Friday, February 25, 2005
UPDATED: Who Pulled the Wool Over Whose Eyes Here?
Marketing Vox points me to this PR Week article reporting that after about a week CheapTickets.com has withdrawn from being the sponsor of Gawker Media's new travel blog, Gridskipper.
CheapTickets' spokesperson was quoted as saying:
"...upon content review we thought it best to pull our ads at this time"
NIck Denton, Gawker Media Man was quoted as saying:
"We'd rather lose the occasional advertiser than the character that attracts the audience in the first place. If an advertiser wants a safe environment, there are thousands of tired media outlets to choose from."
So I'm asking: who's zooming who, here?
Did CheapTickets really not check out any of the Gawker Media properties before signing on? Did Gawker Media really not feel like making sure they understood the tone and voice they would put forth in GridSkipper? How stupid are the CheapTickets people anyway?
Or, here's a thought...did CheapTickets and Gawker Media decide to pull of this little stunt to get tons of media coverage for both of their companies?
Perhaps CheapTickets wants to target the powerful evangelical segment by appearing upright and uptight. Perhaps Gawker Media wanted to get a little more buzz out there to the handful of people who love snark and sass and weren't already reading GridSkipper. And it worked: I just subscribed to GridSkipper. Yeah, yeah I heard about it when it launched, but this story was the first thing that actually drove me to go to the site. And then I liked what I saw, just like I like Gawker.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but it seems so much easier to believe there was a plan, than to believe that two companies could go into a business deal with that much shortsightedness.
UPDATE: Apparently I am just far too cynical...or perhaps I am just stupid to miss an opportunity to kiss one of the BlogElite's butt.
CheapTickets' spokesperson was quoted as saying:
"...upon content review we thought it best to pull our ads at this time"
NIck Denton, Gawker Media Man was quoted as saying:
"We'd rather lose the occasional advertiser than the character that attracts the audience in the first place. If an advertiser wants a safe environment, there are thousands of tired media outlets to choose from."
So I'm asking: who's zooming who, here?
Did CheapTickets really not check out any of the Gawker Media properties before signing on? Did Gawker Media really not feel like making sure they understood the tone and voice they would put forth in GridSkipper? How stupid are the CheapTickets people anyway?
Or, here's a thought...did CheapTickets and Gawker Media decide to pull of this little stunt to get tons of media coverage for both of their companies?
Perhaps CheapTickets wants to target the powerful evangelical segment by appearing upright and uptight. Perhaps Gawker Media wanted to get a little more buzz out there to the handful of people who love snark and sass and weren't already reading GridSkipper. And it worked: I just subscribed to GridSkipper. Yeah, yeah I heard about it when it launched, but this story was the first thing that actually drove me to go to the site. And then I liked what I saw, just like I like Gawker.
Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but it seems so much easier to believe there was a plan, than to believe that two companies could go into a business deal with that much shortsightedness.
UPDATE: Apparently I am just far too cynical...or perhaps I am just stupid to miss an opportunity to kiss one of the BlogElite's butt.
// posted by ElisaC @ 10:12 AM 
