[Foundation-l] This is not an Advertisement

[The Cunctator]

On 12/28/06, Daniel Mayer <maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- Dedalus <dedalus at wikipedia.be> wrote:
> > Somebody else mentioned the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It's in
> the
> > press they would like to raise the level of primary and secondary
> education
> > in the US. Wikiversity and or Wikibooks might be helpful in raising the
> > level of education there and elsewhere. Suppose the Bill and Melinda
> Gates
> > Foundation would like to grant some money to WMF on the condition that
> it
> > would be for specific projects, e.g. Wikibooks or Wikiversity, would
> that
> > raise any objections by anyone?
>
> Not by me. Also, the charge that the current message is an advertisement
> sounds bizarre to me
> since no product or service is even mentioned, let alone pushed.


>From Wikipedia: "*Advertising* is paid communication through a non-personal
medium in which the sponsor is identified and the message is controlled.
Variations include publicity <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publicity>, public
relations <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations>, product
placement<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement>,
sponsorship <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sponsorship>,
underwriting<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwriting_spots>,
and sales promotion <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_promotion>."

Hmmmmmm.


The message is simply an acknowledgement of a very generous donation that is
> linked to the amount
> of money our readers can give in a day; this is an inducement to donate.
> It is NOT an inducement
> to buy any product or service of Virgin Unite or the Virgin group of
> companies.
>
> This is no different than the sponsorship messages seen or heard on the
> non-profits NPR and PBS.


Right. Those, too, are ads.