Fairfax, GetUp & Gina Rinehart
After announcing print plant closures, job cuts, format changes and a new misguided digital strategy Fairfax went on to close the week with controversy surrounding editorial independence as shareholder and mining magnate Gina Rinehart pushed for more control of the company’s newspaper mastheads.
As if the stinging criticism from the public, it’s media competitors and government officials wasn’t enough, The Age also managed to let some sneaky advertising splash across its front page for a prolonged period of time earlier this week.
The ads were run by community advocacy organisation GetUp on Monday and read “Rinehart Running The Age? Cast Your Vote on the Future of Fairfax Media”.
Obviously this isn’t the type of advertising The Age wants splashed across its site, so how did it get there? Or is it? The answer lies with Google.
The Age uses Google’s Doubleclick online advertising platform to serve ads to its audience, meaning anyone can advertise across The Age’s site so long as Fairfax haven’t enabled exclusions that can restrict advertising based on a range of different parameters like topics, categories and domains.
While Fairfax may have exclusions set up for GetUp’s domain, the landing page for the ads was a new domain set up by GetUp that would circumvent the exclusions until someone from The Age realised what was happening. Or perhaps Fairfax knew the damage the ads would cause and preferred the advertising dollars? Either way, sneaky stuff from GetUp.
Unfortunately the ads were either pulled by the end of Monday or only set up to run for the day, but how many respondents GetUp garnered in that time is anyone’s guess. What’s for sure is that GetUp’s Fairfax ad stunt is taking newsjacking to a whole new level.
Jim’s been here for a while, you know who he is.
