Dr Mumbo

Political PR you literally can’t pay for

The budget PR playbook has a special section on getting your ad banned from TV in order to get yourself some free PR.

dan ilic getupSo Dr Mumbo was not entirely surprised to see the headlines around GetUp’s anti News Corp dog poo ad getting banned. What with the man behind a lot of the GetUp ads being Dan Ilic, who so successfully generated PR for Dick Smith’s “banned” Australia day ad.

Meanwhile, he was particularly intrigued to read this in Fairfax’s coverage:

“Fairfax Media rejected the video as a paid advertisement for its Age and Sydney Morning Herald websites but confirmed it had no issue with showing it in a news story.

“Darren Goodsir, editor-in-chief of The Sydney Morning Herald, said: ‘I felt that The Sydney Morning Herald should continue to focus on its own independent editorial attributes rather than take money from a lobby group to attack another news publisher.

“‘I think we are better off promoting our own values during this election campaign: that Fairfax is the home for independent and balanced political journalism.'”

Dr Mumbo is sure that the sales team will be delighted.

And The Australian Sex Party is having a crack at the same thing, with their ad being taken off air too and party president Fiona Patten in full outrage mode.

So outraged was she that the party put out a press release: “Ms Patten called on the Communications Minister, Steven Conroy and Opposition spokesperson, Malcolm Turnbull, to come out and say where they stood on the issue and whether as a Minister in one week’s time, they would uphold CAD’s decision or allow TV stations to run the ads without penalty.”

Unfortunately Conroy resigned as media minister back in June.

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