Re: Refusal to carry advertisements

From: Adrienne Kramer <ASKMGMT_at_aol.com>
Date: Wed 8 Mar 2000 05:58:27 EST

KATHERINE GELHAR WROTE:
> I am doing research for a Russian company on common
> practices regarding refusal to carry banner from
> specific advertisers.

Hi all,
 
As an over all answer to selection of advertising I
would like to bring in two examples from the
non-internet world. They are 1) network television and
2) Whittle Communications.

In the first example, network television has always
been very selective of the quality and content of
television advertising. While they will not tell you
to avoid running a motor oil commercial on daytime soap
operas, they will not let you run "racy" ads (and even
this has changed somewhat over the years) or others
that are inappropriate by age bracket during certain
dayparts. This also holds true for print ads, but to a
lesser degree as there is no governing body (the FTC)
to make sure that content is appropriate.

By the way, this also holds true for claims. You don't
want an advertiser putting out false claims and then
that is a reflection on your site.

In the second example, Chris Whittle and Whittle
Communications did some rather radical things in the
world of education and advertising. First, he set up
a program that distributed news content to schools
daily via satellite. The program is still in effect
and rather successful. The 12 minute news segment
(the only content of the broadcast) has 120 seconds of
advertising split between the beginning and the end of
the program at different times during its run. It is
incredibly selective in the content and choice of
advertisers for this. Many will balk at that, as Pepsi,
Coke, etc. have been major sponsors and it has been
said that these are inappropriate products to be
showing to children during the school day. But, their
role in censoring the content and message has been very
strong and has paid off.

I think it is terrific for someone to stand up and say
that they don't want a certain ad on their site. If
someone does choose your site, they may have a reason
for doing about which you don't know. So long as the
content meets your criteria, there is no harm in
having them as a customer.

Adrienne Kramer
ASK Management, Inc.
Specialists in Marketing and Communication
www.askmanagement.net








Received on Wed Mar 08 2000 - 04:58:27 CST