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Monday, March 10, 2008
Did the Wine Spectator intend to deceive?
(This entry was updated on Wednesday, March 12, in a post entitled ““Wine Spectator defends ad, denies it intended to deceive” )
Do you have a print subscription to Wine Spectator magazine? If you do, run and grab the March 31, 2008 edition — the one with the “2005 Bordeaux” black, white and yellow cover. It’s the most recent one I’ve received in my trusty, snow-covered mailbox, although there apparently is a more recent issue on the way.
Now, turn to page 52-53, the two-page spread nestled in the magazine’s cover story on 2005 Bordeaux and headlined “A Modern Classic: Da Vinci Brings Modern Winemaking to Chianti and High-Scoring Wines to the Market.” Check out the photo of the wine bottles, the map of the region, and the “Recent Recommended Releases” listing of wines and their Spectator scores.
Um, does that look like a story to you, or an advertisement?
Now, granted, I have no right to throw stones, since I work for a daily newspaper. A case could be made that the print form of daily journalism I work in probably wrote the how-to book on “advertorials,” or paid advertising content disguised as independent editorial content. It would be hard if not impossible to find a newspaper or magazine that doesn’t contain some form of such advertising — except perhaps those that do not accept advertising at all. So in short, I live in a glass house.
But gosh, take a look at that package — its layout, design, headline and body content type — and you tell me: is the intent to fool the reader into thinking it’s editorial content — a bona-fide Wine Spectator story?
See, I would think that a wine magazine such as the Spectator, because it reviews and assigns ratings to wines that its advertisers submit, would want to draw a clearly established line between advertising and editorial content, to preserve its credibility. I am NOT one of those conspiracy theorists who believes the Spectator’s scores can be “bought and paid for” — the magazine simply has too much to lose — and I’ve said so on the pages of Uncorked. (Check out Tom Wark of Fermentation’s comments on this issue, as well.)
The Da Vinci piece does include the term “special promotion” at the top of page 53 (the preceding page has the term “wine everyday” in the same location), and Da Vinci’s web address is at the bottom of each page.
So take a look at those two pages. What do you think? Savvy marketing, or … something else?
Cheers!
Mark Fisher
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