A prominent advertising company nuked a Catholic group’s billboard design that included a prayer for former President Donald Trump, The Federalist has learned.
The incident occurred last month when Catholics for Catholics (CforC), a 501c(4) organization as indicated on the group’s website, signed a contract with the Lamar Advertising Company to install its pro-Trump artwork on billboards in Milwaukee and Green Bay, Wisconsin.
The Catholics for Catholics’ design features a recreation of the iconic photo of a bloodied Trump raising his fist during the July 13 assassination attempt in Butler County, Pennsylvania. The image is accompanied by the group’s name, website, and a prayer reading, “St. Michael The Archangel, Defend Us In Battle!”
According to CforC Media Director Veronica Flamenco, the group initially contacted Lamar Account Executive Brian Kuermaier on Aug. 6 to get a quote for, in addition to another potential location, placing their ads on billboards in Wisconsin. Flamenco indicated that Kuermaier was provided the design from “the very beginning.”
Lamar sent CforC lists of available billboard locations in Milwaukee, Madison, and Green Bay. Copies of the lists obtained by The Federalist show Lamar contracted with the Democratic National Committee for a billboard in Milwaukee.
After receiving the billboard location proposals from Lamar, Flamenco said she attempted to negotiate the costs of placing the design, at which point Kuermaier purportedly claimed he couldn’t offer any discounts because the company classified CforC’s billboard art as a “political ad.”
Flamenco said she contended that the design was part of a “Prayer Campaign for Country and Leaders.” She claimed the Lamar executive responded by saying CforC could get the discount if it removed Trump’s face from the billboard.
CforC ultimately declined to do so, allowing Lamar to designate it as a “political ad,” Flamenco said. The Catholic group subsequently signed a contract for three billboard locations (one in Milwaukee and two in Green Bay) on Aug. 16.
A copy of the contract obtained by the Federalist contains a provision noting that Lamar “reserves the right to determine if copy and design are in good taste and within the moral standards of the individual communities in which it is to be displayed” and the “right to reject or remove any copy either before or after installation, including immediate termination of this contract.”
Flamenco said she received an invoice for the first charge on Aug. 19, but noted she decided to hold off on paying it until Lamar sent her the second invoice so she could “pay [the] full amount” at once.
The following day, however, Kuermaier sent Flamenco and CforC CEO John Yep an email saying his team “went through [its] process of submitting political artwork to [Lamar’s] Corporate Office for approval and the [group’s] artwork was denied.” He noted the “concern expressed” was that Catholics for Catholics’ design “plainly could be taken as a Catholic endorsement of Trump.”
Flamenco asked about Lamar’s guidelines and if CforC is “allowed to do anything political.” In the correspondence obtained by The Federalist, Kuermaier said “political artwork” is permitted but that Lamar’s corporate office is worried “with your name ‘Catholics for Catholics’ it is impossible to not have it appear as a Catholic Church endorsement of a political candidate.”
“This is considered misleading which is part of our guidelines,” Kuermaier wrote, indicating he copied Lamar Executive Vice President of Government Relations Hal Kilshaw in the response.
“Can you clarify how it is misleading?” Yep also asked in another email, noting that his group is operating as a 501c(4) “with the ability to endorse candidates.”
“[N]o formal governing body within the entire Catholic Church has laid a formal accusation of us being misleading as we are fully within the boundaries of the Church’s own Canon Law (#216) in our use of the name,” Yep wrote. “We respectfully request that as our own Church which oversees 25% of the US Population does not have a problem with what we are doing that you kindly allow our billboard to have our institutional name,” he continued, although Kilshaw contended the decision to deny CforC’s design “is consistent with the Lamar Copy Acceptance Policy and is in no way based upon the Catholic Church’s Canon Lay [sic].”
After significant back and forth between the parties, the design including the group’s full name was ultimately denied, prompting the group to apparently end its contract and take its business elsewhere, as Yep indicated when later speaking with The Federalist.
CforC claimed in a press release this month that its “volunteers have identified the actual billboard location [in Milwaukee] that was canceled” and “report[ed] back that the opposite sides of the agreed upon boards contain pro Kamala Harris advertisements.”
Yep told The Federalist that Catholics for Catholics has since contracted with a different advertising company and placed its billboards in numerous battleground states such as Nevada and Pennsylvania. The group also has billboards in Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Arizona, according to its website.
The CforC CEO compared the incident to Big Tech censorship during the 2020 election, arguing it’s “not just some Catholic squabble” and that companies like Lamar are “trying to stop our kinds of messages.” In its press release, the group cited a recent story about how a billboard company “soft canceled” a pro-life organization “by moving the educational nonprofit into an ‘advocacy’ category for which it would have to pay significantly higher rates,” according to the National Catholic Register.
“This is a trend that’s not being talked about. It’s one of the old school styles of marketing, which is still very much valid,” Yep told The Federalist. “It’s just like [what] social media [and] Google [are doing]. It’s using the power that they have to stop our side.”
Lamar did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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