Beta and the outdoor industry analyse the Mumsnet cock-up

[morningpaper]

The Mumsnet Incident in Brandrepublic

Garry's chum Robert:

"Don't mess with Mumsnet. It is like wrestling with an octopus. There is huge diversity within it. There are those with political ambitions as well as many looking for advice and support and everything in between. They can organise themselves very quickly. The conversation is relatively serious during the day and gets pretty wild in the evening - we found threads about wife-swapping, gangbangs, "bumsex" and drugging babies with alcohol."

PLANNER (and mum to be) - Amelia Torode, head of strategy and innovation, VCCP:

"It was astounding to watch it all happen in real time, though, from the first reaction to the haiku about Garry (Lace)'s penis size."

AGENCY HEAD - Cilla Snowball, chairman, Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO:

"But the key postmortem question is one of judgment and establishing why
the ad got cleared to run. It's patently horrible, untrue and offensive
and should never have seen the light of day.

Oh yes! Tommy Sheridan!

(and george galloway looks like he wouldn't say no to some FUN).

I think his perjury trial may be due to start soon??

Someone with the gift for it ought to do a nice haiku about Ms Snowball - she's got the seasonality built in.

I feel a little sorry for the admen... they might have expected the Spanish Inquisition but they couldn't have predicted hounding by haiku.

Thanks BIWI. I had seen that thread (in fact I have posted on it under a diff name ).
Didn't realise that is what NBN was referring to - I thought a copy of original haiku thread was being messaged around. Has it really vamooshed forever? Such a shame....

Gangbangs aside ...

MN contributors could of course have written their own evaluation and submitted it to Brand Republic for the purposes of annoying Beta to better inform debate within the communications industry ...

... but we have to keep some things secret from ya, Robert!

I am so incompetent, my strikethroughs didn't work

Gangbangs aside ...

MN contributors could of course have written their own evaluation and submitted it to Brand Republic forthepurposesofannoyingBeta to better inform debate within the communications industry ...

... but we have to keep some things secret from ya, Robert!

Cilla Snowball ... fab name & fab person

(I worked with her in the 1990s...)

I know quite a few lefties who are into gangbangs.
Also, I pointed out on the first page of this thread that those ad agency whangers were deliberately trying to portray MNers as drunken neglectful sluts (because women who disagree with men must be immoral, decent women know that Men are Right.) I wonder if they considered suggesting that what we all need is actually a good fuck (given the other end of the misogyny scale is that assertive independent women are all frigid) but - hang on, they all have TINY WILLIES so they couldn't.

I am absolutely incandescent, as I flicked through the original thread, I realised that most of my early posts have been deleted. Cannot imagine why as I know that there were no personal insults or libels. There might have been one dodgy post about sexist practices at ad agencies, but I don't think there was anything else.

Would love to know if Beta directed which posts should be removed or if MN just panicked.

oh and totally agree with that whore/ virgin comment - what they are doing is transparantly mysogynist and pathetic and I'm feeling cross about the whole thing all over again and if I could be arsed to sign up to that site to post I would.

Cilla Snowball clearly rocks. While Garry and his chum Robert still don't get how the internet works at all.

yes, the whole "Mumsnet skilfully spun their side of the story out on to the internet"

DUR. There was no spinning. You can't spin a live web discussion involving several thousand people. People said what they thought in unvarnished terms, just because Beta didn't like that, it didn't mean it was spun.

And as for our alleged "friends in the press" How rude!!!! Some of us ARE the press (not me I hasten to add ).

I also love love LOVE the notion of "a whole team of bloggers ready to ride and
direct the debate more positively".

I would literally weep tears of joy if I could see beta try to "ride" mumsnet. With or without a whole team at their disposal.

Please. Please please please PLEASE come and ride us.

Now I'd pay good money to watch beta 'ride Mumsnet'.

It is bloody MARVELLOUS to hear that they lost a pitch because of this, and they deserve to lose more. Even on their own terms, they have clearly demonstrated that they have fuck all understanding of one of a key demographic group for advertisers.

Chumps like this are to blame for sanitary towel ads with blue water and women doing the splits wearing white trousers ...

"Now I'd pay good money to watch beta 'ride Mumsnet'."

I read that phrase and my brain instantly threw up the words "like a monkey on a rabid water buffalo" and "bumsex".

It seems accurate, but I don't know why...

Ride us Garry! Ride us harder!

I am ROFL that Beta really think that if they had had a few more people "spinning their side of the story" then I would have changed my pretty little mind about whether it was offensive or not to have a massive sign denigrating working mothers positioned outside DD's nursery.

These are the people who presumably think that with a "real-time strategy" (whatever the fuck that is) and a few strategically placed bloggers, you can make people think the pope is protestant and the Tories should win the next election. (erm, hang on a minute...).

I certainly hope that they lose more pitches. Given the number of emails I have written to their clients and others I know in the industry (mwahahaha), I bloody hope there are more losses in the pipeline.

More info about the lovely Cilla Snowball

Shall we ask MN to invite her for a webchat? Now that would be fun....

Do you know Whippet I had exactly the same thought re Cilla Snowball. Do you think it would attract enough interest as a webchat ie what could her topic be - 'sexism in advertising', 'reflections on Betagate'? - or 'how to be a highpowered lady and have 3 children?' (I'd quite like to know the answer to that) ...

Mrs B - I'd like to talk to honestly about advertising to children (but not in an aggressive way!)

Many years ago I seem to remember there was a high profile case where AMV had to issue an apologgy over Wotsits advertising to children or something??

Perhaps a more rounded discussion about 'balancing what you see and know to be the influences on your own children with your role as Head of a global advertising agency group?

Oh yes - that's a good idea, ads and kids!

And if she cared to give some further views on Betagate too - great! Including whether the ASA should be replaced by a statutory body (or something)...

LOL everyone I used to know in advertising wouldn't let their kids watch commercial TV.

(Their kids were young at the time though, will be teenagers now)

Ha, ha, ha!

Of course, on the occasions when advertisers are called on to defend the fact that they are pushing junk food/fags/whatever, they invariably come back with this classic line that "everyone knows that advertising doesn't work anyway"

You want my 'further opinion'?

COCKS.