Modified On August 8, 2012
AFLAC (American Family Life Insurance Company of Columbus), employs more than 8 thousand people. They insure more than 60 million people worldwide. They have assets of 84 billion dollars (which is pretty much what an insurance company has to have, if they are to make good on their promises). They happen to be the second largest insurer overall in Japan and the largest life insurer in that country. So… they’re in a bit of hot water right about now because the worst has happened.
According to the company’s Wikipedia entry:
The Aflac Duck character has now starred in more than 30 commercials. The Aflac Duck is enshrined on Madison Avenue’s Walk of Fame as one of America’s Favorite Advertising Icons.
Gilbert Gottfried is a very funny comedian who has, for the past decade, been the voice of the duck that has come to symbolize the company in its television and radio commercials.
Gottfried tweeted a series of crude jokes about the Sendai earthquake and ensuing tsunami. AFLAC canned him for doing so.
The tsunami of stupidity that is sweeping over the internet– on Facebook and on Twitter and elsewhere– is overwhelming.
No… this is not a free speech issue.
Please do not waste your time analyzing the jokes or trying to decide whether or not they’re in good taste or if they’re funny.
All of that is irrelevant.
Gottfried was the voice of a major corporation for a decade (that’s one-third of his professional career) and, when that major corporation encountered a major catastrophe (a good chunk of its clients dead, swept out to sea, their homes destroyed in an historic natural disaster), he made jokes about it.
And he got canned.
Did he know that his employer was the second largest insurer overall in Japan and that country’s largest life insurer? Did he know that premiums from Japan accounted for 75 per cent of AFLAC’s revenue? Again, it’s irrelevant. (If he wasn’t aware of it and he made the jokes, it’s kinda like joking that the boss’s wife is a whore… and not knowing that she’s standing behind you in the elevator. You get canned and you accept your fate. If he was aware of that fact and he made the jokes anyway, well… perhaps he wanted to get fired.)
He was heavily associated with the company. At first, it seemed only insiders knew that the duck was voiced by Gottfried. Eventually, however, Gottfried (and AFLAC) were open about the association between the two– Google his name and hit “Images,” and several pics will come up with Gottfried clutching a white duck. Both parties benefited from the association.
And now they don’t.