Further confirming the lengths to which marketers will go to obtain awareness, and proving nothing in the news is unbiased anymore, an email leaked to Gawker reveals a New York FOX 5 fashion reporter’s negotiation for payment from a fashion brand in return for favorably mentioning the brand in a segment to appear on Good Day New York next week. Sylist Susan Redstone told Mavi Jeans she’d feature the brand’s jeans in a 3-4 minute segment in return for $750. We know there’s “pay for play” stuff going on all the time but it would be nice to know that news is news and marketing is marketing, wouldn’t it? Wait, we’re marketers. Or course we wouldn’t.
UPDATE: We contacted Mavi to get to the bottom of this and, while they admit being asked by Redstone, they assured us they did not, in fact, pay for any placement. Mavi’s Michael Williams said, “We didn’t or wouldn’t pay for placement. We make a great product and don’t need to pay for our placement.”
