Disputed account £11,500 (disputed in full) News International Ltd. (Dec'08) - sorry for delay in contact
From: Pete Dew
Sent: 02 December 2009 14:35:42 (My 33rd birthday)
To:
[email protected]
For the attention of Robert Anthony.
Dear Robert,
I am very sorry for the delay in communication.
Here are the summarized particulars of my dealings with News International Ltd. in respect of the full account of circa £11,500:-
£5,500 up-front was paid to the Times. £3,600 was spent on 2 adverts. The resultant turnover was £9.99.
I then shut down that business immediately, rather than continue advertising it, and launched "smokenotar.com".
"smokenotar.com" had turnover of £5,500 in it's first 10 days in business, so initially the Times advertising appeared to have begun to work.
However, a mistake by Scott Benfold (who otherwise was great) meant that a 13cm x 3 cols advert changed to a 13cm x 7 cols advert, and a corporate
image change was thrown up in about 3 hours flat.
Then, advertising continued, and the phone response to our number 0800 0845 001 from Times readers, became less than 1 phone call per hour. Each day,
the ad spend (now on account) was £1,000 per day, and turnover was average £70 per day.
Then, I contacted the Editor of the Sun, Rebekah Wade, re the link between her newspaper's (as editor at the time) headline on page 2 "MP'S
QUEUE UP TO KNIFE BROWN", and the upsetting murder that afternoon of Stephen Bigby in Oxford Street, London.
Rebekah Wade then went onto my facebook profile (which she was welcome to do because it is public), and took our "Campaign to Stop Shanking on
Facebook" of which I was Acting Joint Chief Officer to the front page of the Sun (two days later), without reference to the origination of the
campaign or payment to me (newspaper physical copy sales c£1mil/per day and this was a headline from me) - which was the Campaign to Stop Shanking on
Facebook. (a ghastly term which the Daily Mail said was a term youngsters have used for 'stabbing' - which I hope to God stops).
Back at the Times, we put together a "Christmas Spectacular" that was carefully planned, and the £1,000 per day ads - though yielding very poor
turnover - were acting as a buildup to the grand Saturday (when the Times sells many more copies) when the "incredible offer" of "the equivalent of
1,000 cigarettes tar-free including starter kit" @ £69.98 was to be unveiled, carefully priced for the financial meltdown going on at that time, to
yield maximum turnover at a still profitable price.
The grand day arrived, and the advert had been withdrawn, I was never given an explanation why.
I honestly estimate that this cost the business between £7,000 - £15,000 in lost revenue, and much more in goodwill.
I will gladly send Rebekah Wade, now Chief Executive of News International Ltd., an invoice for c£11,500 (nothing to pay) if the contra account will
be helpful for News International Ltd.'s accounting, for origination of her front page story.
Furthermore, The Times withdrew my pre-paid 'open letter' to Mr. Paul Dacre, Chief Editor of the Daily Mail. Mr. David Chappell, Managing Editor of
the Times, assured me on the telephone the Friday night 8pm before publication that as part of the deal for withdrawing my £1,800 open letter, Mr.
Dacre would telephone me to answer the serious allegations personally, but he never did.
The allegations pertained to obsessive use of knife metaphor cacophemisms in newspaper headlines such as "Knives were out", and how the newspaper
(The Daily Mail) should strive to print no murder in it's newspages.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Dew.