Opinion

Comment for content – It was Naked’s job to ask; and the media’s job to say no

This time, my sympathies lie with Naked.

As you will no doubt have seen, it today emerged that Naked Communications was working on a youth campaign for Labor; it teed up video chats with PM Kevin Rudd and asked for free ads from the sites involved. And got fired for it, after it became a story about comment for content.

But I’m not sure they’ve necessarily done anything untoward.

When they did the Witchery man-in-the-jacket media hoax, I was strongly of the view that they were in the wrong. Not just for the hoax, but lying about it afterwards.

But this time I don’t think so.

It’s the agency’s job to push a media outlet for as much as they can get. And it’s the media outlet’s job to say no.

And by the way, if a media outlet had said yes, it would have been disgraceful.

But disgraceful things do go on.  Talk to anyone involved in the publication of women’s magazines and they’ll tell you that if the editorial isn’t for sale, it can at least be rented. Big advertisers expect editorial mentions. And get them.

I’m sure the same thing happens with some bloggers – at times, with some, the disclosure of commercial relationships is hazy. That reflects far more badly on the breach of trust between blogger and reader than it does on the agency doing the deal. And we know it goes on with celebrity tweets too.

(In the circumstances, it seems relevant to point out here, as you can read in our declaration of interests, Naked sent me a nice bottle of whisky back in April to thank me for speaking at one of their events.)

If there is an issue, it’s the pragmatic one of not controlling well enough the risk associated with political clients, not an ethical one.

Frankly though, I’m not sure this one will matter to Naked in the long run anyway. Potential clients will mainly remember two things. First, Naked are now in the business of native advertising and branded content, and they’ll push quite hard to get their clients a good deal. And second, when they got thrown under the bus by the client, they took the fall.

It might be a while before we see this one on Naked’s agency creds, but I don’t think it will be long before they bounce back.

Tim Burrowes

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