The media has been had – again – by a stunt in which an advertising agency posted a fake YouTube video. In the video, designed to promote Witchery, a girl pretends to be hunting for a man who left his “really nice” jacket behind in a cafe.
It was reported as a genuine news story by Fairfax newspapers on the weekend, and exposed as a stunt first by Ninemsn, and then in the same Fairfax papers yesterday.
The former editor of the advertising industry magazine B&T, Tim Burrows, has a nice round up of the yarn, with all the relevant links, on his mUmBRELLA blog.
Just days ago Burrows broke another story about ads getting reported as news, when AAP was fooled by a video of a girl getting a tattoo in order to win a job looking after the islands of the Great Barrier Reef. That was a fake from Tourism Queensland.
Burrows focusses on the ethics of using deceptive content in the advertising industry. For journalists, the uncomfortable issue must surely be – how easy are we to con?
UPDATE: Witchery has come clean with a new video, in which the actress concerned thanks us for, er, “coming along for the ride”.
UPDATE II: B&T is reporting that the advertising agency, Naked, is defending the campaign.
3 Comments
Margaret,
I don’t think there is any widespread discomfort for the ‘content providers’. Too many of our colleagues see the asking of questions as a hindrance to filling the space in the time expected of them. PR controls whatever reality it is being paid to promote. Journalists place the material risk free, because they by and large seem unwilling to acknowledge a responsibility to establish the accuracy, or motivations of press releases. Proprietors I suggest see themselves as part of the communications solutions sought by the stakeholders in government and business.
The most depressing aspect of the ‘Cinderella Jacket Man’ story is the fact some media outlets from the start ran with a ‘We know it’s fake. You know it’s fake. But what the hell, let’s run with it anyway’ attitude. The girl actor denied it was a PR stunt early in the fiasco and even had the audacity to berate people for being cynical. Pathetic.
Neil Walker is spot on.
I watched her on one of the morning news shows, and she was asked point blank, is this an ad? She point blank said it wasn’t. I am sure she would have sworn on it as well, if asked.
Put simply, she is a liar. Not a model, not an actor, but a liar.
The media haven’t been good at fact-checking for years. One only need watch reporting on the Middle East to recognise that. I shudder to think there are a generation of youngsters who will get all their news and current affairs from variations on the Kochyandmel theme.
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