Not the sort of innovation we need
April 7, 2009 in College Media News, ethics
Update 2: another take from the Daily Cal. #
The Daily Bruin at UCLA ran a “wrap” advertisement around their paper today. Ordinarily, I have no problem with “innovative” advertising ideas (well, except for those cursed roll-over web ads), but this ad went way beyond “innovative” and ventured into the area of “deceptive” and “unethical.” #
Here’s the real Bruin front page: #
And here’s the “wrap” that ran today: #
Now, I don’t know about you, but, with the exception of the “Paid Advertisement” words below the flag, that’s a pretty close knock-off of the editorial design of the real Daily Bruin (the editorial staff did get the advertiser to change the font on the nameplate of the ad). All to market some kind of honey-related ice cream crap. #
The student editors weren’t pleased, and said so in an editorial: #
Many of us volunteered to forfeit our pay in order to ensure that the ad would not run, but because some of our staff members could not afford to use their paychecks to make a statement, we have been forced to go along quietly. #Editor Anthony Pesce published an editor’s note on the real front page: #The reality of our financial situation is grim, and the fact of the matter is that we would have been forced to cut thousands of dollars from an ever-tightening budget if we had not run this advertisement. #
We were forced to make a decision we find distasteful at best – and dishonest and unethical at worst – because of the ever-present and unrelenting reality of the economy and the downturn of the journalism industry. #
Much of our staff, the members of this board especially, are invested in the Daily Bruin and the practice of journalism on a personal level, and nothing pains us more than to see the cover and name of our beloved publication sullied for the sake of survival. #
Today’s Daily Bruin was wrapped in an advertisement specifically designed by a clever marketing department to fool you into thinking – if only for a few seconds – that my staff wrote the content that appeared on the front page. #Apparently, financial pressures overruled journalism in this instance. I’m with the students. #If you’re reading this, you have discovered our real front page, fully educated about the plight of the honey bee, and I’m glad you are taking the time to read our newspaper. I want our readership and our community to know that there will not be another advertisement like it for the rest of the year. We will not be selling these kinds of ads as long as I remain the editor of this newspaper – which is at least for another nine weeks. Many on my staff were vehemently opposed to this ad for a variety of reasons. Mostly, though, they were upset and concerned that our front-page news content was displaced, and that it was displaced by an advertisement designed to mislead our readers. #
Look, it’s one thing to place an ad around your content. It’s one thing to think up new ways to make money on innovative marketing ideas. Heck, I even applauded when the New York Times started running front page ads! #
But this is just wrong. Shame on the marketers for concocting this sad little ploy to trade on the tradition of a 90-year-old journalistic enterprise, and shame on whoever it was who forced the issue to trade that journalistic tradition for a few pieces of gold. #
In an age when newspapers are fighting for their lives and the credibility of the news industry is not that great, this type of “advertorial” is not a step in the right direction. #
I welcome your thoughts. #
Update: Please answer the poll question #
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If this ad had run on April 1st it may have been applauded and could have satisfied everyone. What a difference one week could have made.
Those PDFs speak a thousand words. When I was reading the CoPress discussion about today's Bruin, it didn't register that the "wrapper" was a duplication of the front page. I mirror your sentiments entirely, Bryan. This is a step in the wrong direction. It's 20 steps in the wrong direction. I suppose the "good" that could come of this is that student news organizations can join up with their ad staff and start thinking of ways to avoid the same situation happening at their own newspapers. I'm writing an e-mail to our advertising coordinator right now with a link to this post.
We agree. We were approached about the same ad, and we firmly decided against it. I really recognize the problems the Bruin are facing. We have them too, and considering we are one of the few papers that actually scaled back publication, we're probably feeling the pain a lot worse.We actually did end up running a similar ad, but inside (pp. 5-6) and more clearly labeled as Paid Advertising. Still not something I'm entirely comfortable with, but definitely something I can live with, considering we held on to the revenue. Would welcome your thoughts on it. Available at: http://www.dailycal.org/data/pdf/2249.pdf
Bryan,I don't see a huge problem with that version of the ad. I actually worked for a while in the "classified special sections" department at a major daily, and there was no way they would let us co-opt the nameplate of the newspaper for this type of stuff. We couldn't use the same headline fonts, body fonts, etc.The knock-off front page is really bad. thanks for your comment.
You're right, of course, Bryan. Advertising/marketing creep toward "owning" the journalism of a newspaper — news org, really — is moving faster and faster and, unfortunately, with the economy the way it is, journalists have to make tough decisions.But to your Twitter question about professional papers pimping out the front? Not ours.
Interesting take, Ben. I'd like to see a little more variation to make it comfortable for my taste, even changing the name to the daily honeybee or something. But it's an idea of how to make lemonade out of honey (?).
Wrote my own post about the situation, comments welcome: http://blog.dailycal.org/editors/2009/04/07/wal…..
[...] fellow college media blogger Bryan Murley, who oozes innovation over at CICM, first reported and graciously passed my way: Daily Bruin staffers at UCLA are irate about honey bees and an advertisement related to [...]
As a former Bruin staff member (I served for three years, my last year as the head of the then newly-formed Online Department in 2006-2007), I was, of course, sad to see that the paper decided to use this ad. I actually spoke with a member of the Daily Bruin Editorial Board just two weeks prior, and he seemed pretty sure of the paper NOT running the ad.What changed between then and yesterday, I am not entirely sure. I've been talking to friends of mine still at the Bruin to determine what happened. It sounds like it may not have been a popular decision amongst staffers.Even so, I think it is really premature to start calling it "wrong," in any sense. It is certainly distasteful, but I feel it inappropriate to judge without a complete understanding.What's more concerning, I feel, is the Bruin's adamant support of a fee referendum with ASUCLA, where they would be receiving funds from student fees to help sustain the paper. This is much more problematic for the Bruin than journalistically-unsound advertisements.I'd much rather the Bruin use unorthodox methods to stay financially solvent rather than be taking a dole from students, especially through ASUCLA, which can have strong feelings about editorial content. A fee referendum would mean more control by ASUCLA on all matters Bruin-related, including (if only indirectly) editorial decisions.So I hope the college media community is not universally quick to judge the Bruin too harshly. These are hard times for all sections of student media, and without a complete rundown of the facts, it would be inappropriate to make a qualitative judgment about the paper.
Not to claim that ESPN "The Magazine" (love the quotes…) is on the same journalistic par as many of our up-and-coming student newspapers, but I had the SAME troublesome thoughts in seeing ESPN (and I believe The Sporting News has done it as well) run "mock" covers as wraps on the outside of their real covers.The most recent: A "half wrap" that shows the continuation of an ESPN logo from the cover below, with NO art whatsoever on the page… You flip it open, it's an Ad for Gatorade or something like that, mocking the fact that "you'd never see "half the front page, why drink half the sports drink" or some ridiculous campaign like that. It might not have been Gatorade, but that's the general idea of what it was… They've done this in the past with Vitamin Water ads as well that LOOKED so real, i really wondered to myself, "wow, Vitamin Water just got a free ad with Ladanian Tomlinson drinking vitamin water on the cover of a national magazine." Turns out, my instincts were right – it was an ad that sure as heck looked like the real thing until i got the BACK PAGE and realized it.I guess my point is … I'm saddened because I really don't see this as the "end" of something. I think it's the beginning of this trend… I long for the days when the only "ethical" quandry we had at our college shop (Arizona Daily Wildcat / University of Arizona) was whether the racy strip club ads in the back of sports were too risque. At least that didn't pretend to be editorial content.Wraps, in my opinion, are fine — when 100 percent distinguishable from traditional content. Wraps are nothing new, either. 3/4 page wraps for grocery stores have been appearing in communities nationwide. But nobody will ever mistake a grocery store "wrap" ad for content.
Not to claim that ESPN “The Magazine” (love the quotes…) is on the same journalistic par as many of our up-and-coming student newspapers, but I had the SAME troublesome thoughts in seeing ESPN (and I believe The Sporting News has done it as well) run “mock” covers as wraps on the outside of their real covers.
The most recent: A “half wrap” that shows the continuation of an ESPN logo from the cover below, with NO art whatsoever on the page… You flip it open, it's an Ad for Gatorade or something like that, mocking the fact that “you'd never see “half the front page, why drink half the sports drink” or some ridiculous campaign like that. It might not have been Gatorade, but that's the general idea of what it was…
They've done this in the past with Vitamin Water ads as well that LOOKED so real, i really wondered to myself, “wow, Vitamin Water just got a free ad with Ladanian Tomlinson drinking vitamin water on the cover of a national magazine.” Turns out, my instincts were right – it was an ad that sure as heck looked like the real thing until i got the BACK PAGE and realized it.
I guess my point is … I'm saddened because I really don't see this as the “end” of something. I think it's the beginning of this trend…
I long for the days when the only “ethical” quandry we had at our college shop (Arizona Daily Wildcat / University of Arizona) was whether the racy strip club ads in the back of sports were too risque. At least that didn't pretend to be editorial content.
Wraps, in my opinion, are fine — when 100 percent distinguishable from traditional content. Wraps are nothing new, either. 3/4 page wraps for grocery stores have been appearing in communities nationwide. But nobody will ever mistake a grocery store “wrap” ad for content.
[...] and put a fake advertorial on your front page, or do one better, as the UCLA student paper did: wrap their entire paper with a full, mock front page advertorial, which was designed and written by a marketing department. The paper’s editors ran a pissy [...]
[...] is all the Buzz, sorry about the bad pun. To make ends meet, they sold out, their front page. Innovation in College Media has they story and both the “ad front” and the actual front page images. Check it out. Great [...]
[...] been following The Daily Bruinstory and saw the LA Weekly Tweet about it.  I saw the Innovation in College Media post on the issue, which had a good comparison of the real versus faux front [...]
[...] More on the Daily Bruin’s front-page ad (which looks like an incredible replica of the real paper), plus photos. Linch’s [...]
[...] hasn’t asked the big question yet, it’ll likely come within in the next year or so. The Daily Bruin dealt with it on a large scale, and I dealt with it this week on a small scale. When should you resort to selling [...]
Ads are the revenue and no one can stop any organization to post ads at their website. Because they have to earn from them to live. Despite we can talk about it that why should not we.
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