Ad agency execs express concerns about Forbes

Advertising agencies are expressing concern about doing business with Forbes after it was disclosed that it operated a subdomain for years, reports Kayleigh Barber of Digiday.

Barber reports, “Early findings showed 20% of Ebiquity’s client budgets spent on Forbes inventory went to the subdomain, according to chief strategy officer Ruben Schreurs, but he added that he cannot be confident in that estimation because the www3 inventory is misrepresented in the bidstream.

“And given the level of exposure that The Wall Street Journal’s coverage gave to this breech, Schreurs said that clients’ C-suite execs have taken notice and a greater sense of urgency has been placed on determining how much money was tied to this subdomain and where the holes lie that need to be patched.

“‘It was shocking. It was a bar I didn’t think a place like Forbes would sink to,’ said a third agency exec who also spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“Forbes maintains that the subdomain was not intended to be used for ad arbitrage like the Adalytics report implied. According to a spokesperson, ‘The WSJ story based on Adalytics research is deeply misleading and misrepresents the scope and operation of a legacy Forbes sub-domain [sic]. The subdomain was developed as an alternative means to consume existing Forbes.com content and represented a very small user base.'”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.