Sponsor's Message

After only a little procrastination, the NZH wisely decided to block that particular advertiser's messages -- but I fear they may be facing a losing battle.

This morning I spied two more suspicious looking AdSense placements on the NZH's pages.

The first one appears to be a site that masquerades as a bonafide free portal to places where you can earn money on the Net. However, if you look carefully, this site only links to a very few narrow categories of sites that have versions of the paid online surveys and "reports" scams.

The second site placed on the NZH by AdSense looks like yet another variation of the "paid surveys" scam that prompted my first column on this subject.

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So what can the NZH (or anyone) do to avoid AdSense plonking these decidedly dubious pitches on their websites?

I guess you could simply keep an eye out and block such domains as they appear but surely that's going to add a significant expense to what should be a relatively low-cost source of ad-revenue.

Perhaps the easiest way is to simply add a disclaimer to the effect that "the ads in this column are not placed by .... and therefore we can make no assertions in respect to the contents or services being offered."

As I've said before, the NZH and any other site carrying these ads without such a disclaimer runs the very real risk of being associated with any scam that might appear, especially in the minds of those who lose money by responding.

Big brands, big bucks
In today's multi-media, marketing-driven world we all know just how important branding is.

There are a huge number of very valuable brands that are recognised around the world thanks to the wide penetration of TV, radio, print and the Net.

Coke, Nike, CNN, IBM, Apple, Adidas, Pepsi, Google, Yahoo! etc, etc. Everyone instantly recognises these names and what they represent. That's money in the bank to the owners of those brands -- which is why the owners spend such huge amounts of money protecting them.

Here in New Zealand we have our own local brands that are also very valuable. Telecom, The All Blacks, etc, and Judy Bailey.

Yes, that's right -- Judy Bailey is a news reader -- but far more importantly she is a brand, just like any other.

I was gobsmacked therefore, to see so many people (including many who should know better) criticising TVNZ's decision to protect that brand by doubling her salary.

Is any newsreader worth $800K per year? I don't know -- but that's not the issue.

The board of TVNZ obviously believe that by spending $800K per year, they're going to earn a whole lot more by keeping a firm hold on that brand. This is just a straightforward business decision -- and TVNZ has been charged by government with the job of operating as a commercial entity and paying a dividend each year.

Unfortunately the government seems to be somewhat schizophrenic in its attitude to TVNZ insomuch as it's now bitching about the company making a sound commercial decision designed to hike its bottom line.

I think this shows just how little the current administration understands the importance of branding in today's modern hi-tech business environment -- and that doesn't bode well for Cullen's management of the superannuation fund does it?

Even more astonishingly, we have right-wing parties like Act and National bitching about the deal -- despite their claims to support a free market economy. Do you see some hipocrisy here?

Come on people, stop trying to score political points and admit that you should keep your nose out of TVNZ's management decisions. Let's not allow the green eyed monster to cloud our objectivity eh?

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