Community Corner

Manhunt Responds to Studio City Patch's Mom's Talk Column

The group felt they were within the law to display the gay-themed billboard.

A company rep explained the that prompted a column last week from a mother who felt uncomfortable about it. (

Here's what they said:

We chose to debut the campaign in Los Angeles. The city that serves as the focal point of our highly sexualized film and television industry would surely be the perfect place to debut our ad. Right?

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Not quite.

We received dozens of complaints about the campaign here at Manhunt HQ in Boston, as did our ad agency, Lamar Advertising. Citizens were reportedly concerned about children being able to view our billboards. One annoyed parent even wrote  claiming that her complaints got our ads taken down (actually, our LA campaign expired as scheduled on 11/20/11).

Find out what's happening in Studio Citywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In truth, we went out of our way to comply with regulations on advertising content and its proximity to certain areas. Here’s what a Lamar Advertising spokesman had to say about the controversy via e-mail:

Lamar has taken a unified stance in defending our right, and theirs [Manhunt], to advertise this business on our billboards, provided they are not within 500′ of schools, churches, playgrounds, etc.

When we originally placed the units, we used our restriction codes that we have in our system for alcohol, to make sure that we were placing Manhunt in appropriate locations. Beyond that, we spent all day yesterday auditing each one of their locations to make sure that we didn’t miss anything or that a school/pre-school hasn’t popped up recently near one of their boards. We found a couple locations that were down the street (within 500′) from a church, so we have scheduled a rotation to move these boards to a better location for Manhunt.

So Manhunt was within the letter of the law, AND went the extra mile to make sure our ad was appropriately placed.

Now, with a link to our story, their readers are leaving comments here and taking the poll. If you have a thought, please write in our COMMENTS area below, and also weigh in on the poll.


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