Advertiser Registers Its Objection

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A follow up article on GM's petulant response to an article in the LA Times which, heaven forbid, actually dared criticize GM's over-paid executives....

Advertiser Registers Its Objection:
The uneasy relationship between advertiser and media outlet made news again when General Motors said it would stop running its advertising in The Los Angeles Times until further notice.
...An article Friday in The Times said that General Motors executives were particularly incensed about a review of the Pontiac G6 by Dan Neil, whose automotive column won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2004. In the review, which appeared Wednesday in Mr. Neil's Rumble Seat column, he interwove dismissals of the G6 as “entirely adequate” with arguments for the dismissals of senior G.M. executives like Rick Wagoner, chairman and chief executive, and Robert A. Lutz, vice chairman, to hold them accountable for the company's recent sales and profit woes.

“When ball clubs have losing records, players and coaches and managers get their walking papers,” Mr. Neil wrote. “At G.M., it's time to sweep the dugout.”

GM takes a page from the Bush Whitehouse: if you don't like what a critic has to say, make the critic go away, or otherwise ignore the critic.

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“But at the same time, you do not want to tell the media how to cover the news or otherwise influence coverage,” the executive said. “We expect to get hit when we make a mistake; no one's perfect.”

“If something's blatantly wrong, don't make a knee-jerk reaction” by pulling ads, the executive said. “Your public relations operation ought to assume the brunt of the work, telling the media, 'We expect coverage to be fair and balanced, sometimes in our favor, sometimes not.' ”

Still, that is easier said than done, particularly when it involves the automotive industry, which has been embroiled perhaps more than any other in ad controversies. Examples include these memorable flaps:

¶General Motors withdrawing ads from all Ziff-Davis magazines because one, Car and Driver, telegraphed a negative review of a G.M. model called the Opel Kadett by printing a photograph of the car in a junkyard.

¶Auto dealers in the San Jose, Calif., area organizing a four-month boycott in 1995 of The San Jose Mercury News, owned by Knight Ridder, because of an article, “A Car Buyer's Guide to Sanity,” that offered negotiating tips to counter sales ploys.

¶Chrysler withdrawing ads from Car and Driver because of a 1983 article that recounted, with photographs, how a Dodge being test-driven in Mexico was damaged after hitting a steer at 60 miles per hour.

“It's free speech for everyone,” said Mr. Gaffney, the MPG executive, adding: “People can write whatever they want. We can advertise wherever we want.”

But he added: “If advertisers restrict themselves to spending only in places that say what the advertisers want them to say, in media that cheapen themselves by being influenced by someone's dollars, the value of the coverage diminishes.”

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This page contains a single entry by Seth A. published on April 11, 2005 8:05 AM.

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