Election '06 Blind Item: Campaign Kills Consulting Account after Ad Vendor Mishap

I’m pulling a Liz Smith on y’all today. Yep, it’s blind item time! But this time it’s better than celebrity gossip — it’s online political ad gossip!

I spoke recently with a trusted source who assisted in the development of a rich media ad campaign for a gubernatorial candidate this year. The rich media ad vendor was so unresponsive when it came to making necessary changes to the ads, the campaign’s consulting outfit (the company that hired the ad vendor) lost the account.

“It was so bad it cost them the client,” my source told me.

Imagine. Problems with the ads actually spurred angry responses from users who complained to the candidate campaign team. Evidently, after a post-labor day launch, the sites running the ads requested changes that only the ad vendor could accomplish — things like making sure certain multimedia components were user-initiated. Ad tags weren’t set up correctly, either, said my source. And while the consulting firm and its media firm partner awaited changes, “horrific e-mails from users” were piling in.

As for the ad vendor, “they weren’t responsive mostly,” said the source.

There’s already a pittance spent on online ads in the political arena, this year and in previous years. If word gets around about this campaign mishap, it could deter already online ad-leery campaigns from using formats from which they could benefit.