Mum of two, PR to many
The Australian’s media section today features “mother of two” Dana Dobbie sharing her views on proposed liberalisation of the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice. She’s against it.
Dana Dobbie’s picture ran prominently next to the two articles on the issue
As Mumbrella reported on Friday, the liberalisation promoted by TV industry lobbying body Free TV would see ads for things like alcohol permitted in an earlier timeslot.
Dobbie, who is pictured in the paper with her husband Phil and children Amelia, six, and Nathan, eight, believes somebody needs to think of the children. As she puts it:
“Before you know it, they’ll be singing those Bacardi rum ads.”
The TV networks have a different point of view, saying they want a level playing field with their digital competitors. As Nine boss David Gyngell complains in another article on the same page complaining about the TV licence fee: “Google comes in, eats our lunch, and takes the money offshore.”
That’s the same Google that is a board member and major funder of digital industry body IAB Australia.
That’s the same IAB Australia whose PR is done by Einsteinz Communications.
That’s the same Einsteinz Communications for whom Dobbie has been working on a freelance basis for the last four years.
At the bottom of the article, Dobbie is described as “a communications consultant with advertising and technology clients”. What it doesn’t note is who those clients are.
Her other clients include programmatic ad platform Adap.tv, which recently signed a major partnership deal with MCN, the sales house for pay-TV provider Foxtel, and which one would assume would not want advertising dollars to flow to its free TV competitors. Adap.tv is also a member of the IAB.
The Australian concludes that Ms Dobbie is now “considering making a submission within the six-week time frame for public review”.
Dr Mumbo is sure she is.
Ms Dobbie tells Mumbrella she was simply responding to a query from The Australian’s Lara Sinclair: “I responded to a query from Lara and gave my perspective as a mum wanting to protect my young impressionable kids from potential alcohol and other adult themed advertisers on Free to Air TV. Nothing more.”
Updated: Pru Quinlan, Einsteinz Communications CEO said: “Dana has never had any role in working with IAB Australia. She works with us on a freelance basis with one client only (Adap.tv). Dana expressed her personal opinion as related to her own family and while she was certainly naive in doing so, to suggest that she was somehow acting as a mouthpiece for any organisation is simply incorrect.”
Brilliant. Good work on this Mumbo.
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Is there ANYTHING in the Murdoch media that isnt biased or self serving?
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Vox Pops are fun. I bet if you vox pop in Canberra, you get Sen. Heffernan ‘just happened to be passing by’ all the time.
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Scandalous!
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