Unhappy brands told to pull ads ‘to alter behaviour’ of journalists, as Fairfax removes claim that VW withdrew advertising
Brands who believe they have suffered unfair press coverage should consider withdrawing advertising to “alter behaviour”, a leading PR practitioner has urged.
Gabriel McDowell, managing director of PR agency Res Publica and a committee member of industry body The PR Council, made the comment at last week’s Mumbrella360 conference.
His call came in response to a question from the audience about Fairfax’s campaigning reporting of Volkswagen’s alleged power-loss problems, which today finally led to a recall of some of its cars. The publisher had claimed – but has since quietly removed from the online version – that VW had pulled its advertising over its reporting.
Fairfax’s investigative reporter Melissa Fyfe has written a series of reports with intern Grace Dobell about power-loss problems in VWs which led to product recalls in other parts of the world. Initially the car company tried to avoid a product recall in Australia, but caved in last night. Fyfe has been a member of The Age’s investigative unit since 2011.
Last week Dobell reported a case where VW “threatened” an unhappy driver’s job because he had sent an email of complaint about his car from his work email address.
Cached version of VW story | Click to enlarge
The original version of the story from last Monday June 3 – bylined to Fyfe – stated:
“Volkswagen Australia did not return Fairfax Media’s calls on Monday. The company has pulled much of its advertising from across Fairfax Media following reports on the problems with the cars’ sudden deceleration.”
Updated version of story: Click to enlarge
However, the story has now been amended to read:
“Volkswagen Australia did not return Fairfax Media’s calls on Monday. It has previously said it would not recall models alleged to be prone to sudden deceleration.”
VW ads have started running in Fairfax titles again over the last few days. Mumbrella has invited Fairfax to comment on why its claim about ads being withdrawn has been deleted, but the publisher is yet to comment.
Fyfe also tweeted about the ads being pulled last week.
When asked about the issue at Mumbrella360, McDowell said he was not on top of the detail of the Fairfax-VW stoush, but speaking about brands unhappy with coverage in general, he said:
“If you are a brand owner and you feel that somebody has been doing something which is majorly wrong and isn’t going to correct it, I think you are well within your rights to say ‘Why would we reward that behaviour?’.
“If it’s wrong and you can’t get a correction, you would. Otherwise you’re not going to alter behaviour. Obviously you would want to progress all the routes you could to get the error rectified. I certainly wouldn’t be into rewarding somebody who is harming me and continue to pay them to do so.”
Also on the panel was ninemsn editor-in-chief Hal Crawford, who is a member of the Australian Press Council.
Crawford said that it was a journalist’s duty to report the story regardless of advertising issues. He said: “If there is a power problem, there is a power problem and you write about it. VW is only one of your advertisers. You’ve maintained your position of integrity with everyone else and the audience.”
But he added: “I don’t have a problem with advertisers pulling their campaign. They can spend their money where they want to spend it.”
Earlier in the debate, McDowell said that journalists are now commercially aware. He said: “I don’t know an editor who doesn’t know where the money comes from and I really don’t know a journalist who doesn’t know.”
And Crawford said: “We’re talking about mindsets here and the mindset that you have to adopt as a journalist is that you are independent and you have to be very ferocious about that. The reality of what gets published will be constituted by all of these myriad of little acts that happen in the newsroom. And I think that you do have to maintain the idealism, because otherwise what you get as a whole is the character of all those little interactions and all those little compromises and it all boils up suddenly you’re in a bankrupt environment.”
“My entire career is based on my authenticity, and I’m not going to sell that for one day.”
Asked about whether a big advertiser would hold more sway when a complaint comes in, Crawford said: “It’s really something that I forget about constantly, and I’m not boasting. But I can constantly forget about ‘who are the big advertisers?’ And I think that’s a really healthy place to be. The reality is that your job is funded by advertising, and you have to be wise and you have operate in an environment where you can facilitate for that enterprise to keep working. And part of that, and part of the respect you get over the years, is actually pushing back. And that can lead to unpleasant conversations. And that’s the price of the long-term viability.”
Volkswagen’s switchboard number rang engaged or went unanswered during a number of attempted calls this morning.
Tim Burrowes and Jack Fisher
Consumer Mark Stevens’ response:
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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PR is the true Dark Side. At least advertisers tell which side they’re on.
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hmm just me or does your headline slightly mislead?
The person refers to something that is “Majority wrong”… removing advertising in those circumstances seems reasonable… as is evident, that is not the case in the VW saga.
“If you are a brand owner and you feel that somebody has been doing something which is majorly wrong and isn’t going to correct it”
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That’s a great letter.
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I should add that I was looking at buying a Golf GTi but with all this negative publicity, it’s been scratched from the list.
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Gabriel, watch how consumers of a brand’s products react when they’re informed that that brand is using its advertising dollars to manipulate journalism, not advertorial mind you, but actual reporting of the news.
What you’re suggesting is no less than an attack on the free press, and coming blatantly as it does from a PR flack it’s absolutely unbelievable that you could be so utterly suicidal with your own reputation.
What brand will want to have anything to do with a public relations firm so totally ignorant of the media that they self-inflict a wound of this measure?
Res Publica RIP.
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Phew, i’m glad you managed a dig at a PR practicioner, Tim, i was dreadfully worried that you’d lost some of your evident contempt for them
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I’m with Hal Crawford on this one. I’d far prefer a world where journalists can write their stories without having to serve their advertising departments as masters. If you have generally faced critical media, then go through the editorial and social media settings to create discussoin that gets your point across. It sets a dangerous precedent. Just my thoughts.
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Why would any sane advertiser keep running their ads in a publication that is running negative stories about them – true stories or not? In the same vein, that shouldn’t stop Fairfax from running valid consumer stories about anyone.
If there are dark PR clouds ahead, no brand wants its chirpy ads appearing next to bad news stories. That’s PR 101, not conspiracy.
The SMH article that I read seemed to be stretching at various points, notably some dubious conflation between a tragic death in a manual Golf and broad issues in non-manual DSG Golfs. It didn’t quite gel.
The PR gap for me was Fairfax believing that VW were trying to shy away from responsibility, whilst VW were trying to get all ducks in a row and execute a flawless recall on their iffy gearboxes.
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Another reason to be grateful for the ABC, even if it didn’t figure in this case. Would The Checkout run on a commercial TV channel?
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PR 101 for any client in crisis is put adverts on hold, no?
Perhaps Gabriel McDowell was taken out of context and he should consider withdrawing his subscription to Mumbrella?
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As a PR and marketing partitioner I could not disagree more with Mr McDowell.
In the midst of a major media crisis involving your brand you may stop advertising, temporarily, as it may not fit well with the prevailing coverage and the with being focussed on attending to the issue at had. You would not withdraw advertising to try to influence coverage or to punish a specific publisher.
That is just declaring war and suggesting that there is no journalistic integrity. You can expect immediate escalation of the story.
The objective has to be to engage with media in resolving the matter with as much balance as possible and the minimum of public outrage.
If there is a temporary cessation of advertising it needs to be across all media.
If the reporting is truly unbalanced and unfair, and the publication refuses to engage, there are many avenues available to get the corporate line out. Then a review of media buy, based on the quality of the publication you wish your brand to be seen in, is indeed valid. Not as knee-jerk reaction to being asked to account.
Going silent and using your money to bully is hardly the behaviour we expect of socially responsible corporations in 2013.
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The rule of journalistic integrity, and the practice that added authenticity to any news organisation was an absolute firewall between news and advertising.
That this wall has become more and more porous with the advent of large corporate conglomerates owning media companies and the use of advertorial, even news appearing advertising that blurs if not eradicates the lines between what gets the news read as legitimate and what finances the operation is probably not surprising, but that McDowell should so blatantly announce that advertising deserves to control news content is still a bit shocking.
There would seem to be a designated place reserved in hell for this profession, with Gabriel blowing the horn.
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I always thought that advertising is intended to put money (via sales) into the pockets of the advertiser, not the publisher. If an advertiser is merely ‘supporting’ a publisher, just send a cheque.
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Perhaps Volkswagen don’t know that with the internet there is nowhere to hide anymore. It is teeming with blogs about how unreliable Golfs are even within warranty periods, not to mention Audis and a raft of other VW models, and that parts are hyperinflated. All Fairfax did was reflect what the internet was saying. Perhaps it would be easier for VW not to employ bullying PR consultants at all and just produce a reliable, cheap to repair vehicle that can match Japanese and now Korean vehicles. Then all those bloggers will stop complaining and buy them again and even pay a premium for their driving prowess. It is called Word of Mouth.
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Alan Bond and Chis Skase set the prime examples here. More recently David Murray at CommBank and Roger Corbett at Woolies both were keen on pulling budgets to muscle up on reporters. Now it looks like everyone with a buck wants to try it, though it looks to me that you can just buy the editorial space at present?
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My beautiful mechanic, George, warned me off Golfs when I was buying another car 18 months ago. I was shocked. Lots of my mates have got Golfs but George reckons they are crap. He told me that his clients are always bringing in their Golfs because things are always going wrong with them, and the parts cost a lot more. I heeded George’s advice and didn’t buy a Golf.
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Ha ha bloody ha,
anybody would think Journos are honest and community minded purveyors of truth
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Yay, more power to the corporations!
Including the biggest corporations – billionaire owned media companies.
We are slipping back into feudalism, but the people who run the world aren’t valiant knights – they’re bully run merchants.
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@Mick … which is more than you can say of PRs hacks, advertising smarties and marketing disassemblers.
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John – that was spot on – “Going silent and using your money to bully is hardly the behaviour we expect of socially responsible corporations in 2013”.
The truly disappointing part from VW was the lack of response, the media phone calls not returned, etc etc.
Whether or not they pulled the ads out of aggression or necessity (e.g. light and airy ads next to stories about deceleration) it is difficult to judge.
Did they have a crisis management strategy involved to advise them on how to deal with Fairfax and other media outlets? The whole response from VW has been so disappointing.
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Huge corporations actually do this – or at least one I am aware of.
I know that in an certain extremely well known and very large public company which is one of the largest advertisers in the country, its marketing department was not allowed to advertise in papers whose writers had pissed off the then CEO despite those paper being a very good fit for the ads.
It was common knowledge and the media agency was advised that a certain paper could not be advertised in due to its coverage of that CEO. This went on for years.
(Ocassionally another paper would be added to the banned list for a short period if its writers wrote something about the CEO that the CEO didn’t like.)
That newspaper refused to bow to (edited by Mumbrella for legal reasons)’s ad dollars and as a result, we know that paper is there for its readers and has integrity.
Once you start changing your coverage for advertisers, your readers will realise this and your editorial integrity goes out the window and you will lose even more readers
And once advertisers know your editorial is for sale, expect more advertisers to withdraw and threaten to withdraw their ads.
it’s like paying a ransom for kidnapping and thus rewarding it only encourages more kidnapping.
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