Nick Kavanagh leaves Naked over Rudd furore
Naked’s communications director Nick Kavanagh has resigned over the “comment for content” furore.
Mike Wilson, chairman of Naked Communications, told the SMH: “The person responsible has today left the business.”
The controversy blew up after it was revealed that Naked was working on a project for Labor and offered video interviews with PM Kevin Rudd to youth sites including The Vine, Vice and Pedestrian TV.
The Vine, which is owned by Fairfax, claimed that Naked sought to extend the deal to free advertising inventory and tailored editorial. Pedestrian TV said that although it was offered the interview, the commercial element was not put to it, while Vice refused to discuss how far it had gone with negotiations.
Mumbrella understands that Kavanagh resigned and immediately left the country as he had already planned a holiday back in the UK. it is unclear whether he will return to Australia.
Good they got somebody to take one for the team. Assume the other culprits will follow. Captains, ships, and all that.
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Sad but the noble thing to do…
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Ouch! I still don’t get how it seems to be okay at some levels to request editorial as part of an advertising package, but not at this end of the market.
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It is hard to understand how anyone would think the “comment for content” would either work or even survive the ethics test.
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Mark Wilson next head of the ALP… Perfect next role for you Mark
All reward but NO RESPONSIBILITY??
“The person responsible has today left the business.”
LAME – SHAME – BLAME
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“…left the country as he had already planned a holiday back in the UK”
Right.
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Move on Mumbrella.
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i thought all the poms working in aussie adland were super-clever
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Survive the ethics test? A code of ethics is a rare thing to find at a PR firm, and to see it enforced is even rarer.
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Idiot. Given Tony Abbott’s intensely negative campaign coupled with News Ltd extremely biased reporting, this could have obliterated Labor at the next election.
Now when are we going to get the inside scoop on News Ltd portraying Rudd in the most negative light possible while the Herald remains uncharacteristically neutral or is Murdoch too big for all of us?
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Scapegoating is such a cleansing moment when a troupe of buffoons makes a mistake.
The real story here is about Naked – getting into bed with that Carnival of Chaos, the ALP.
Every Naked client – presumably businesses that want to grow – should now be considering whose side their agency is really on.
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@groucho – no one else will follow. They have found their scapegoat and have used him passed the point of…well…usefulness.
Mumbrella – maybe leave the poor sod alone now, eh?
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I’ve been keeping a track of this story and the comments that have followed, with both confusion and a certain amount of annoyance.
Many many people have been commenting from atop of their stallions on how shameful it was for Naked to be asking for editorial coverage as part of the overall negotiation.
More often than not there have then followed comments from the ever-ethical PR guys, with something like – ‘oh, how crass….PR never works like that….’ which in my opinion is tosh. I see it happening that way all the time and I have been around this industry for almost 15 years.
Anyway, just to emphasise that this approach is not exactly uncommon practise for any part of the advertising world….I just listened to my morning voicemails a second ago. I had a message from a media owner (one that will go un-named…I am not in the business of naming and shaming, unlike The Vine it would seem….) , who states quite clearly:
“we have been having discussions with [your client] about covering the event and wondered if you would like to look at some advertising dollars in exchange for the promise of editorial’.
Editorial for media $ doesn’t happen? what a crock…
Maybe I should record the voicemail to mp3 and send over to The Vine?
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You are right Yup. Cash for comment has been going on for years. But that does not make it right or acceptable. Every time someone writes a story just because an advertiser parts with money, the publication loses credibility. It is one of the contributing reasons why newspaper circulations are declining.
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