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.
