Hello, hello,
No we didn't know Miriam Stoppard worked for Nestle not least because we haven't recruited her (not unless she's our new Tech that is ).
I gather there must be an ad running on the site with Miriam on - is that right? The way our advertising works is that we outsource most of it (though there are some folks who approach us directly) to an agency. Our agency handles all advertisers who come via media planners etc. Our agency has a list of banned advertisers/ products. On it are the following:
Nestle, Macdonalds, formula milk products, political parties, pawn, red top newspapers, plastic surgery ads.
By Nestle we mean companies that are majority owned by Nestle or have a strong brand association - eg Nescafe. Minority stakes (eg L'oreal) are where we've chosen to draw the line because as I understand it they've a big pension fund and a lot of minority stakes.
But if I'm understanding you are objecting to any product that Miriam Stoppard is associated with - and her books I guess which are recommended by many Mumsnetter in our best parenting book review? Is that right? Follows on that we should boycott any and all products endorsed by anyone who has also been associated with Nestle I suppose - and even Supermarkets because they sell Nestle products, as do petrol stations, cinemas etc etc?
I guess the only way to be purer than pure is to not accept any advertising at all - but sadly we have running costs and we don't think asking folk to pay to use Mumsnet is viable...
So we have our policy as listed above which we hope makes a point. We turned down a nestle campaign only this week. We have also said no to Macdonalds, several formula milk companies, lots of slimming pill companies and The Sun in the last 12 months, plus countless pop-up, pop-under key word and sub site type of activity, much to our ad person's chagrin.
If folks feel we should add to our current banned list then please do feel free to let us know and tell us why and of course we'll consider it.
ps VVVQ we aren't "not doing a book on breastfeeding" we just haven't persuaded our publisher to publish one (yet...)
Cheers,
M Towers