Did the L.A. Times take a solemn, double-super secret oath not to hurt General Motors' feelings by reporting how crappy G.M. makes its cars, or how poorly the CEO's performance is? Or did G.M. realize that they needed all the advertising outlets they could get, because without advertising, nobody except for employees is even buying a Pontiac Firebird? Only the Shadow Knows....
NYT: G.M. Ads Return to a Newspaper:
An ad for the Pontiac Solstice represented the return of General Motors to The Los Angeles Times after more than three months of refusing to advertise in its pages.G.M.'s absence shortly followed a column by the Pulitzer Prize winning car critic Dan Neil in April, in which he called for the dismissal of G.M.'s chairman and chief executive, Rick Wagoner. “When ball clubs have losing records, players and coaches and managers get their walking papers,” Mr. Neil wrote. “At G.M., it's time to sweep the dugout.” In a statement, Brian Akre, a company spokesman, said: “G.M. and The Los Angeles Times have had productive discussions regarding our complaints about the newspaper's coverage of G.M. While we have respectfully agreed to disagree on some of the issues, we sincerely believe The Times has a better understanding of our concerns and we appreciate its ongoing willingness to listen.”
In an interview, Mr. Akre added that “our objections didn't revolve around any one story or reporter.”
Martha Goldstein, a spokeswoman for the newspaper, said: “We had productive conversations with G.M. While we didn't see a need to run a correction, we did listen to their concerns.”
Asked if the discussion of a correction centered on the column by Mr. Neil, she said it did, but declined to elaborate.
Details of the original dust-up here, and here
AdAge weighs in with the names of some other misguided companies:
With the boycott, the company joined a boomlet of advertisers-who-would-be-editors, including Morgan Stanley and BP, both of which have ordered publications to withhold their ads when negative articles are going to appear.
Impact not clear Any impact from the boycott is not yet clear. GM, its regional dealer associations and individual dealers spent $61.5 million to advertise in The Times last year, of which $21 million came from GM corporate campaigns, according to TNS Media Intelligence.
Public relations professionals, who largely called the boycott a mistake, worried that their influence was waning. “A company that would expect these tactics to work is misguided,” wrote Julia Hood, editor in chief at P.R. Week, in an editorial. “An editor that would agree to them is compromised. A P.R. professional that does not help the C-suite understand why these practices are wrong is a fool.”
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