Subscribe“Did the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News cross an ethical line Friday when they ran a slew of false ads for a non-existent airline in an attempt to gauge the power of print and online advertising? Some journalism ethicists and observers say yes.
The fake airline ads that ran Friday in both Philadelphia dailies and their joint Web site apparently drew a higher-than-usual response rate, at least online, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
An Inquirer story reported that the ads for ‘Derrie-Air,’ which promoted the fictional airline in several ads as a way to test the paper's ad reach in print and online, drew in a 1.25% ‘click-through’ rate for the online version, compared to a national click-through average of 0.05%.
‘The full- and partial-page ads for Derrie-Air, a fictitious environmentally friendly airline purporting to offer fares based on a passenger's weight, appeared 21 times in sections of The Inquirer, 15 times in the Daily News, and on the Philly.com home page,’ the story said, adding later, ‘The ads carry no disclaimer, but one does appear on the Web page to which readers are referred in the ads. It says, in part, 'The Derrie-Air campaign is a fictitious advertising campaign created by Philadelphia Media Holdings to test the results of advertising in our print and online products and to stimulate discussion on a timely environmental topic of interest to all citizens.'‘
…The lack of full disclosure on most of the ads prompted some concern from some journalism veterans.
‘It is clearly deception,’ said Bob Steele, the Nelson Poynter Scholar for Journalism Values at The Poynter Institute. ‘Newspapers should not be in the business of deception. I can’t imagine the Inquirer and Daily News would run fake ads from other companies.’
Kelly McBride, Poynter ethics group leader, said: ‘anytime you deceive your audience, you run the risk of compromising their ability to trust you.
‘Market research is a good goal in terms of understanding how advertising is going to work in this era,’ she added. ‘I wonder if there is a way to do that that doesn't deceive the audience. Is there something you could create that could measure responses without tricking the audience?’
Officials from Philadelphia Media Holdings did not return calls seeking comment Monday.
Clint Brewer, president of the Society of Professional Journalists and executive editor of The City Paper in Nashville, Tenn., worried that a false ad might spark distrust in the news product. ‘My concern would be, given how thirsty the public is for affordable air travel, if readers were to be miffed about this being false, would they then transfer those feelings to the news side of the papers?’ he said. ‘I would be concerned if I was in those newsrooms.’
Inquirer Editor Bill Marimow and Daily News Editor Michael Days were not reachable for comment.
John Kimball, chief marketing officer for the Newspaper Association of America, defended the newspapers: ‘I think the public is pretty understanding. [The ad] is so over the top, it is hard to think anyone would see it any other way.’
The Inquirer story did not say if such false ads would run again soon in either paper or on the Web site.”
"...Online, marketers and Internet users are quite familiar with this type of ruse. It's not uncommon for brands and their agencies to dream up elaborate viral marketing campaigns in an effort to generate more buzz than would typically be accomplished by a straight media buy....In most cases where the masses are meant to be duped, the media and its ad placements play an essential role in distributing the fake information, whether publishers know it or not. For Philadelphia Media Holdings, its media buy was central to the campaign in every way. Companies investing in this type of alternate ad campaign often leverage their existing media buys and publisher relationships to secure inventory through which to promote their unconventional efforts. Here, convention meets innovation, and it works.
To buyers and planners, this point should be of great interest. We're always looking for ways to make our client's buys more creative through customization and unique site partnerships, believing this is the best way to draw attention to their ads. In fact, the most standard of ad buys, whether online or in a print newspaper, can deliver extraordinary results when used in conjunction with an extraordinary campaign. What a great reminder of the importance of campaign concepts and ad creative and how they work in tandem with our buys.
Even though Derrie-Air was meant to demonstrate the power of Philadelphia's newspaper advertising, it did the whole practice of media buying a favor by drawing attention to the close relationship between media buys and ad effectiveness. Without a sure-fire way to reach the masses, Derrie-Air would have been nothing but a funny idea that made its way around the office before growing cold with the coffee.
Most marketers take their work very seriously, but there's still room for fun and games -- the more unexpected, the better. We, along with everyone else, will continue to be fooled, but when it comes to our turn, it's our media buys that will help our client's heavyweight campaigns take flight."
... any time you trick some people, someone's going to get upset -- and that's exactly what's happening. Suddenly people are charging the company with some sort of ethical lapse for not making it clear the ad was fake. Of course, if they did that, the whole purpose of the ad would have been lost.
Plus, it's difficult to see what the 'harm' is. If a few people thought it was real, they would quickly be disabused of that notion, with no harm done. The people complaining that this would somehow make people trust the news in the paper less apparently haven't been paying attention to the various reporting scandals over the past few years. People have plenty of reasons not to trust the news that they read. Seeing a fake (and mildly amusing) ad in a paper isn't going to make them trust the newspapers any less."
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posted by Ms. Saint at 6:06 PM on June 11