By Mark Weinraub
NEW YORK, March 20 (Reuters) - Advertisers, skittish about hawking products in the middle of missile strikes and other scenes from the war, plan to pull commercials from news programs but still run them on entertainment and sports shows.
Of course, some networks and cable channels have been covering news of the long-awaited U.S. attack on Iraq commercial free since it began Wednesday night.
Advertisers, who had been anticipating the war for months, enacted their contingency plans for commercials, said Barbara Bacci Mirque, senior vice president of the Association of National Advertisers.
"A lot of our members have said they don't want to run in graphic news coverage, even after the first couple of days," said Bacci Mirque, whose industry trade group represents more than 300 advertisers.
Consumer packaged goods giant Procter & Gamble Co. pulled all of its advertising from the broadcast networks after the strike on Wednesday night, a ban it will keep in place for 48 hours, according to spokeswoman Linda Ulrey.
Kraft Foods Inc. , the maker of such well-known brands as Philadelphia cream cheese, Altoids mints and Oscar Mayer meats, will run commercials on other shows.
"We will continue to advertise in entertainment programming," Kathy Knuth said, a spokeswoman for Kraft Foods Inc. , the largest North American food company.
The same policies will be applied to Kraft's print, radio and Internet advertising, Knuth said.
General Motors Corp. has a similar, but not as strict policy, spokeswoman Ryndee Carney said. The automaker, the No. 1 advertiser in the United States, would not advertise on television programs that are devoted exclusively to coverage of the U.S.-led war in Iraq. That includes any extended network news coverage of the war, she said, but not regular news broadcasts.
Some companies, such as computer company International Business Machines Corp. , have not modified their advertising or marketing plans at all.
VARIED RESPONSES
After the initial coverage of the Wednesday night action, the networks had varied responses to the war.
NBC has been the most aggressive of the broadcast networks, covering the news nearly "wall-to-wall" since 9:32 p.m. EST Wednesday. After 12:45 a.m. Thursday the network offered its local stations the option of carrying its sister cable channel MSNBC or going back to their regular programming.
The network came back on at 6:30 a.m. EST Thursday with the "Today" show, running that program past its usual ending time and in to 11 a.m. EST. After "Today," which had some commercials and some non-war programming, the network went back to commercial-free special reports.
ABC was commercial free from 9:40 p.m. EST until 11 p.m. EST Wednesday night, the network said. On CBS, broadcasts were commercial free from 9:33 p.m. EST until 11 p.m. EST, then again at 11:35 p.m. EST until midnight and briefly at 1 a.m. EST.
All the networks switched back to commercial-free coverage on Thursday afternoon following reports of further military action.
DEPENDS ON THE PRODUCT
In the end, the decision about advertising is often based on the product being sold, thee Association of National Advertisers' Bacci Mirque said. Companies such as airlines or travel groups may decide to cancel ads because no one is flying, but consumer products companies may keep their commercials on the air.
Burger King, the No. 2 U.S. hamburger chain, does not plan on changing its advertising "because we don't have anything that could offend the general public from a current events perspective," spokeswoman Michelle Miguelez said.
"Selling Whoppers is a friendly thing," she added. (Additional reporting by Deborah Cohen in Chicago, Ben Berkowitz in Los Angeles, Tom Brown in Detroit, and Caroline Humer and Jessica Wohl in New York)