City buys ‘advertorial’ on viaduct issue
Critics question paying for online article supporting demolition before council vote
The City of Vancouver has paid for an online advertorial pushing its plans to demolish the Dunsmuir and Georgia viaducts even before a staff report recommending the plan goes to city council next week.
The idea of taking down the viaducts is largely controversial because of the changes to traffic patterns it would create, as well as how the city plans to use the land under them. The Vision Vancouver-led council has not made a final decision, although last year it approved the plan in principle.
Despite intense public and media interest this week in the demolition plan, the city said it felt it needed to pay the online publication Vancity Buzz to run a question-and-answer interview with acting transportation director Jerry Dobrovolny.
The paid interview, which was published on Thursday, a day after Dobrovolny and other city staff briefed reporters on the demolition plan, was written to look like a news story, complete with images, but carried only a tiny disclaimer at the bottom saying it was an advertorial or paid advertising. The statement did not indicate who paid for the content.
However, the city’s communications department confirmed Friday that the advertisement was placed as part of a $4,500 campaign that includes other online elements, including a Reddit.com “ask anything” forum and a public information meeting at Science World.
“It is a part of a suite of ad buys around getting people to know the viaducts thing is happening so that they know they have the opportunity to respond,” said Amanda McCuaig, a communications co-ordinator.
In a subsequent emailed statement, McCuaig explained further:
“With the viaducts being such a significant discussion point for the community and all of the outreach that was done over the summer, we were familiar with what the most common questions and wanted to ensure the answers were available on a commonly read platform, as well as direct people back to the City’s website to learn about the findings,” she wrote.
Farhan Mohamed, the editorin-chief of Vancity Buzz, said he couldn’t talk about his clients and their advertising deals.
Frances Bula, the chair of the Langara College Journalism Department and a contributor to the Globe and Mail, said she was surprised to see the advertorial, especially since the viaducts plan is a hot news topic and Dobrovolny had been asked by media for interviews.
“The obvious problem for advertorial is for the publications that run it. What does it do to their credibility? Part of what they are trying to sell is ‘You can trust us, we are a credible news story, we are not the wild west of the Internet,’” Bula said. “When people feel like ‘I can’t trust this organization to tell me something is a paid advertisement and when it is not,’ it erodes their credibility. The other question then to ask is what is the effect it has on the organization that is advertising in that way. Do people see them as less credible?”
George Affleck, a Non-Partisan Association councillor and a communications specialist, said the advertorial was offside and a waste of taxpayers’ money, particularly since council has not yet voted on the demolition plan. He also said he had never before seen such sponsored content paid for by the city. “Most people who saw that probably saw it in the same way that I did, as a news piece,” he said. “This is spinning a story clearly weighted in support of removal of the viaducts.”
Rena Kendall-Craden, the city’s director of corporate communications, said the city has in the past used advertorials to inform the public about voting opportunities during the civic election, and on the city’s smart thermostat pilot program. She said she saw nothing wrong with the city paying to have the Dobrovolny interview published. jefflee@vancouversun.com Twitter.com/sunciviclee