> the NRA is trying to get in on your ad spots and that's not something we can really prevent
It's their company and they can decline to take ads if they would serve the company interest. This guy put the ad division's interest ahead of the company and hurt Snapchat's reputation in the process.
Also his phrasing was "we are talking with the NRA" whereas it would probably have been more explicitly "the NRA has approached us" if they were merely reacting. And again the reaction could simply be "no".
Why is it against the company interest? Because the ad division could literally target every political story the news division puts out as a target for competitive ads, thus forcing content partners to pay up lest they create a platform for their opponents. Thus most would pull out of the stories (as Everytown did) and ultimately decline to cooperate with Snapchat news at all. Sounds like this guy was sabotaging the story out of spite.
> This guy put the ad division's interest ahead of the company and hurt Snapchat's reputation in the process.
I already noted below that I believe this to be the most likely scenario, except it's also in Snapchat's short-term interest, which is why he probably got away with it, at least until now.
That said, the quotes are fairly sparse, and possibly out of context, so I'm hesitant to attribute too much intent to how they are presented in this article.
Any ethical publisher will go out of their way to ensure total separation between editorial (or content creation in the case of social publishers like Snapchat) and advertising. The advertising division typically isn't even allowed to know what kind of content is being run, and the content creators aren't allowed to know what kind of ads are being run.
The practice is often metaphorically referred to as "church and state".
Um, I can perhaps understand how this is the ethical path, but is it really all that common? Google AdSense is explicitly designed to run ads based on the content, and Facebook ad campaigns are precisely targeted to the subject matter. Furthermore, I would honestly prefer to see ads that are relevant to things I would be interested in, if only to have ads served in English, much less coordinated with my hobbies!
Were I the NRA, I would definitely pay a lot more, have better conversion rates, and have happier ad viewers if I could target ads at Snapchat users who talk about guns.
The ad department isn't supposed to influence how things are covered, but they very commonly know what's coming up precisely for this reason, to find advertisers who want to run adjacent ads.
So that part is normal. But sabatoging the subject of editorial with ad content is definitely not normal, and this ad rep's behavior would be totally out of line at any traditional media outlet for that reason.
It's their company and they can decline to take ads if they would serve the company interest. This guy put the ad division's interest ahead of the company and hurt Snapchat's reputation in the process.
Also his phrasing was "we are talking with the NRA" whereas it would probably have been more explicitly "the NRA has approached us" if they were merely reacting. And again the reaction could simply be "no".
Why is it against the company interest? Because the ad division could literally target every political story the news division puts out as a target for competitive ads, thus forcing content partners to pay up lest they create a platform for their opponents. Thus most would pull out of the stories (as Everytown did) and ultimately decline to cooperate with Snapchat news at all. Sounds like this guy was sabotaging the story out of spite.