Comment poison and advertising
Jamie at Mailwatch asked a while ago if online commenters could create a toxic environment for brands. It's something I've wondered about for a while. It's all very well creating traffic for your website by allowing people to be as offensive as they like - but does there come a point when a line gets crossed, and advertisers on those pages don't want their brands alongside something truly unpleasant?
You may remember the other day I wrote about Rod Liddle's fans*, and included this snippet from an online forum discussion at the British Democracy Forum about one of his columns:
I emailed John Lewis to ask them if they felt their brand belonged alongside that kind of discussion, and they responded today:
Dear Mr Vowl
Thanks for your email . The advertisement has now been removed and we wont be advertising on this website in the future .We have a rigorous screening process for where our advertisements appear , but on this occasion, it would appear that this inappropriate placement has slipped through the net .We are reviewing how this happened currently .
Kind Regards
Kelly McAdden
Online Marketing
John Lewis Direct
I had thought it was most likely a genuine mistake from the company concerned and had wanted to alert them to placement they might not agree with. It's tempting to advertise on certain platforms but when your brand appears alongside views that are verging on the extreme, then that might change people's opinions. In the end, advertisers will decide where they want to put their brand names and whether certain discussions are toxic or not for them.
* Incidentally Liddle has, today, done something so shit-in-the-eyes bad on his Spectator blog that it's done the impossible: it's made me take Marcus Brigstocke's side. It's so dismal that it really doesn't deserve a link, but luckily I have the power of the screengrab:
I wonder if Spectator advertisers want their brands alongside something that bad? "Funny things said: 0" - oh, the irony.
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January 8th, 2010 - 13:39
The content in general was one of the problems with Pajama Media's business model. Big advertisers don't want to be associated with the sort of stuff one used to find on Little Green Footballs, etc.
January 8th, 2010 - 14:28
Rod Liddle argues with his critics in the comments to that post. I thought I could laugh at him but it's just embarrassing to read.
January 8th, 2010 - 18:50
According to reports, Liddle has been lined up to edit the Independent.
January 8th, 2010 - 23:48
Yeah, Media Guardian.co.uk has a lead piece on it with additional details about RL's "Liddlisms" and The Independent's possible next owners. Almost all of the commenters think that Liddle's a load of shit, for some strange reason…
January 9th, 2010 - 15:15
I am not speaking for the owner of the BDF who, as an overt supporter of Libertas at the EU elections, cannot be described as far right.
I am, however, a moderator on the BDF. The BDF has always been tolerant of diverse and sometimes seemingly offensive opinions, but it depends what you find offensive.
We have a small group of moderators and we do try to monitor as many of the posts as we can, but sometimes some things slip through that are inappropiate. We don't censor if we can help it and that has meant that some BNP activists use our site (the bloke who posted the post linked to is not someone I would invite to dinner). We have tried to keep them in one section and we have banned the BNP avatar as well as links to known BNP sites (I banned someone for a week recently when he provided a link to a BNP blog). I have also banned a couple of seriously anti-Semitic posters for life. The problem is that most of the mods have a strong libertarian streak and don't want to be yet another site that bans people gratuitously just because they are wrong.
I have tried to explain my views about freedom of speech and assembly on my blog – http://paulwessonelection2010.blogspot.com/2010/01/free-speech.html , but it isn't easy taking a strictly neutral position.
If advertisers withdraw advertising that is their prerogative, but they have to make a commercial decision and be aware that their target market might include people whose views they find offensive.
January 9th, 2010 - 16:43
I suspect this was part of a 'network buy' by John Lewis' media agency (I work for such an agency). The size of the online marketplace means that a substantial amount of digital advertising campaigns are bought on this basis, where a third party network deliver advertising impressions across a network of sites.
As a matter of course, the contracts for network buys will include clauses that sites within the network won't include inappropriate content (e.g. porn, racism). For 'family' brands, such as John Lewis, these terms will be quite stringent, and we have sophisticated tracking systems in place to alert us if this happens. If a breach occurs, the advertising has to be withdrawn immediately and the agency/advertiser will be compensated – in many cases the network will not be paid at all.
Long and short is, the network representing the BDF has no doubt taken it off it's roster of sites. So they've probably lost their major revenue stream. I'll certainly be finding out which network it is and ensuring that our agency's clients aren't exposed to the same risk. I've seen accounts lost for less!
So, in short: well done!