Partner Article

Flypaper

Ve Interactive had an interview published recently by a reputable industry body and were delighted for the opportunity to highlight some key industry issues within it, including raising awareness about the integrity of certain operators in our space, who flaunt data compliance regulations when remarketing on behalf of their clients. We therefore could not have expected a better testament to a lack of professional integrity, than a competitor using an employee’s girlfriend to hijack the article, posting links to their company’s work, whilst claiming to be independent and editorially impartial.

One click through to Facebook was all it took to estabish this.

In our opinion this is the ultimate expression of poor integrity within a professional PR and marketing context, and only further goes to expose the kind of dirty tricks that certain operators in this industry choose to focus their strategic efforts on.

Brand hijacking is when a company attempts to profit from another company’s intrinsic value beyond it’s tangible assets, the quality of it’s brand, it’s reputation in the marketplace and the depth of it’s culture. It didn’t work for the big corporate Marks & Spencer and it evidently didn’t in this case. We are delighted to say that the publisher upheld editorial impartiality and removed the comment so that the public would not be further mislead. However, we have retained a copy if anyone is interested in reading further.

The bottom line is that it’s time for standards to be raised and business ethics to be called for. And if you really do love what you do in performance marketing, and care about the future and reputation of the industry that feeds you, and if you want to win the respect of your peers in the marketplace, then you should probably agree.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Kathy Heslop .