DIARY: Red-faced ACNielsen turns iMail bosses a deep shade of purple

Just when life was getting unbearably dull in Hong Kong, along comes a cat fight to liven up the scene. The spat between the venerable ACNielsen and the spunky iMail, the tabloid that replaced the Standard, has apparently spread beyond local shores thanks to the instant gratification email offers slighted reporters. Here's a chronology of how the claws have been drawn so far: an iMail editor puts in a request to ACNielsen's PR department to receive releases at the same time as its broadsheet competitor. Instead, what it gets is an eyeful: an email missive is accidentally copied to the tabloid which ACNielsen's PR folks have sent to their chieftains, explaining in very colourful terms why iMail has been excluded. As far as the research firm's PR department is concerned, iMail is "second-tier media"; read that to mean that it shouldn't expect the "exclusive deals (ACNielsen has) with SCMP and AWSJ for a few of our initiatives". Ouch. But that's not the end. The sting in the tail: "I don't know anyone who actually reads the rag. What's the point of giving us heaps of PR when no one sees it anyway? It's purely a matter of quality versus quantity here." We hear there were plenty of red faces at ACNielsen. And plenty of purple ones at iMail.

Sign In

Trouble signing in?

Reset Password: Click here

Contact Customer Support at

Customerservice@campaignasia.com