The first question is, have you read Bloodcopy lately?  That blog that's part actually-funny-to-read, part True Blood promotion has lately received some, uhh, fresh blood, when HBO tied up with blog conglomerate Gawker Media.

With a new season coming in two weeks, the idea is simple: a fake "announcement" was made on Bloodcopy's original website, with a purported vampire named Andrew saying Bloodcopy is now under the group's watch.  The blog would later go on to publish in essentially the same style as Gawker and it's sister blogs--same writing style, same looks, even.  The blog is even linked at the bottom of every Gawker blog.  It could've worked, but the problem is, it's raised questions regarding distinguishing the advertorial from actual content Gawker publishes.
The controversy stemmed with that fake "announcement", which also contained an invitation to a party commemorating the partnership.  An editor for the blog has objected to the way that line between ad and actual content was blurred.  In a blog post on Gawker, editor Gabriel Snyder explained that it's been their policy to clearly mark "sponsored posts" on the website, with gray boxes around it; he also clarified that Gawker people don't write those posts.  However, many outlets somehow latched on to the announcement as real news--and, when they found out it's all advertising, of course vitriol would be aimed both at Gawker and at HBO.

"Gawker the editorial staff and Gawker the advertising staff don't tell each other much about what they're doing," Snyder explained.  "The way the media economic engine works is that the eyeballs attracted by editorial can be sold by advertising in order to pay for the editorial.  It's a nice little symbiotic circle, but the key ingredient for keeping it running is to keep a bright line between the ads and edit.  And clearly that wasn't the case here."

"[We have] been taken to the media criticism woodshed over this one," he continued.  "What's advertising should be called advertising and what's edit should be called edit.  It hurts both to blur the distinction."  The "announcement" was since taken down, although some websites have kept archive copies.

Gawker's vice president for sales and marketing, Chris Batty, respected the opinions regarding the tie-up, but reiterated that they have done this before--in their early years, he mentioned, they had tie-ups with Nike and New Line to promote their products through clearly-marked blog entries, which he believes would have a bigger impact than traditional ads.  "A lot of time has passed and a lot of people who write for us don't remember how we used to pay the bills here," he said.  He's surprised, however, that more people "took this at face value."

Zach Enterlin, HBO's vice president for advertising and promotion, denied that they intended to deceive people through the tie-up, saying the intention was to have fun.  "Considering that it's clearly stated that a vampire is writing this blog, the faux aspect of it really isn't hidden," he said.  Since then, however, Gawker posted a disclaimer at the bottom of BloodCopy, stating that it is a "sponsored partnership between HBO, [ad agency] Campfire and Gawker Media."




-Henrik Batallones, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Sources: AP, Gawker
(Image courtesy of Gawker)