I liked Ebay under Whitman, and I don’t like it now. Not for nothing–I do a lot of business there, both then and now.
Anyhoo, this is an interesting situation from my perspective. As a business owner, I would not be very interested in advertising in a publication critical of me. I don’t think I would be shy about telling them this.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t ever expect to influence their editorial decisions. Business relationships come and go. I do what I do, and you do what you do, and it’s great when those two things work together. When they don’t, we should part ways.
On the other other hand (for those of us with a partially consumed twin, I guess), if Financial Times was posting bad things about my business, I would be inclined to listen and try to make changes. And then advertise some more.
For realsies, HP made some terrible acquisitions. They should embrace that information instead of trying to stifle it. They won’t convince shareholders that they made good moves. “Mistakes were made,” should be the order of the day. A company writes down $8.8 BILLION, and they’re still clinging to the message that it was a good idea at the time?
I don’t really care that much except to point out that HP was T&M until the 90s, and post split the initials were transferred to the less HP-like unit. Everything since then has been a really shitty Mormon version of Dynasty.
As for those who say that they too would stop advertising in a magazine who’s articles are critical of the way they do business. Well… That’s exactly the corporate mentality, no matter what the consequences of their actions may be on people’s health or on the environment : praize me and I’ll like you, shut up and you’ll be OK, open your mouth and I’ll kill you!!!
Now what does this mentality remind us of? The difference is that the “bad guys” I’m referring to will silence you by sending someone to kinfe you or shoot you, whereas big business will not “dirty” their hands; they have various “respectable” ways to starve you to your knees while showing you the brightest of business smiles!
So, be quiet and adopt and propagate their corporate narrative of how good they are. Don’t you dare write anything that doesn’t please them, don’t question the consequences of their actions, don’t investigate the potential hazards to humans or nature due to their products or their industrial processes, etc.
