

The Atlantic president explains Scientology advertorial ‘screw-up’ - mmastrac
http://jimromenesko.com/2013/01/19/the-atlantic-president-explains-the-scientology-advertorial-screw-up/

======
polemic
> _"We ran a “native advertising” campaign for a new advertiser..."_

We ran ads that look like genuine content...

> _"...that, while properly labeled as Sponsor Content, was in my opinion
> inconsistent with the strategy and philosophy for which this program is
> intended."_

...and we thought you wouldn't notice, or care, but clearly I was wrong and we
look like giant douches.

> _"In this case, we did not adequately work with the advertiser to create a
> content program that was in line with our brand."_

It's the _advertisers_ fault.

> _"In addition, because we had not fully thought through the issues around
> commenting on Sponsor Content, we made some mistakes trying to moderate the
> commenting thread."_

It's the commenter's fault.

> _"The general media climate also played a role here."_

It's the media climate's fault.

> _"Once these issues came to light and I had the opportunity to assess the
> campaign, I made the decision to suspend it pending further review."_

When the shit hit the fan, I panicked.

> _"To be clear, our decision to pull the campaign should not be interpreted
> as passing judgment on the advertiser as an organization."_

Don't fear, we'll still run ads for anyone...

> _"Where I believe we erred was in the execution of the campaign."_

It's probably our fault.

> _"We then issued a statement to the press admitting we were at fault. When
> we make a mistake, we admit it."_

See, I admitted it before. I get kudos for that.

> _"Our highest priority is The Atlantic’s reputation and credibility. That’s
> why so many readers trust us and why advertisers want to work with us."_

We're willing to sell out our reputation and credibility, as long as it
doesn't backfire.

> _"Why did it happen? Quite simply, we did not have clearly established
> digital advertising guidelines and policies in place..."_

It's management's fault.

> _"...and when you’re innovating in a new territory without standardized
> guidelines (we’re not alone in the industry on this issue, by the way),
> mistakes can happen."_

It's "innovation's" fault.

> _"One important note for everyone: casting blame on any group or any
> individual is both unfair and simply not what we do at The Atlantic."_

It's not _my_ fault.

> _"And we most certainly should not speak to the press or use social media to
> attack our organization or our colleagues. We are a team that rises and
> falls together."_

Be quiet about it.

> _"What is our plan going forward? We are currently finalizing new policies
> and guidelines to govern advertising overall, with a specific focus on
> Sponsor Content."_

We're figuring out just how far we can push when lying to customers.

> _"Very shortly, we’ll publish these new policies, and I’ll be discussing
> them publicly with the press."_

Hopefully this will blow over soon.

> _"My hope is that we’ll turn this issue into a moment where, as a leader in
> digital advertising, we will help move the industry to a better place."_

If I can spin this, it'll look great on my CV.

> _"If you have ANY questions or potential concerns about something you’re
> working on, please don’t hesitate to push it up the chain. Push it up to
> me—and if I think I need to, I will include Justin and David, not to mention
> Linda, Natalie, Bruce, Aretae (our new deputy general counsel), etc."_

We're watching our collective arses closely now.

> _"It seems fitting to quote one of our founders, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who
> once said “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up
> every time we fail.” This isn’t the first, nor the last time that WE will
> make mistakes..."_

WE

> _"..., but what is important is how we handle them and what we learn from
> these moments."_

I'm not going anywhere.

> _"I am available at any time (including this weekend) should you wish to
> discuss any aspects of this week in further depth."_

I'm so contrite, I'm even working this weekend.

~~~
chris_wot
Well this is a cynical take...

>> _"We ran a “native advertising” campaign for a new advertiser..."_

> _We ran ads that look like genuine content..._

... yet clearly marked as advertising...

>> _"...that, while properly labeled as Sponsor Content, was in my opinion
inconsistent with the strategy and philosophy for which this program is
intended."_

> _...and we thought you wouldn't notice, or care, but clearly I was wrong and
> we look like giant douches._

That's an unfair characterization. Another way of looking at this is that they
did, indeed, realise they were wrong and looked terrible, and so realized they
had made a mistake and suspended the program.

>> _"In this case, we did not adequately work with the advertiser to create a
content program that was in line with our brand."_

> _It's the advertisers fault._

What part of " _we_ did not adequately work with the advertiser" turns this
sentence into an accusation against the advertiser?

>> _"In addition, because we had not fully thought through the issues around
commenting on Sponsor Content, we made some mistakes trying to moderate the
commenting thread."_

> _It's the commenter's fault._

What part of " _we_ had not fully thought through the issues around
commenting" and " _we_ made some mistakes" turns this sentence into an
accusation against commenters?

>> _"The general media climate also played a role here."_

> _It's the media climate's fault._

Fair comment, this does seem to be a deflection towards the "general media
climate". Very unnecessary, it was _The Atlantic_ , and _The Atlantic_ only
who solely made this mistake.

>> _"Once these issues came to light and I had the opportunity to assess the
campaign, I made the decision to suspend it pending further review."_

> _When the shit hit the fan, I panicked._

Possibly. Or he could have realised that they had made a massive mistake, not
implemented very well and did the responsible thing which was to pull down the
campaign.

What would you have had him do? Keep the campaign running?

>> _"To be clear, our decision to pull the campaign should not be interpreted
as passing judgment on the advertiser as an organization."_

> _Don't fear, we'll still run ads for anyone..._

As he says below, he believes the way that they ran the campaign was at fault
here, and had nothing to do with the advertiser. The fact that the advertiser
was the Church of Scientology had nothing to do with their decision. Seems
like a fair comment to me.

>> _"Where I believe we erred was in the execution of the campaign."_

> _It's probably our fault._

It's sort of funny how above you say that he's blaming: the media climate, the
advertisers and the commenters, yet here you see that he is claiming
responsibility.

>> _"We then issued a statement to the press admitting we were at fault. When
we make a mistake, we admit it."_

> _See, I admitted it before. I get kudos for that._

Well... yes! There are plenty of organizations I've seen who have tried to
spin it that it wasn't entirely their fault. He sure does get kudos for
admitting fault - that's not easy to do. Many organizations won't do it
(witness Carmen Ortiz's non-apology apology).

>> _"Our highest priority is The Atlantic’s reputation and credibility. That’s
why so many readers trust us and why advertisers want to work with us."_

> _We're willing to sell out our reputation and credibility, as long as it
> doesn't backfire._

Oh come on! They tried something they hadn't done before to get some
advertising dollars, they totally stuffed the execution and now you are saying
they are total sell-outs? I think that's a bit much, really.

>> _"Why did it happen? Quite simply, we did not have clearly established
digital advertising guidelines and policies in place..."_

> _It's management's fault._

Well... yes! However, he's saying here the specific areas where they erred. I
think that's constructive and reasonable. It also shows that they have
identified the areas in which they need to improve so the problem doesn't
occur again.

Unless they admit fault, and work out where things went wrong, then they can't
exactly improve on where they made bad judgement calls and errors.

>> _"...and when you’re innovating in a new territory without standardized
guidelines (we’re not alone in the industry on this issue, by the way),
mistakes can happen."_

> _It's "innovation's" fault._

Uh, no. He's saying that this wasn't something they had done before, it was
untried and untested and they made a lot of mistakes as they were, simply put,
inexperienced.

>> _"One important note for everyone: casting blame on any group or any
individual is both unfair and simply not what we do at The Atlantic."_

> _It's not my fault._

That is extremely unfair. I actually thought this was a remarkable ethos,
given the number of companies I've seen that are willing to find a scapegoat
when things go bad.

There's no point in pointing fingers at any one person at _The Atlantic_ ,
because it's not constructive. While you may characterize this as insulating
Scott Havens from criticism, more likely he is publicly defending the entire
team from unnecessary blame.

>> _"And we most certainly should not speak to the press or use social media
to attack our organization or our colleagues. We are a team that rises and
falls together."_

> _Be quiet about it._

He's saying that as an organization, they aren't going to publicly air their
dirty laundry or have insiders leak criticism to attack one another. Fair
enough, don't you think? Or do you think that employees should go at each
other in the public arena?

>> _"What is our plan going forward? We are currently finalizing new policies
and guidelines to govern advertising overall, with a specific focus on Sponsor
Content."_

> _We're figuring out just how far we can push when lying to customers._

Or they are trying to work towards tightening their advertising policies to
more clearly distinguish between sponsor content and content from _The
Atlantic_. In other words, this debacle has caused them to review what went
wrong, identify areas that aren't working or are broken, and then to fix those
policies and guidelines.

Sounds like a reasonable thing to me!

>> _"Very shortly, we’ll publish these new policies, and I’ll be discussing
them publicly with the press."_

> _Hopefully this will blow over soon._

What? They are going to publicly publish their advertising policies and
discuss them fully. That's called "transparency", the direct opposite of
"Hopefully this will blow over soon".

>> _"My hope is that we’ll turn this issue into a moment where, as a leader in
digital advertising, we will help move the industry to a better place."_

> _If I can spin this, it'll look great on my CV._

Given your responses, you seem to be pretty good at twisting the words of
others yourself.

>> _"If you have ANY questions or potential concerns about something you’re
working on, please don’t hesitate to push it up the chain. Push it up to
me—and if I think I need to, I will include Justin and David, not to mention
Linda, Natalie, Bruce, Aretae (our new deputy general counsel), etc."_

> _We're watching our collective arses closely now._

Or he is asking for input from employees and is willing to take on board
feedback.

>> _"It seems fitting to quote one of our founders, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who
once said “Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every
time we fail.” This isn’t the first, nor the last time that WE will make
mistakes..."_

> _WE_

Yes, "WE". _The Atlantic's_ ethos appears to be to run as a unified team. I
would hazard a guess, but I'd say there were many people who came up with the
advertising campaign.

>> _"..., but what is important is how we handle them and what we learn from
these moments."_

> _I'm not going anywhere._

I didn't read that at all. He said that when mistakes happen, which they will,
they will handle them appropriately and make adjustments as necessary.

>> _"I am available at any time (including this weekend) should you wish to
discuss any aspects of this week in further depth."_

> _I'm so contrite, I'm even working this weekend._

This was an internal memo. Yes, he does appear to be working on the weekend
and is making himself available to employees who are concerned. That's called
"leadership" - you know, the sort of thing you exhibit when you have a crisis,
which is what this was.

~~~
jakobe
>... yet clearly marked as advertising...

That's bullshit. If something uses the same font and page layout as editorial
content, it will always be mistaken for editorial content. That's the whole
point of it.

And using weasel words like "sponsor content" is definitely not 'clearly
marked as advertisment'.

~~~
ryanac
To be fair, it was a giant yellow box that gave an explanation of the words
"sponsor content" when you hovered over it. Also the box isn't always yellow
or that big, sometimes it's light tan, small and blends into the page; so they
at least attempted to make it more noticeable in this instance. Not saying
they should have put the ad up, for obvious reasons, but people need to pay
attention to what they're reading as well.

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-
wemple/files/2013/0...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-
wemple/files/2013/01/atlantic.jpg)

Pop Up Message: "Sponsor content is created by The Atlantic’s Promotions
Department in partnership with our advertisers. The Atlantic editorial team is
not involved in the creation of this content. Email
advertising@theatlantic.com to learn more."

[http://www.poynter.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/01/sponsorcon...](http://www.poynter.org/wp-
content/uploads/2013/01/sponsorcontentatlanticscien.jpg)

I wonder if this would have even been an issue if it wasn't an article about
Scientology, especially since this style of advertising has been happening on
that site for at least the last two years and elsewhere since newspapers have
been in existence.

~~~
polemic
When I first visited it, it was a plain white text box at the _end_ of the
article.

------
greenyoda
_"In this case, we did not adequately work with the advertiser to create a
content program that was in line with our brand."_

It's disturbing to see that The Atlantic believes that it could have
reconciled Scientology with its "brand" if it had only worked a bit harder.
They're only digging themselves into a deeper hole with this corporate mumbo
jumbo.

~~~
TillE
It really is a bizarre mess of vague, meaningless, and confusing statements.

> The general media climate also played a role here.

...what?

> To be clear, our decision to pull the campaign should not be interpreted as
> passing judgment on the advertiser as an organization.

We don't actually think there's anything _wrong_ with Scientology.

> Very shortly, we’ll publish these new policies, and I’ll be discussing them
> publicly with the press.

We're sure that everyone will forget about this in a week or two, when we'll
quietly publish more platitudes about the incident tucked away in a corner
somewhere.

------
IvyMike
Some day, I'm going to get a job as CEO of The Smithsonian. I don't care what
salary they pay me, but I'll make damn sure my bonus compensation package is
tied to profitability.

Then, for the next two years, I'll sell off the museum's collections to the
highest bidders, and then leave, having had the two most profitable years
ever.

As far as I can tell, this is what passes for genius in today's corporate
environment.

------
shaggyfrog
> From: Havens, Scott

> Date: January 18, 2013, 6:08:51 PM EST

Remember kids, the best time to post non-explanations or non-apologies is as
late as possible on a Friday to minimize anyone actually seeing it or acting
on it or anything changing at all, really.

------
Mithrandir
Here's the original ad archived: <http://www.webcitation.org/6Do5yGrId>

Edit: Ha, the images from the ad are still in The Atlantic's CDN:
[http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/sponsored/0.%20M...](http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/sponsored/0.%20MR_DAVID_MISCAVIGE.jpg)

------
lhnz
This response destroys the Atlantic’s reputation: blame dodging, inability to
see why Scientology is an inappropriate advertiser, and self-aggrandising
behaviour are all on display. What a pathetic magazine.

------
jacquesm
It would be great to see the Atlantic covering the Fishman affidavit, Karin
Spaink and xs4all against Scientology in one of their upcoming articles.

The world needs a periodic reminder of what Scientology really is and I think
the Atlantic is now morally obliged to be the vehicle for that reminder.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fishman_Affidavit>

------
rdl
This somehow prompted me to check out the Scientology website. I don't buy
into scientology at all (and am pretty against some of the abuses), but wow,
they are _really_ good at marketing.

