The progressive community achieved significant success this week in persuading corporate and organizational advertisers to pull ads on anncoulter.com. In reality, it was not a difficult persuasion. In my opinion, those that pulled out had absolutely no clue their brands/organizations had a presence on the site. Advertiser responses to consumers/Kossacks, in most cases, acknowledged appreciation for bringing this issue to their attention.
In major online marketing industry news Thursday, Value Click, one of the most predominant players in the online ad placement business, removed anncoulter.com from its network, citing "hate speech" as the reason. Shown below are excerpts from the widely read Online Media Daily:
ALTHOUGH THEY MAY BE A cheap way to fill out an ad budget, one of the problems with blind ad networks is that you can never be sure where your ads might turn up--as dozens of major advertisers learned this week when they began taking fire for running ads on the official site of Ann Coulter, who recently made headlines by referring to presidential candidate John Edwards with an anti-gay slur.
More on the flip.
The progressive community indeed stirred up a well-deserved shitstorm for Coulter, and also created new awareness among major ad networks regarding misguided placement of client advertising. Read more below:
A spokesman for ValueClick said that since the controversy erupted, Coulter's site has been removed from their network. ValueClick reviews sites on its network on a case-by-case basis, and AnnCoulter.com was deemed too close to "hate speech" to be kept onboard.
Link to the full article is .here.
If Value Click has dropped Coulter, it's highly likely the others will follow suit, if they have not done so already. If you have received any responses from your communications to ad networks, please post them in the comments.
TODAY'S NEW TARGET:
Only one major corporate player appears to remain on Coulter's site as of Thursday: Amazon.com. A few other minor league ads showed up today, including one marketing coonhounds. These are basically dog scraps, and may well be the only types of ads Coulter's site can attract in the future. Meanwhile, let's show Amazon some KosLove and let them know their presence on anncoulter.com is inappropriate. Here is the email address for Amazon's Investor Relations operation:
ir@amazon.com
YESTERDAY'S DIARY UPDATED
Yesterday's diary has been updated to reflect companies and organizations that responded to Kossack inquiries here. If you have received a response from anyone not already posted on the "good guys" list, please post it in the comments and I will update yesterday's posting.
ANNCOULTER.COM CRASHES
Coulter's site has been almost completely inaccessible since the first Coulter advertising diary was publishes. A quick look at Alexa tells the story here. An extraordinary traffic spike, likely created by Kossacks and other progressives trying to access the site to identify advertisers, brought it to a virtual standstill. Perhaps anncoulter.com was using the same cheap hosting service used by Joe Lieberman last fall, when his site crashed and he falsely claimed the Lamont campaign hacked his site.
NEXT STEPS
While it appears this community may have won a significant victory, let's take a breather for a few days and see if new major advertisers appear. Many Kossacks and others invested incredibly unselfish and valuable time in this accomplishment, and some people are just exhausted. Many exhibited passionate dedication to the cause by contacting 30-40+ advertisers, and you deserve a rest. If you observe an influx of new advertisers in the next week, please bookmark THIS diary and post the info in the contacts. A follow-up diary will be posted next week.
FINANCIAL IMPACT ON COULTER
I spoke with a couple of people in the online marketing industry today regarding the revenue impact of advertisers fleeing anncoulter.com. Estimates vary, but ranged from as little as $200 per day to $1500 per day. Granted, the site was not likely a net profit winner for Coulter after paying expenses. However, with revenue dropping sharply, Coulter may now have to fund her site operations out of own pocket. Sure, it's a drop in the bucket considering her wealth, but nevertheless a powerful message has been delivered.
FREEPER REACTION
As to be expected, the batshit insane loons on the far right, with the exception of a few reasonable voices, reacted to our venture with the usual lame vitriol. If your'e looking for some entertainment, check it out here.
Thanks again to this great community for a well-deserved win.