What’s happpening in the media today?

October 8th, 2004

LET’S SEE IF WE HAVE THIS STRAIGHT reported Mediapost on 5th October.

Mediapost lists the following

A top media executive at WPP’s Ogilvy & Mather and MindShare units pled guilty to falsifying media billings data for an advertising account he was handling for the White House.
Nielsen’s TV ratings, the “currency” of the entire TV advertising marketplace, were once again the subject of Congressional hearings – the first time since the game show scandals in the 1960s.
TV programmers, advertisers and agencies are clandestinely embedding products into program content – even news content. And everyone thinks this is a good thing?
Public relations and video news release companies are now producing news-style programs for corporate and branded products and are leasing time on local TV stations and cable networks that present them as genuine newscasts.
News and information sites like weather.com are incorporating “advertorial” content seamlessly into their weather information news.
Magazines continue to push the boundaries of editorial and advertising fusion, despite strict and explicit guidelines by the American Association of Magazine Editors.
In an effort to reduce radio advertising clutter (a good thing) Clear Channel Communications is asking advertisers and agencies to pay more for less (a bad thing), and plans to convert all of its 60-second advertising units into :30s that cost about 75 percent to 80 percent of the price of a :60.
Reporters and writers for top newspapers like The New York Times and USA Today have been dismissed for allegedly fabricating stories they presented as fact.
Let’s see, did we leave anything out? Oh yeah, just this: What the hell’s going on here?

This is America, and the UK is a very different place. But it does signify the pressure on individuals and companies to deliver in a marketplace that is changing. For many the move into ‘content’ or ‘editorial’ by stealth is their solution. This is why in the UK there is such significant cause for concern over what is called “advertiser Funded Programming.”

SMLXL believe that brands have no option but to engage their customers, but being economic with the truth is not how we believe it should be done. Or pretending to be something you are not.

You always get found out in the end and then a brand or business loses the most important thing from its stakeholders – Trust.

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