Haddon Heights market unwillingly stars in Trump campaign ad
Grethe Kiley didn't think much about the film crew that set up in front of her family's market in Haddon Heights in July. Maybe the store would someday show up in a toilet paper ad, she speculated in passing.
Grethe Kiley didn't think much about the film crew that set up in front of her family's market in Haddon Heights in July. Maybe the store would someday show up in a toilet paper ad, she speculated in passing.
Instead, the facade of John's Friendly Market - an institution in the New Jersey town - is front and center in a presidential television campaign commercial that Donald Trump began running last week in nine battleground states, including Pennsylvania.
Kiley, who took over the store with her sister in 2011 after their father, John Johnson, died, learned about the commercial only when she saw it on television.
Then longtime customers started calling, wanting to know if the market was supporting Trump. Some said they might take their shopping elsewhere if that was the case.
"My concern is, our image is being connected with a particular candidate," Kiley said. "It just feels invasive and intrusive. Plus the fact that we were misled."
Greg Manz, a spokesman for Trump's campaign in Pennsylvania, said in an email, "The production company hired to film the stock images received permission from the store manager to film at the location."
Manz did not address whether "the store manager" was told the filming was for a Trump ad.
Kiley isn't alone in her complaints about the ad. The Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons' International Association issued a letter to its members on Friday about one member, Calvin Anderson of Philadelphia, appearing in Trump's ad while wearing a hard hat with the union's label on the front.
Daniel Stepano, the union's general president, said in the letter that Anderson was on a job site July 9 when a film crew approached him and coworkers.
"He and others were intentionally misled and not told that his photo or image would be used for the specific purpose of a Donald Trump campaign advertisement," wrote Stepano, who called on Trump to take down the ad and noted that Anderson said he plans to vote for the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton.
Manz said he knew nothing about the union's complaint.
Trump's campaign on Aug. 29 announced the new ad, known as "Two Americas: Economy," and said it would run in Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada, Virginia, and Colorado.
The ad opens: "In Hillary Clinton's America, the middle class gets crushed, spending goes up, taxes go up, hundreds of jobs disappear. It's more of the same, but worse."
Foreboding music gives way to a lighter tune as the narrator praises Trump's economic policies. John's Friendly Market appears about 19 seconds into the 30-second ad. A man with a thick beard wearing a storekeeper's apron, arms folded across his chest, stands in front of the store and smiles as the words "small businesses thrive" appear on the screen.
Fresh corn is stacked in a sidewalk stand behind the man in the apron. The filming was apparently too early for tomato season.
Kiley said someone from a film crew walked into her market on a Monday in early July, telling a cashier that they would be filming up and down the street that day. The market sits at Seventh and Station Avenues.
Kiley said the crew did not speak with a manager, and she then went outside and identified herself as one of the market's owners. She found the man in the apron, who told her he was "just the model" and didn't know what the filming was for.
Crew members told Kiley they were shooting "B-reel, background footage" for commercial use.
"They were out there quite a while," she said. "I expected to see the market in a toilet paper commercial or something."
Since then, customers have provided "quite a bit of feedback" on the commercial and Trump.
"I don't know how much business we may be losing or gaining, based on the assumptions of people thinking we're Donald Trump supporters," Kiley said.
Kiley said her sister, Josephine Doto, spoke to a lawyer about potential action to get Trump's campaign to stop using their market's image in the ad.
They ultimately didn't move forward with that, out of concerns for how Trump's campaign might react and the resulting publicity that would follow.
Their father started working at the market in 1956 and took over ownership in 1976. His red jacket still hangs on a chair in the market, where customers write in a guest book about the longtime grocer's generosity when they hit upon tough times.
"It's something you don't have in every town," Kiley said of the market. "It's a little slice of Americana."
215-854-5973 @ByChrisBrennan