What does an English lad named Paul Francis Gadd and Hewlett Packard have in common?

At first glance, nothing.

But Gadd is no ordinary English lad.

His stage name is Gary Glitter.

Glitter is a child sex abuser and pedophile known internationally - he was recently released from a Thai jail for abusing children.

That didn’t stop Hewlett Packard however.

They needed music for their new TouchSmart TV, and Glitters song “Do you wanna touch…yeah” was just perfect.

That someone in management or their ad agency didn’t notice Glitter’s background is too much to ask. He’s been all over the news of late. But they went with it anyway because they were running a cover of the song by Joan Jett. Somebody figured no one would notice.

Child AbuseWatch.net did.

Glitter must be ecstatic. It is reported that royalty transaction that will earn him a 100,000 pounds ($170k).

Wait. It gets better.

Child AbuseWatch.net (CAN) in the U.S., a prominent child abuse prevention group based in Florida, noticed the commercial's music on television.

On October 14th Child AbuseWatch founder and director, Evin Daly - a Guardian ad Litem with the 15th Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach - wrote to Mark Hurd, HP’s CEO and the board of directors asking that they stop running the commercial, explaining why.

As a public company you would probably think that HP – outraged that such a terrible thing had happened - fired their ad agency, got back to CAN right away and donated the 100 big ones to charity.

They didn’t.

CAN wrote again, warning that they would advise the media if nothing was done to stop the commercial.

And again no response.

Child AbuseWatch.net issued a press release to the media in the UK and the US.

On October 29 the media reacted in the UK, Australia and the Far East.

Paper after paper picked up the story and bombarded HP with calls for comment. The big guns got involved - the Telegraph, the Sun, the Daily Mail.

HP initially tried stonewalling. When we called we were put through to a marketing department voice mail. Eventually HP pulled the ad but just in the UK.

In the U.S., HP just changed the music.

And in doing so HP has missed the point.

As a public company HP has civic responsibilities to respond to issues that affect children in addition to obligations to its shareholders and investors (who will be reading about this over the next few days). Ignoring it from the board room doesn't quite cut it. See HP's board here.

Child AbuseWatch.net is calling for a boycott of HP’s products for the holiday season; an appropriate gesture considering the  point of the season is make our children happy. Something Glitter was not good at. And, by association it would seem, neither is HP.

We join Child AbuseWatch.net in boycotting Hewlett Packard for the season and hope that you will too.

References:
See international press coverage of the response to Hewlett Packard’s ad here
Write to HP’s board of directors here (bod@hp.com) or call (650) 857-1501
Visit Child AbuseWatch.net here www.abusewatch.net
See the commercial here on YouTube
Glitter's original recording here or here