans really need to get over it. It’s not the first time this year there’s been a commercial like this (Indiana game). When UK loses, they go out and make a commercial for it, not many teams can say that.
Doesn’t this Senator have anything better to do for the state of Kentucky? Focus Senator! And if you ever questioned why Kentucky fans are hated so much, you need go no further. For god sake stop whining, it was 20 years ago and the “Blue Nation” is still complaining. Hey cheer up, you have a real good chance at winning the National Championship this year, so enjoy it, revel in it until it has to be vacated.