Tag: advertising

Does Advertising Adjacency Affect Corporate Reputation?

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(Note: I have been on a sort of hiatus from blogging as I was on a sabbatical during the fall of 2024 to write a book on public relations theory. Then, based on previous academic articles I have published, I was asked by a book editor to contribute a chapter on corporate reputation. With the book in production and the chapter awaiting my presentation at a conference for feedback, I hope to pick up the pace on the blog again. More about both books when their publication dates near).

Public relations professionals use all forms of tactics, including paid advertising. Public relations professionals also are strategically concerned with the reputations of the organizations they represent. So an article in the Wall Street Journal (subscription may be required) about advertisers concerned with Meta’s allowing free speech being a threat to ‘brand safety’ caught my eye.

Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s president, gained lots of attention for recently saying Meta would back off on censorship and allow more free speech on Facebook and the company’s other platforms. There had been complaints that there was a noted bias against conservatives when some posts were given a lower push by an algorithm or accounts blocked entirely. There was even evidence that some of this was done in cooperation with federal government agencies. 

Of course, what is censorship to some is responsible monitoring of misinformation and hate speech. But there again, those are subjective judgements. A difference of opinions and values is not necessarily hate. And many comments labeled misinformation have borne out to be true, from Covid origins to the involvement of Russia in previous elections. 

I’ll leave that debate there.

But the WSJ article pointed out that advertisers are concerned that with the filters off, their digital ads could be adjacent to questionable content. I have wondered about this concept long before there was such a thing as digital advertising.

Brands have placed ads in newspapers and magazines for years, not exactly knowing what editorial or other ad content would appear on the same or adjacent page. If the ad is near content some reasonable people could see as objectionable, would those readers see it as associated with the brand?

Granted, in broadcast media, and magazines with a specific content and tone, ads are also considered sponsorship. There is a reputational factor to consider there.

But in print, and largely in social media advertising, I doubt that many viewers see an ad in their stream as an endorsement or sponsorship of other content in their stream. This is especially true because users can choose who to follow and select their own feeds (unless they just scroll “for you” posts). In other words, users have more agency over what they see than advertisers do.

Are users not savvy enough to realize that advertisers are there to reach them, not to promote others? I would venture to say that they are. 

Also, if professionals are worried about brand safety, what reputation impact would there be if the brand is known to be  encouraging subjective censorship? 

This might be something for brands to do their own research on. Do their key publics—from employees, to customers, to investors and more—factor in they content near corporate branding when they form their own view of the company, ie it’s reputation in their minds? An academic study on this would also be fascinating. 

Or perhaps Meta could use its resources to find an answer to this question. It may be in their own interest to do so.

“Anti-woke” messaging on the rise as brands position by ideology

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If I ask a group of students whether or not a company or organization should take a stand on a social issue, there is universal agreement. If I ask them which stand an organization should take, there is little more than blank stares.

The same phenomenon is likely true of adults at large. Everyone makes the self-righteous  assumption that organizations need to take a stand that is consistent with their personal opinion, beliefs and values. But what if a an organization proclaims position A when you are strongly aligned with position B? 

Perhaps this is why a recent Gallup poll notes that “fewer Americans want businesses wading into current events.“

However, if you read that poll commentary you see that democrats are most likely to encourage organizations take a public stance. Relating to my initial point, that is because the stance organizations take is usually left leaning. The left has dominated issue advocacy in terms of which stances organizations take because the left dominates social institutions including government, entertainment, news media, education and now corporations.

Given that left-wing dominance, the stances are often aligned with what is culturally called “woke” perspective. This general term correlates specifically to the alphabet soup of DEI (Diversity, Equity Inclusion), ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance), CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and of late advocacy for a particular perspective on matters of sex and gender.

Stances in accord with so-called woke philosophy are no longer seen as a potential, they are stressed as inevitable. This may be a good time for a conservative turn on a woke-ish neo-Marxist statement: we need to dismantle the hegemonic structures of institutional, systemic left power. 

I have noticed the beginning of a dismantling, or at least the emergence of alternative stances on social issues. This of course causes rage among the very people who used to say “speak your truth,” “marketplace of ideas,” or even “silence is violence.” 

So if the dominant left is demanding a stance be taken, the unwavering right is responding in kind.

The first company I noticed doing this is Jeremy’s Razors.  When Harry’s, a decidedly leftist company, stopped advertising on the Daily Wire due to “values misalignment,” co-founder Jeremy Boreing started Jeremy’s Razors to embrace that difference. The advertising copy has been boldly touting its products specifically as anti-woke. Recently the company has taken on and called out companys from Hershey’s to Braun for their extreme wokism and offered alternative products with that selling point.

In the career recruitment space, the company Red Balloon offers what it calls the “#1 woke-free job board in America.” It has an ad titled “It’s time to grow up and get back to work” that features children sarcastically saying what they look forward to in a workplace and career that mocks the woke culture pervading workplaces. 

Patriot Mobile advertises itself as the only “Christian conservative wireless provider.” They call out the corporate philanthropy of other wireless carriers that support causes in conflict with conservative and Christian values.

Another example is Public Square, a shopping site to rival Amazon that expresses its values as “Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-Freedom.” Businesses that share those values can add themselves to the site, and consumers who share those values can shop knowing they are patronizing like-minded business owners. Don’t overlook the meaning of the name Public Square, which refers to a democratic philosophy that all ideas should be able to be expressed, not censored.

These are just a handful of examples of companies that are speaking out on social issues with an anti-woke set of values. There are others and will likely be more. It is hard to say if ideology forward positioning is a trend or a permanent feature of public relations, advertising, marketing and business plans from now on. 

For now though, the messaging is beyond the basics of features and benefits and price point. The target publics are defined more by ideology and social opinion than need for a product or service. The question is moving from whether or not a company should take a stand on a social issue, to determining which stand to take. 

Sales and stock prices were down for Target and Bud Light after famous social values marketing earlier this year. However, some other brands have continued such overt messaging.

I personally think this segmenting of businesses and publics, making social values the primary message and brand distinction, will lead to more divisiveness writ large. It’s why I have previously advocated for companies to have the courage to remain neutral. 

But if one “side” in the market keeps pushing a woke message, the other sides will understandably set themselves apart and offer their own deeply held perspectives. In the marketplace of ideas there are many ideas, ideologies, values and beliefs. They are all being expressed. It’s called diversity. 

Why the Return of Paid Content Will Be Good for PR

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For years I have been watching the economic decline of journalism. The cycle has gone like this:

  • new media emerge in droves because of the digital and social media opportunities;
  • in a rush to keep up with digital and social expansion and competition, legacy print media put their content online for free;
  • subscribers, preferring free to paid, and being overwhelmed with choices, drop subscriptions and use social platforms, RSS feeds, news aggregators and so on to access news;
  • the competition intensifies and to stay economically viable (i.e. more clicks) journalism quality suffers and goes solid reporting of important news is edged by click-bait, market-driven, entertainment value;
  • good journalists accept buy-outs and publishers seek “cheaper content” by aggregating, leveraging content from broader sources (witness MLive consolidating newsrooms and its universal desk so the content is very similar in Muskegon, Detroit, Grand Rapids, or how similar Detroit Free Press and USA Today look ) and gaining free content from bloggers, user-generated content and other “innovations” (witness the GVSU student who was paid in swag for her popular Buzzfeed quizzes);
  • smaller newsrooms put out less serious news, people keep getting it for free, favoring a stream of articles from multiple sources vs a deep read of select single sources;
  • with lower subscription and readership numbers, advertising dollars continue to decline, offering even less revenue to put into the “product” of must-read news.

There have been some alternative models. The New York Times offers 5 free reads per month and then a given IP address will have to subscribe. Others, like the Wall Street Journal and the Economist, offer some article free but premium articles are dangled out there with a notice that they are for subscribers only.

Other publications have emerged in a non-profit or donation model. In Michigan, many quality journalists from legacy media have moved to such publications such as the Bridge (“If you care about Michigan, please support our work”) or more recently Michigan Advance (heads up–I’ve invited editor Susan Demas to speak at GVSU and my colleagues are putting together an event for March 29 that will include a panel of journalism, advertising, public relations, and communications faculty including myself).

There is also a trend of nonprofits, businesses, and government offices becoming their own media outlet in the form of a news bureau or online newsroom that goes direct to public. A former student of mine who works for a state-wide association just asked me about this. I have written about this pointing to some examples on my blog previously–here’s a collection of prior posts on the subject.

But recently I noticed more media, from individual outlets to group conglomerates, drawing a line in the media economics sand and announcing a return to paywalls and subscriptions for their content. The latest example of this is a decision by Conde Nast for its fleet of publications. Some see the move as a bad one, but it is a trend to watch nonetheless.

Here’s why this is good for advertising and public relations.

  1. Survival of media. This will reverse the downward cycle I posed above. I heard a billionaire say once that if something is free, it has no perceived value. If people have to pay, publishers will have to put out quality reporting–meat, not candy. There is a hunger among the intelligent public for a less frantic media landscape, for news that is credible and quality. This will help good media–whether old or new–to survive.
  2. Communication environment. We should want good journalism to survive, first as citizens, and secondly as advertising and public relations professionals. Programmatic and targeted advertising made some economic sense, but it can lack qualitative intuition, creativity, and ethics. A recent study shows that most people don’t want tailored or targeted ads. Audiences who pay for content are more attentive to both paid and earned media (or ads and editorial content). And our ads and article pitches will exist next to good and not questionable content, which other studies shows matters to readers.
  3. Dedicated and aggregated audience. Digital media has been about both reach (quantity) and targeting small audiences of like minds and relevant interests. But returning to paywalls changes the equation. It may result in lower reach as not all current readers will subscribe. But those who do subscribe will be in one place, read each issue and multiple articles, have a natural interest in content and likely a net disposable income enabling them to respond to ads.

There are some considerations to work out as journalism returns to paywalls. One is whether subscribers–and maybe only subscribers–will be allowed to share content. Another is whether publishers will offer headlines and article summaries, or a handful of free articles each issue as a loss leader to draw subscribers. We’ll see. We are in what economist Joseph Schumpeter would call a “gale of creative destruction” in the media industry. What looks dire could emerge as a very good move forward.

I for one am eager to see what good things paywalls do for journalism, content, citizens and the ad and PR industry.

Local Media Ad Slide is Concerning

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Earlier today I received an email from the Grand Rapids Business Journal selling its digital sponsored content option.

For $1,100 companies and organizations can place their own stories online, have them pushed as sponsored content on social platforms, and remain in a searchable archive. It’s also called “native advertising” or the old-fashioned “advertorial.”

Previously I wrote an online column/blog for GRBJ. Others continue to do so on topics ranging from media to law. It’s a win-win–local professionals establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry and the publication gets free content.

It’s also a sign of the times.

I subscribe to GRBJ, as I do other local media and trade publications, because I still like the experience of reading print. But also I feel a sort of obligation to patronize local media the way I do other local businesses, so they can stay in business.

Reading this week’s print copy of the GRBJ, after getting the pitch for sponsored content, I was struck by the ads more than the editorial. In a 16-page publication there are 12 total ads, with 9 of them being house ads from GRBJ touting its events, its subscription options, and other sister publications such as Grand Rapids Magazine. In this issue there are 1.75 paid ad pages.

This may be why they’re pitching sponsored content. I mean, even Forbes has been doing that in recent years. And a lot of the media planners are going not just to digital, but to bloggers, podcasts, their own content-driven owned media, and social platforms.

I’m hoping this may all be the result of light ad inventory post-holiday, or that the sponsored content push is just reflective of new ownership and not desperation.

As a public relations professional/professor and just a member of the community, I certainly hope it doesn’t portend the end of a vital contributor of community information. Perhaps the incentive for some of us to buy ads is not just reaching audience but saving the channel.

The Practical Importance of Theory

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Unknown-1Yesterday the Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), an organization of professors in various communication fields including advertising and public relations, adopted a resolution that educators should “forge relationships between educators and media professionals.”

I heartily endorse the notion, partly because that’s what my colleagues and I in the Grand Valley State University Advertising and Public Relations program have long done. In fact, our many adjunct professors come from industry every day, and all of us who are full-time and tenure-track professors have experience in the field and even consult still today. We also remain engaged through our active involvement in associations and organizations that mix academics and professionals, including PRSA, AAF, the Institute for Public Relations, and the Arthur W. Page Society.

This effort recognizes the fact that academics can still learn much from professionals in the trenches, that the field is in constant change, and that we need to connect our students to their future colleagues and employers. In other words, we need to connect theory to practice.

But as we say in PR, any relationship should be mutual, or two-way. And so this professor-professional relationship should involve mutual learning, and that should include professionals having a healthy respect for and understanding of theory.

I’ve been in numerous conversations in person and online where a professional will poo-poo theory or put the word “theory” in quotes as a way of expressing their disdain for theory. What’s ironic is they then hold forth their own….theory, without realizing it. Professionals believe they have “experienced” something and that trumps theory. But theory is often based on multiple experiences, not a single example.

Types of theories are critical, based on reason; normative, proposing what ought to be; or empirical, based on solid, replicable and generalizable evidence that meets scientific standards well beyond one person’s personal experience.

A theory, properly understood, is an explanation. In advertising and public relations, as social sciences, theories explain and predict human behavior.

Much professional research is only descriptive in nature–valuable, but not useful as a generalized and reliable prediction. In other words, there are numbers and percentages of responses to key questions. The academic research that over time produces theory is based on large scale, repeatable cases in the real world. Professional research most often provides the “what,” whereas scientific research that leads to theory provides the “why.” This is its practical value.

At the end of the day, professionals and their experience provide validity (an accurate reflection of reality) while professors and their research and theory provide reliability (consistency and generalizable to the larger population).

Academics have long acknowledged the need for both validity and reliability (practice and theory). It is time for professionals to come to the same conclusion and apply theory to their practice.

I may some day write a book about practical PR theory for use by professionals. It would offer explanations of various media, persuasion, attitude, behavioral and other categories of theory and give their corresponding applications.

Til then, look for the occasional blog post espousing the value of a particular journal article or theory. I would hope professionals in the trenches have as much respect for theory as we academics do for their practice.