Another day, another political scandal with the 'gate' suffix. But this one isn't as sexy as it sounds.
PR firm Naked Communications has been sacked rather suddenly by the Labor Party after it attempted to offer Kevin Rudd interviews to 'youth media' in return for providing 'inventory' — i.e. online advertising space — and positive editorial coverage.
Naked were also 'keen', according to leaked documents, for these sites to produce 'entertaining content on the theme of the inadequacy of the Liberal NBN plan'.
Labor has claimed it was oblivious to the deals being offered by Naked on its behalf to sites like Vice and Fairfax Media's The Vine, but Sydney Morning Herald political reporter Jonathon Swan told AdNews that was unlikely.
"It seems very odd that no-one in the Labor Party knew this was happening when it had their name on it and their brand. The one party which will suffer out of all this will be Naked."
According to The Vine, the briefing document provided by Naked carried Labor branding and set out the conditions for the 'Kevin interview'. It encouraged editors to do the following in exchange for 10 minutes of sweet, sweet Rudd access:
Naked Communications' head of strategy Brett Rolfe said the doc was "not discussed, authorised or reviewed by the ALP". After Vine editor Alyx Gorman told Naked Communications' exec Nick Kavanagh that their requests were "not appropriate", Kavanagh replied: "To be honest we're pretty disappointed that you would be unable to facilitate this. We have offered your organisation a unique opportunity... yet you're unable to provide us with any advertising support in return?"
Gabriel McDowell, managing director of rival PR firm Res Publica, told AdNews he thought the Labor Party would emerge unscathed from the affair — but Naked wouldn't.
"From a crisis management perspective, and based on the reported facts so far, I think the ALP has reacted promptly and appropriately to try to limit reputational damage to the Labor brand. They have made it clear they didn't sanction the offending proposal and firing the responsible agency was a justifiable response given the seriousness of its misjudgement.
"And there can be no doubt that it is a whopper of a misjudgement because building trust and understanding between a brand and its public is the fundamental objective of any communication campagin and deliberately blurring the lines between editorial and advertising can only erode trust when it is uncovered."
So, to summarise, a PR firm has been fired for attempting to bribe youth media sites into making fun of Tony Abbott.
Where I'm from, we call that Darwinism.
