Advertising - who would you be unhappy about

[JustineMumsnet]

Hello, hello,
We wondered if you would mind giving us your two penneth on which companies are off limits as far as advertising is concerned. Ruling out obvious candidates like arms dealers and the BNP is there a concensus about anyone else? Would for example MacDonalds sponsoring the Food boards make people cross or would it be a case of why not let them spend some of their enormous mountain of profits keeping mumsnet afloat? Who's aloud and who isn't bascially... (thanks in advance .

snurk at OO's boobs

oh blimey, very late to this one. I say, anybody to advertise at all, including porn frankly, provided the advert images and text themselves would be appropriate on daytime TV.

BUT I would have a MAJOR problem with any kind of marketing outside defined advertising, e.g. advertorial or specific discussions started by PR people, even if signposted as such.

e.g. 'There's a rumour going around that eating a delicious juicy BigMac in your 40th week can kickstart labour, does anybody have any experiences?'

ok, my 2ps worth.

No to tobacco comps, arms manufactureres, gambling websites, political or religious parties, anti abortion groups or any else very contentious.

No to fast food and nesle on the home page.
It would put off too new posters, IMO.

Yes to fast food comps and nestle sponsoring thread topics. Don't like the comps, but I am being practical here. If mumsnet needs the money, this is a more low profile way of getting it. As a new poster, if I had got so far as to click on a talk thread, I'd be on my way to being hooked.

I think McD's would be complete fools to advertise on a site where so many people clearly see beyond their million dollar advertising budget and see the real truth of their product and evil marketing practices. Harrumph.

I also agree that Nestle (and to a certain extent Kelloggs) are evil.

I think it would be a good idea to get sponsorship/advertising from products and companies discussed in a good light by mumsnetters - top 10s, weekend aways, best presents for newborns/new mums, weight watchers et al, card making suppliers, stokke, bugaboo etc etc (with the exception of Graco, who we know are definitely evil).

I also don't see any harm in advertising bottles (if you're expressing then you do have to use a bottle after all), although I'd prefer to see Dr Browns rather than the ubiquitous & well advertised Avent.

Last but not least, you should definitely get into bed with the lovely Oddbins. 10% off for mumsnetters, with 20% for those whose names are wine-related..

I've just had a bootle of you PG .

That'll be a bottle. It was obviously stronger than I thought.

Wish I had. I don't drink during the week - stops my inevitable slide into alcoholism and off the gold members list at WW. Is it only Wednesday? Sob

Sorry yes it is. Wedding anniversary today though so I shall be having more .

Happy Anniversary Sponge and Mr Sponge .
Apologies for minor hijack

Whoever advertises - no pop ups please.

Thanks to all for the input - it's certainly honed our thoughts a bit.

We think that it does indeed make sense, as suggested by many, to have different criteria for different areas of the site from a PR/ impression to new visitors point of view - eg the home page is a bit more sensitive than, say, the talk pages.

Also we think the point about differentiating sponsorship from plain vanilla banner advertising slots, is a good one. In other words we might take banner advertising on the talk pages from an organisation you/we were less than impressed with but we wouldn't let them sponsor the boards/ newsletter or put an advert on the home page.

Re targeting smaller companies as opposed to big ones and looking at providing other services (the lateral thinking stuff)... we agree and we do in theory do all that stuff (it's in our media pack) but the truth is we don't/ or at least haven't in the past really aggressively targetted anyone for anything. Most of the advertising/ survey/ affiliate activity on the site has found us rather than vice versa. We've concentrated our (fairly limited) resources on spreading the word and looking after the site itself. Now we've reached something like a critical mass (from the point of view of advertisers) it's probably time to be a bit more proactive. In other words if any talented sales peeps would like to sell ads for mumsnet (on a commission basis ) speak now! Failing that I guess we'll buy ourselves an "art of selling book" and some briefcases and set off around the M25 .

Anyway, as ever thanks for your excellent thoughts and please do keep the ideas and opinions coming.

Arms dealers, biotech companies (Monsanto, for instance - for food, health, hope please read fraud, stealth, hype), tobacco companies, fur manufacturers, McDonald's, Burger King, KFC (et al really!), Nestle, formula companies, Avent (if the thing about Hello or was it OK magazine is true!).

Don't have time to justify all these but may later.

Haven't read the whole thread - has SW asked if it's kicked off yet?

You're all so darned reasonable at MN HQ. Seriously. What other organisation consults on something like this ?

Mwah (air kiss).

Re: Selling ads... one thing which might be useful, aside from targetting any killer sales beasts in the MN family... ... might be to state cost of the ads (by eyeball, by click through, for a certain period of time, for a topic area etc. etc.) so that any of us with a friend / family who had a relevant (ethical ?) business could mention the pricing to them. Similarly, if we have good experience with a particularly helpful business person / company / Web site - like I did with Nigel at pushchairs.co.uk for example, then we can mention the fact that they could try sponsoring the xyz section at the bargain rate of £x for one week (or whatever)... this has the effect of enlarging your sales force by a massive factor.

I would have a slight problem with Bernards Turkey Twizzlers - even though I bet Jamie Oliver was winding everyone up and they are in fact very nutritious!

No Nestle, no tobacco, no pro-abortion (therefore, given previous posts, no abortion-related advertisers), no formula manufacturers even if advertising follow-on milk, (but bottle manufacturers OK).

Just my 2p.

[ducks]

I do not want to start a fight but

Why can't there be baby milk manufactures advertising?

Some parents are unable to breast feed so why can't they be told about different brands?

eg

premature babies

after masactamy

babies who fail to thrive

Why can't these be told about different varieties?

SD told me earlier about new baby milks but why not follow on milk?

But advertising follow-on milks would be irrelevant for most of those categories, though, RTKM.

RTKM means any formula I think...

But we've already estbalished that you're not allowed to advertise anything other than follow-on milks, surely?

don't know... haven'#t read whole thread! sorry..

I don't think the relevance really matters that much... we all have kids, we all might be interested n follow-on milk surely?
If follow-on milk is irrelevant, then so is storing cord blood!

I didn't really mean it was irrelevant for everyone, just that the argument made no sense.

Yes I realise that but If I saw SMA advertised with follow on milk then I would therefore know the name and so look out for the baby newborn version

I just don't get it- how would that help anyone? It's on the shelves next to all the other formulas. I can see why people's experiences might help, but not why an advert for a related product would be of any use.

But you would know nothing about the newborn baby version, there would be no information for you to use to make an informed judgement about whether it is "good". I don't think advertising any formula is a good idea for that reason.