No clarification needed. I posted a retraction already. I’m sorry if I created a stir. I love Adrants and did not mean to cast doubt on your value to the industry, which is huge. I have been worried about this ‘consideration’ issue more related to political blogs recently, so that is what was coming through in my post.

David

As B.L said, Adrants had nothing to do with the creation of the campaign. We were briefed on the site prior to launch and told of some of the promotional plans. Standard practice. I think the way I translated those promotional plans into wording in the post may have been misleading. Because I knew, to some extent, who BL was talking to regarding the promotion, I mentioned MarketingVOX and Boing Boing.

As I re-read my story on the launch, I see where the confusion regarding blogger involvement may have come. When I wrote “the contest itself will be promoted almost entirely within the blogosphere with sites like Adrants, MarketingVOX and Boing Boing breaking the story,” that, likely, caused some to think there was some sort of guaranteed edit going on when, in fact, there was no such thing. All I knew was that those sites had been briefed. Admittedly, my wording is misleading and I can see how you took it the way you did.

I can assure you, I had no idea whether any site other than Adrants, me being its publisher, would write about it. I apologize for any possible confusion I may have caused.

I am open to further clarifying anything to anyone if need be.

Steve

I am very glad to hear that you used standard journalistic practice in coordinating the media around your promotion launch and did not compensate bloggers. We will be happy to post that as a separate entry if you prefer.

We still think the brand link to Budget will not be strong, but we invite you to share results of a post-promotion survey with us - what percentage of participants and non-participants who hear about the promotion will be able to identify Budget as the sponsor unaided?

Again, I’m glad to hear that there were no ethics issues here. I hope that we didn’t assume there would be, it just seemed from Steve Hall’s writeup on Adrants that it was a fair question to ask. We’ll post a clarification if you like.

It may fall flat on its face, but given what I know of the talents of the people involved, I doubt that will happen.

I guess you are looking to create some controversy, and that, of course is your right. But you would do well with a little more fact checking before you publish.

* Steve Hall is in no way affiliated with this campaign.

* I am not the designer of the promotion. Up Your Budget Treasure Hunt was my concept and I am in charge of creative management for the campaign.

* The talented designer and developer of Up Your Budget is Komra Moriko of Design4Results.com.

* The only contact we had with Boing Boing before the launch was to buy advertising.

* We bought advertising on Gizmodo, Adrants, BoingBoing and 74 other blogs and added some keyword advertising to the mix as well.

* You say: “The very obvious ommission in this campaign is the link back to Budget.”

FACT: There **is** a large link to the Budget website on EVERY single page of the blog in the bottom right corner. And Budget is mentioned in the rules and in several of the posts throughout the site.

* There actually are two blogs: Up Your Budget and, within that, a Hunters’ Blog that is open to those who register for the treasure hunt.

* The rest of your argument about Budget hiding its identity is based on the same *incorrect* fact and assumption.

* Regarding the so-called “ethical issues”: they are also based on incorrect assumption.

Budget sought no “guarantee” that Adrants, MarketingVox or any other site would break the story. And they certainly didn’t pay those bloggers to write about Up Your Budget.

I showed these bloggers a sneak peak of the site before the launch. They could have loved it or hated it. They could have written about it or not written about it. That was a chance we took.

As it turns out, Adrants, MarketingVox and its sister publication MediaBuyer Planner loved Up Your Budget and said so.

Yes, we did ask them to wait to write about it until we launched. As you noted, that is entirely standard practice.

I also offered a sneak peak to Business Week’s Blogspotting, but they declined until Up Your Budget was live. And then they gave us a great review today, within hours of the launch.

It is standard practice to brief both bloggers and journalists before any major company launches anything. So where, exactly, do you see an ethics issue?

* You are entitled to your opinion that Up Your Budget Treasure Hunt won’t stick to the brand. But on day one of a month-long campaign, I think it’s a bit early for such a prediction.