Search Results for: advertising

The Difference Between Being 'Trusted' and 'Trustworthy'

“Rupert Murdoch, an animatronic al-Qaida recruitment poster, in his private letter to Sun staff, after the News of the World was briefly closed for a makeover (not through remorse, or shame, no, because they couldn’t sell advertising space and because he wanted to launch the Sun on Sunday anyway because it’s cheaper to run one title than two – some guys get all the luck) referred consistently to his pride in the Sun as ‘a trusted news source.’ Trusted is the word he used, not trustworthy. We know the Sun is not trustworthy and so does he. He uses the word ‘trusted’ deliberately. Hitler was trusted, it transpired he was not trustworthy. He also said of the arrested journalists, ‘everyone is innocent until proven guilty.’ Well, yes, that is the law of our country, not however a nicety often afforded to the victims of his titles, and here I refer not only to hacking but the vituperative portrayal of weak and vulnerable members of our society, relentlessly attacked by Murdoch’s ink jackals. Immigrants, folk with non-straight sexual identities, anyone in fact living in the margins of the Sun’s cleansed utopia.”

Russell Brand, in the Guardian, on Murdoch, the Sun, and the miserable state of the news industry. Read more on the media.

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Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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The Secret Message in Chipotle's Advertisements

“Chipotle’s animated short film — accompanied by a smartphone game — depicts a haunting parody of corporate agribusiness: cartoon chickens inflated by robotic antibiotic arms, scarecrow workers displaced by ruthless automata. Chipotle’s logo appears only at the very end of the three-minute trailer; it is otherwise branding-free. The motivation for this big-budget exposé? ‘We’re trying to educate people about where their food comes from,’ Mark Crumpacker, chief marketing officer at Chipotle, told USA Today, but ‘millennials are sceptical of brands that perpetuate themselves.’

“Never mind that Chipotle itself — with more than 1,500 outlets across the US, and an annual turnover of $278 million — is hardly treading lightly on the world’s agricultural system. The real story is that the company is using a dose of anti-Big Food sentiment to inoculate the viewer against not buying any more of its burritos. Chipotle are very happy to sell the idea that they’re on our side if it helps to keep the millennials happy. If it’s advertising we don’t like, then it’s advertising we won’t get.’”

Adam Corner, in Aeon magazine, on Chipotle’s latest ad campaign and anti-consumerism in marketing. Read more on advertising.

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“But was Playboy Marfa creative expression or crass commercialism? The debate over art versus advertising has consumed artists and critics for decades. Andy Warhol brought it to a head in 1962 with his paintings of Campbell’s soup cans; a few years later, critic Marshall McLuhan proclaimed that “art is anything you can get away with.” In the eighties artist Richard Prince got away with photographing and enlarging Marlboro’s cowboy ads; in the nineties Chinese artist Ai Weiwei got away with making ceramic vases with the Coca-Cola logo. Could Playboy get away with this?”

– Francesca Mari travels to the small town of Marfa, Texas to report about an art installation by Playboy that has residents riled up and arguing: Is it art? Or is it advertising? See more stories from Texas Monthly in the Longreads archive.

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What Is Art?

Longreads Pick

An installation by Playboy riles residents in the small town of Marfa, Texas and has everyone wondering: Is it art or advertising?:

Dick DeGuerin, a subscriber to the Sentinel, was at home in Houston when he read the news. A week later, the lawyer was flying his Cessna back from a spa day with his daughter in Mexico and decided to stop in Marfa for a Jimmie Dale Gilmore concert. The bunny, which had gone up in a matter of days, was all anyone could talk about. Some people got a kick out of it: there was Bob Wright, the white-mustachioed owner of Marfa Realty, who had initially put Playboy in touch with six area landowners, and Ty Mitchell, a rakish cowboy who’d had a part in True Grit and helped persuade the Eppenauers to lease their land. (Though Sheri had twice rejected the lease, when Playboy allegedly tripled its first offering, to $20,000 for twelve months, she sought the permission of her preacher and the school principal before signing.) Some ropers and mechanics expressed excitement, and a few creative types, such as Marfa Film Festival director Robin Lambaria, thought it made a funny contrast to the town’s serious art scene.

Source: Texas Monthly
Published: Oct 24, 2013
Length: 20 minutes (5,238 words)

Longreads Member Drive Update: 400 New Members in Our First Day, plus Digg Buys the First Group Membership

Yesterday, we asked for your help, and you responded. Thanks to you, we welcomed 400 new Longreads Members.

We’re now at 1,400 members—that’s great progress, but we’re still less than halfway to our goal of 5,000 Longreads Members. We need your help to keep spreading the word.

You can share your support on Twitter here.

We’re also excited to announce that the team at Digg has purchased a group membership for its staff! We’d like to thank them for their support.

If your company would like to buy a Longreads Membership for its employees, simply use our PayPal donation page to purchase them ($30/year for each employee), then email us with the names of your employees: hello@longreads.com.

We’ll keep updating you on our progress, and thank you again for everything.

We’ve also had a few questions come up about our plans, so I thought I’d answer them here:

Why 5,000 Members?

It’s not only the number we need to actively sustain and improve our service, but it’s also a number that, for us, would cover more than 50% of all operating expenses. The rest of our revenue will come from advertising—through sponsorships and tasteful display advertising and affiliate revenue.

Do you pay publishers and writers?

This is another reason why the Longreads Membership is important—it will pay not just us, but we set aside a portion of those member dues to pay writers and publishers for each “Longreads Member Pick” that we publish. These are stories and book chapters that are not otherwise available for free on the web.

The more members we have, the more Member Picks we can afford to bring to you.

Join Longreads now and help us keep going.

Announcing the Longreads Member Drive: Help Us Reach 5,000 Members

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My name is Mark Armstrong, and four and a half years ago, I created Longreads.

What started as an afternoon project has now grown into something much bigger—a global community of readers, sharing what they love, across both nonfiction and fiction. Along the way we’ve built Longreads into a trusted service that recommends the best stories on the web, and tracks down stories never before published online.

Our service is self-funded, built by four people (and many contributors) who have worked nights and weekends to create something we believe in.

Now we need your help to keep this service running. We want to make good on our vision to build Longreads into a truly global hub for readers, writers and publishers.

Today, we’re announcing the Longreads Member Drive: A new way for you to support this service and give the entire #Longreads community a stake in our future.

You can sign up for as little as $3 a month or $30 a year or make a donation via PayPal.

Our goal is to reach 5,000 Longreads Members—right now we’re at just over 1,000 paid members, so if you are thinking about joining, now is the time to show your support.

We can get to our financial goal faster if you contribute more, and Top Contributors to Longreads will also get special recognition for their support.

Here’s what your Longreads Membership pays for:

  • Our site, plus weekly emails, and RSS & Twitter feeds that link directly to the original publishers’ work.
  • Open access to Longreads from your favorite reading apps.
  • Editors who recommend only the stories they truly love, from hundreds of publishers and writers across the web.
  • Rights to exclusive stories from publishers and writers.
  • Future expansion of our service—more details coming soon.

Our business model relies on both memberships and advertising, but the bulk of our support needs to come from you, the community.

Your support is critical for our survival.

It would be an honor for us to continue to keep this service running and keep building. Join us.

Mark Armstrong

Founder, Longreads

Join Longreads now and help us keep going.

Photo by Dorothy Brown; Special thanks to Walden Pond Books in Oakland.

The Royal Prank: The Story Behind The Worst Radio Stunt In History

Longreads Pick

A prank call by two Australian radio DJs led a nurse in the U.K. to end her life. The story behind the “royal prank” and its tragic outcome:

“Southern Cross Austereo moved into damage-control mode upon learning of Saldanha’s death on the evening of Friday, Dec. 7. On Monday, the station released a media statement, citing a ‘deep regret for what has taken place’ and outlining four actions undertaken since ‘the events took place’: the suspension of all advertising on 2Day FM; the termination of the Hot 30 show; a company-wide suspension of ‘prank’ calls; and a ‘comprehensive review of relevant company policies and processes.’ Both Greig and Christian were to stay off the air until further notice. The pair had also deleted their Twitter accounts following torrents of abuse and death threats. A video addressed to the station supposedly from the hacker group Anonymous demanded Greig and Christian’s contracts be terminated: ‘You have one week to do so. I repeat: you have one week to do so.'”

Source: BuzzFeed
Published: Aug 1, 2013
Length: 22 minutes (5,536 words)

Reading List: Brave New Internet


Emily Perper is a freelance editor and reporter, currently completing a service year in Baltimore with the Episcopal Service Corps.

1. “The Vice Guide to the World.” (Lizzie Widdicombe, The New Yorker, 8 April 2013)

“My big thing was I want you to do stupid in a smart way and smart in a stupid way.” Vice pioneers methods of marketing, advertising and reporting while trying to mesh investigative journalism with its party image.

2. “‘There is no news industry’: An interview with media theorist Clay Shirky.” (Martin Eiermann, The European, August 2013)

Shirky talks about the nebulous definition of the journalist, the perilous combination of print and online news services, and the relationship between story and audience. Warning: somewhat jargon-y.

3. “The Secular C.S. Lewis: Neil Postman’s Unlikely Influence on Evangelicals.” (Arthur W. Hunt III. Second Nature Journal, May 2013)

Media theory classes have found an unlikely home in the hearts of Christian college students and other evangelical, primarily Reformed Christians. (I should know—the epigraph of this piece is from my Media Ecology professor, to whom I credit my deep unease toward Google Glass.)

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What are you reading (and loving)? Tell us.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Longreads Is Joining Forces with The Atlantic

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We have some big news to share today: Longreads is teaming up with The Atlantic, in a partnership that will allow us to expand our site and membership model—and continue to serve this community of readers, writers and publishers. 

When I first started the #longreads hashtag four years ago, The Atlantic was one of the earliest publishers to embrace it, and they understood what makes it special—the diversity of readers’ tastes, sharing the stories they love, from a mix of well-known and undiscovered publishers and writers, across both nonfiction and fiction.

We’re excited about the opportunity to work together with The Atlantic, and to continue expanding this site and community.

If you’re curious about the business side of things, here are some specifics about how the partnership is set up:

Longreads remains an independent company and editorial team, just as we always have been. We’re six people who have invested our time and resources into building Longreads—and we will continue to do what we do best, which is spotlight the best work from magazines, newspapers, books, and across the web.

Our site will be featured alongside the rest of The Atlantic’s growing network of sites, and their team will be helping us with business and operations.

By now, you’ve already seen the two big pieces of the Longreads business model, and in the spirit of transparency, I’m outlining it here:

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Our goal has been to create a business that supports readers, writers and publishers in different ways, through a mix of paid memberships and advertising.

With paid memberships, we’re creating a system where you, our subscribers, are helping to pay writers and publishers for rights to stories and book chapters that are featured as “Longreads Member Picks.” (Here’s this week’s Member Pick, a short story from Amelia Gray and Tin House.)

Through our membership, we want to keep building a secondary market for publishers and writers to make money off licensing, and we’re doing so with your financial support. (You can join for $3 a month or $30 a year.)

On the advertising front, we teamed up with Virgin Atlantic last year on Travelreads, and we’d like to continue pursuing these types of creative initiatives. Advertising, done thoughtfully, will help support new channels like Travelreads, as well our daily editor picks across Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and the weekly Top 5 Longreads email.

We’re excited for what’s next, and we’re so thankful for this community’s continued support. We can’t do this without you, and we’ll share more details as things come together.

Mark and rest of the Longreads team (Mike, Kjell, Hakan, Jodi and Joyce)

Longreads Is Joining Forces with The Atlantic

Longreads Pick

We have some big news to share today: Longreads is teaming up with The Atlantic, in a partnership that will allow us to expand our site and membership model—and continue to serve this community of readers, writers and publishers.

Read more about our plans together, as well as details about our community membership and advertising model.

Source: Longreads
Published: Apr 5, 2013