It's come to something when you have to go to text service AQA to verify a claim made by an organisation's press office. But this was the situation when an enquiry was made to one of Britain's broadcasters, which will remain nameless other than it used to be known as ‘Britain's favourite button'.
To be fair the initial claim was not made by said broadcaster but by a supermarket chain, which can also have anonymity, about some suspiciously over-blown claim that it had pulled off some spurious media first for the launch of a new ad campaign. The broadcaster, presumably keen to keep the advertiser in favour, fudged the answer with the answer ‘it's possible'.
However only AQA was able to come up with the truth that the Co-Op (damn - given it away) was wrong when it claimed it was the first advertiser to have ever taken over the entire break of a popular soap we shall call Jubilee Road.
Media firsts are a rare thing and, although are generally mere stunts, should be welcomed if true so advertisers should make them rather than claim. For hard-hit media owners the lesson is instead of hiring Boston Consulting Group to help them navigate their way through these turbulent economic times, perhaps they should just ask AQA where cut-backs could be made.
