How To Lose Friends and Misinfluence Vampires
Gawker has been a pretty cool site for quite a number of years. As far as gossip rags go, it actually does maintain some level of credibility. The writing is crisp and witty, the commentary is spot on. It’s a fun and informative read. It’s delicious and sneaky and vicious. Vicarious fun.
Over the past several years, Gawker Media has extended the brand by creating blogs covering sports, cars, video games, fashion, gadgets, personal productivity, and others. Gawker has built quite a remarkable stable of reliable content.
Then, the powers-that-be in the advertising department almost ruined the whole thing.
Apparently, HBO broadcasts a television show about vampires. True Blood is entering its second season. The HBO people favor something they think is viral marketing for the show. Before season one, they introduced a beverage
Tags: blogs, editorial failure, Gawker, HBO, internet, Marketing, mistakes, True Blood, vampires, viral marketing
June 25th, 2009 at 9:55 am
Would like to see a screenshot of the posts in place to see of offensive I would have found them myself, but based on the current Gawker layout — I absolutely agree they should have been labeled as “sponsored.” But, other than that it seems like they were at least TRYING to be creative and break out of the traditional advertising spaces that are all but ignored.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Would like to see a screenshot of the posts in place to see how offensive I would have found them myself, but based on the current Gawker layout — I absolutely agree they should have been labeled as “sponsored.” But, other than that, it seems like they were at least TRYING to be creative and break out of the traditional advertising spaces that are all but ignored.