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Mail: a truly despicable article ("nothing 'natural' about Stephen Gately's death")

kyser_soze said:
Sadly (and I say this truly) media planners, while possibly actually giving a fuck about the article, won't unrecommend the Mail in view of the coverage they'll lose in the campaign they've booked.

It's the brand&marketing managers at the client you need to get to in this case...
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Done them too.

Think others have as well.
Intastella said:
Says here that it's all down to Malcom Cole that the ads have been removed, but he didn't start twittering 'til around 10.30...after BK had started spreading the word. Bloody journalists ey...always taking credit for other people's work
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Malcolm Coles has graciously tweeted that u75 started it.

http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/jan-moir-ads-pulled/#comment-5522
 
Media planners will be given a brief by the client that says:

Book X million page impressions over period Y-Z, against the audience ABC1 for £D cost per thousand page impressions/£0.00 per click

Media planner goes off, plans the campaign and books it. That's it. Media planners, while they will know that putting the ad on say bdsmpoo.com wouldn't work, they generally aren't too concerned about editorial.

Clients, and their brand managers/brand 'guardians' or whatever you want to call them, are very interested in this. The whole reason for there existance is to protect the integrity of the brand from any and all badness. Examples of brand manager idiocy include the guy at Nike who refused to let some bloke put 'made by sweatshop labour' on his custom Nikes. If they had, about 3 people would have noticed; as it was it made the news, loads of people got to say 'Nike, what a bunch of cunts.'

The most important person to talk to is the decision maker, the grand fromage, the one who signs the money over. Not a media buyer.
 
kyser_soze said:
Clients, and their brand managers/brand 'guardians' or whatever you want to call them, are very interested in this. The whole reason for there existance is to protect the integrity of the brand from any and all badness. Examples of brand manager idiocy include the guy at Nike who refused to let some bloke put 'made by sweatshop labour' on his custom Nikes. If they had, about 3 people would have noticed; as it was it made the news, loads of people got to say 'Nike, what a bunch of cunts.'
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Gotcha. Yup.
 
Is there an 'incitement to hatred' Police complaint here, do you think?

Someone just suggested that to me on FB
 
But the media buyers will get massive grief from the brand managers because they will be getting it in the ear from the Head of Marketing. There will be fury - press space isn't cheap and with tighter margins, advertisers need to squeeze as much margin as they can out of their spend. They are going to seriously question whether to advertise with the DM again
 
i was surprised i hadn't been invited to join the facebook group.

first thing i did when i joined was invite all my fb friends. That's how these things really snowball - so do it!
 
brooker's column here...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/16/stephen-gately-jan-moir

brooker said:
The funeral of Stephen Gately has not yet taken place. The man hasn't been buried yet. Nevertheless, Jan Moir of the Daily Mail has already managed to dance on his grave. For money.

It has been 20 minutes since I've read her now-notorious column, and I'm still struggling to absorb the sheer scope of its hateful idiocy. It's like gazing through a horrid little window into an awesome universe of pure blockheaded spite. Spiralling galaxies of ignorance roll majestically against a backdrop of what looks like dark prejudice, dotted hither and thither with winking stars of snide innuendo.

On the Mail website, it was headlined: "Why there was nothing 'natural' about Stephen Gately's death." Since the official postmortem clearly ascribed the singer's death to natural causes, that headline contains a fairly bold claim. Still, who am I to judge? I'm no expert when it comes to interpreting autopsy findings, unlike Moir. Presumably she's a leading expert in forensic science, paid huge sums of money to fly around the world lecturing coroners on her latest findings. Or maybe she just wants to gay-bash a dead man? Tragically, the only way to find out is to read the rest of her article.

She begins by jabbering a bit about untimely celebrity deaths, especially those whose lives are "shadowed by dark appetites or fractured by private vice". Not just Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson. No: she's eagerly looking forward to other premature snuffings.

"Robbie, Amy, Kate, Whitney, Britney; we all know who they are. And we are not being ghoulish to anticipate, or to be mentally braced for, their bad end: a long night, a mysterious stranger, an odd set of circumstances that herald a sudden death."

Fair enough. I'm sure we all agree there's nothing "ghoulish" whatsoever about eagerly imagining the hypothetical death of someone you've marked out as a potential cadaver on account of your ill-informed presumptions about their lifestyle. All she's doing is running a detailed celebrity-death sweepstake in her head. That's not ghoulish, that's fun. For my part, I've just put a tenner on Moir choking to death on her own bile by the year 2012. See? Fun!

Having casually prophesied the death of Robbie Williams and co, Moir moves on to her main point: that Gately's death strikes her as a bit fishy . . . "All the official reports point to a natural death, with no suspicious circumstances . . . But, hang on a minute. Something is terribly wrong with the way this incident has been shaped and spun into nothing more than an unfortunate mishap on a holiday weekend, like a broken teacup in the rented cottage."

That's odd. I don't recall anyone equating the death with "an unfortunate mishap on a holiday weekend". I was only aware of shocked expressions of grief from those who knew or admired him, people who'd probably be moved to tears by Moir likening the tragedy to "a broken teacup in the rented cottage". But never mind that – "shaped and spun" by whom, precisely? The coroner?

Incredibly, yes. Moir genuinely believes the coroner got it wrong: "Healthy and fit 33-year-old men do not just climb into their pyjamas and go to sleep on the sofa, never to wake up again. Whatever the cause of death is, it is not, by any yardstick, a natural one."

At this point, I dare to challenge the renowned international forensic pathologist Jan Moir, because I personally know of two other men (one in his 20s, one in his early 30s), who died in precisely this way. According to the charity Cardiac Risk in the Young (c-r-y.org.uk), "Twelve apparently fit and healthy young people die in the UK from undiagnosed heart conditions" every single week. That's a lot of broken teacups, eh Jan?

Still, if his death wasn't natural "by any yardstick", what did kill him? Moir knows: it was his lifestyle. Because Gately was, y'know . . . homosexual. Having lanced this boil, Moir lets the pus drip out all over her fingers as she continues to type: "The circumstances surrounding his death are more than a little sleazy," she declares. "Cowles and Gately took a young Bulgarian man back to their apartment. It is not disrespectful to assume that a game of canasta . . . was not what was on the cards . . . What happened afterwards is anyone's guess."

Don't hold back, Jan. Have a guess. Draw us a picture. You specialise in celebrity death fantasies, after all.

"His mother is still insisting that her son died from a previously undetected heart condition that has plagued the family." Yes. That poor, blinkered woman, "insisting" in the face of official medical evidence that absolutely agrees with her.

Anyway, having cast aspersions over a tragic death, doubted a coroner and insulted a grieving mother, Moir's piece builds to its climax: "Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships. . . Gay activists are always calling for tolerance and understanding about same-sex relationships, arguing that they are just the same as heterosexual marriages . . . in many cases this may be true. Yet the recent death of Kevin McGee, the former husband of Little Britain star Matt Lucas, and now the dubious events of Gately's last night raise troubling questions about what happened."

Way to spread the pain around, Jan. Way to link two unrelated tragedies, Jan. Way to gay-bash, Jan.

Jan's paper, the Daily Mail, absolutely adores it when people flock to Ofcom to complain about something offensive, especially when it's something they've only learned about second-hand via an inflammatory article in a newspaper. So it would undoubtedly be delighted if, having read this, you paid a visit to the Press Complaints Commission website (www.pcc.org.uk) to lodge a complaint about Moir's article on the basis that it breaches sections 1, 5 and 12 of its code of practice.
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From Brand Republic (Campaign and marketing mags online)

It's hit the marketing trade press - this from Campaign and Marketing magazine

MailOnline ads pulled from columnist Jan Moir's article amid gay backlash

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 16-Oct-09, 16:15

LONDON - The Daily Mail online has pulled advertising running alongside a comment piece by Jan Moir, which has caused a furore over its statements relating to Boyzone singer Stephen Gately's death.

There are no problems with ads on other pages on Dailymail.co.uk, but the banner, skyscaper and rich media placements on the article by Jan Moir are now blank.


James Bromley, MailOnline MD, said the decision to remove the ads was taken by Mail Online "within minutes" following the reaction to the article.

"This is done frequently and by other newspapers. For example, we wouldn't want a mobile phone ad next to an article about mobile phone masts."

The piece by Jan Moir, a columnist for the Mail, has prompted a storm of comments both on the piece on the Mail's website and in the wider online sphere.

One particular line in the piece, which describes Gately's death as "sleazy", has angered the gay community. Moir wrote: "Another real sadness about Gately's death is that it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships."

A Facebook group has been set up calling on people to pressure the Mail to remove the article by contacting advertisers that have appeared next to it and by complaining to the Press Complaints Commission.

Marks & Spencer, BT and Procter & Gamble are among the nine advertisers listed on the group's page, with phone numbers and other contact details.

The group is called 'The Daily Mail should retract Jan Moir's hateful, homophobic article'.

Twitter is also humming with comments about the incident, pushing 'Jan Moir' to the top of the trending topics.

Jan Moir has since issued a statement in defence of her piece, in which she claimed it was "mischievious in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones" and described the internet campaign as "heavily orchestrated".

She said: "When I wrote that ‘he would want to set an example to any impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamorous routine', I was referring to the drugs and the casual invitation extended to a stranger. Not to the fact of his homosexuality.

"In writing that ‘it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships' I was suggesting that civil partnerships - the introduction of which I am on the record in supporting - have proved just to be as problematic as marriages."

Moir said it was never her intention to upset people with her comments, and that the point of the piece, "which, I wonder how many of the people complaining have fully read", was that "his death raises many unanswered questions".
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http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/9...olumnist-Jan-Moirs-article-amid-gay-backlash/
 
trashpony said:
But the media buyers will get massive grief from the brand managers because they will be getting it in the ear from the Head of Marketing. There will be fury - press space isn't cheap and with tighter margins, advertisers need to squeeze as much margin as they can out of their spend. They are going to seriously question whether to advertise with the DM again
Click to expand...

Maybe the smaller brands, but BT? Nah. Press wise the DM is expensive as The Sun and delivers a more valuable audience (1 page ad=3.8m ABC1s, roughly and IIRC) - the only time the DM gets dropped is when the agency/client falls out with them over page rates.

Online might be different - but then, even given this, if you're a marketing director, and your media planners give you a plan without the UKs largest newspaper website on it, you're going to reject it.

I actually went through something similar with one of the 2 big French luxury brands groups over sweatshop allegations in Marie Claire...audience always triumphs, unless the title concerned is running an ongoing campaign.

I really, really want to be pleasantly surprised about this tho...
 
spanglechick said:
i was surprised i hadn't been invited to join the facebook group.

first thing i did when i joined was invite all my fb friends. That's how these things really snowball - so do it!
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I didn't invite everyone because I thought you'd be inundated with invites. My bad :oops:

I did however invite all my non-urban friends.
 
All she's doing is running a detailed celebrity-death sweepstake in her head. That's not ghoulish, that's fun. For my part, I've just put a tenner on Moir choking to death on her own bile by the year 2012. See? Fun!
Click to expand...
:D
 
kyser_soze said:
Maybe the smaller brands, but BT? Nah. Press wise the DM is expensive as The Sun and delivers a more valuable audience (1 page ad=3.8m ABC1s, roughly and IIRC) - the only time the DM gets dropped is when the agency/client falls out with them over page rates.

Online might be different - but then, even given this, if you're a marketing director, and your media planners give you a plan without the UKs largest newspaper website on it, you're going to reject it.

I actually went through something similar with one of the 2 big French luxury brands groups over sweatshop allegations in Marie Claire...audience always triumphs, unless the title concerned is running an ongoing campaign.

I really, really want to be pleasantly surprised about this tho...
Click to expand...

Depends on the company and who they're hoping to target. Where I used to work (big company but not FMCG), we dropped a couple of publications from our ad campaigns because of bad publicity. Anyway - the MC thing was criticising the brands which is different from the publication being seen as the last refuge of scoundrels
 
OK - is there anything else that needs to go on the group today because I've got a cold and want to go and do something else now :D
 
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