10% of Marketers Believe Ads Buy Coverage
A new survey says 19 percent of marketers believe their organization bought ads on a "news site" IN EXCHANGE FOR A STORY. Also: 10% of marketers say they believe their companies have a "non-verbal agreement with journalists or editors for which, in exchange for buying ad space, they can expect favorable coverage of their products or brands." The survey was conducted by Millward Brown for PRWeek and Manning Selvage & Lee.
I fear this survey may give journalists a black eye they don't deserve. Here's why:
I've been an editor for about 17 years, and have never personally witnessed any such arrangement. I have, on the other hand, run into many "marketers" and even company CEOs who believed such a relationship does or should exist.
News organizations typically have a "Chinese Wall" between the editorial and advertising departments. The ad sales people (who are usually strangers to the editorial people) are in white-hot competition with the ad sales people from other publications, and need to give advertisers compelling and exclusive reasons to do business. In their agressive push for business, some ad sales people hint at the idea that they'll "talk to the editors" about coverage or make the potential advertisers believe they'll be given some kind of advantage on the editorial pages. It's a "non-verbal agreement" because it's never stated outright. It's merely implied or hinted at during the sales pitch.
When the editorial staff does cover a product, negative coverage is met with an alarmed "what happened?" phone call to the publication's sale contact, and trouble with the relationship between the marketing person and the sales person. But when coverage happens to be positive, the advertiser pats themselves on the back for making it all happen, and they're a big hero at their own company for the big "win."
At most technology publications, editors and writers don't even pay attention to who is advertising.
This survey merely does an inventory of the beliefs of marketers. It does not actually measure corruption among editors and writers.
Also: Be careful of the numbers. A report that says 19 percent of "senior marketers" "admit" their organizations bought ads on a news site in exchange for a news story. A careless read of this finding may lead readers to think, OK, 19 percent of publications are corrupt. But the 19 percent figure doesn't at all measure a percentage of news organizations. It's the percentage of marketing people who believe that somewhere in the company they work for, such a relationship exists with an unknown number of news organizations. It could be one organization. It could be a million. And the whole thing could be just an unfounded perception. The survey has no data on the number of news organizations involved, or even the validity of the beliefs among marketers.
Anyway, "news organizations" already have a reputation they don't deserve, and this survey doesn't help.
The story I link to above opens with a quote from Ogilvy & Mather's David Ogilvy, who said, "The vast majority of editors are incorruptible." That has been my experience as well.
I fear this survey may give journalists a black eye they don't deserve. Here's why:
I've been an editor for about 17 years, and have never personally witnessed any such arrangement. I have, on the other hand, run into many "marketers" and even company CEOs who believed such a relationship does or should exist.
News organizations typically have a "Chinese Wall" between the editorial and advertising departments. The ad sales people (who are usually strangers to the editorial people) are in white-hot competition with the ad sales people from other publications, and need to give advertisers compelling and exclusive reasons to do business. In their agressive push for business, some ad sales people hint at the idea that they'll "talk to the editors" about coverage or make the potential advertisers believe they'll be given some kind of advantage on the editorial pages. It's a "non-verbal agreement" because it's never stated outright. It's merely implied or hinted at during the sales pitch.
When the editorial staff does cover a product, negative coverage is met with an alarmed "what happened?" phone call to the publication's sale contact, and trouble with the relationship between the marketing person and the sales person. But when coverage happens to be positive, the advertiser pats themselves on the back for making it all happen, and they're a big hero at their own company for the big "win."
At most technology publications, editors and writers don't even pay attention to who is advertising.
This survey merely does an inventory of the beliefs of marketers. It does not actually measure corruption among editors and writers.
Also: Be careful of the numbers. A report that says 19 percent of "senior marketers" "admit" their organizations bought ads on a news site in exchange for a news story. A careless read of this finding may lead readers to think, OK, 19 percent of publications are corrupt. But the 19 percent figure doesn't at all measure a percentage of news organizations. It's the percentage of marketing people who believe that somewhere in the company they work for, such a relationship exists with an unknown number of news organizations. It could be one organization. It could be a million. And the whole thing could be just an unfounded perception. The survey has no data on the number of news organizations involved, or even the validity of the beliefs among marketers.
Anyway, "news organizations" already have a reputation they don't deserve, and this survey doesn't help.
The story I link to above opens with a quote from Ogilvy & Mather's David Ogilvy, who said, "The vast majority of editors are incorruptible." That has been my experience as well.
1:51 PM * PERMALINK * 2 comments
Comments:
I believe you - honest. But to those with a conspiracy theory mentality this will sound like the proverbial "honest" used car salesman.
:-)
Then again, 1 in 5 marketing execs "believe" they bought a fluff story by buying advertisement isn't a bad number. That "fluff" story could also include an honest review or coincidental coverage of a related story.
And only 1 in 10 think that advertising helps offset negative press? That's pretty good (when was the last time you heard a commercial that said "1 in 10 doctors agree..."). Remember, the marketing guys like to think they have a lot more power than they do. If only 10% can justify their budget by saying they can help bury bad press those are pretty good numbers to me.
On the other hand, if you're the conspiracy theorist who believe that advertising controls the lives of average citizens through "subliminibal" messages and fluoride in the drinking water you probably already know that the other 90% of marketing execs were lying.
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