Our friends at Everytown for Gun Safety decided to partner with Snapchat’s “news team” last year to produce a “Guns in America” Live Story live broadcast to run on National Gun Violence Awareness Day. We missed it, but it was probably every bit as interesting and informative as it sounds. Anyway, when Snapchat’s head of political sales, Rob Saliterman, got wind of the collaboration with the wholly-owned Bloomberg subsidiary, he saw dollar signs. Big ones.
Saliterman let it be known that he expected a six figure tribute from Everytown to run the event on Snapchat. And to provide a little added incentive for Shannon to dip into Mayor Mike’s deep pockets, he let her know he had someone else interested in the sponsorship opportunity.
According to Tech Crunch,
The nonprofit said that the ads would be beyond its budget, and it also expressed concern about the possible NRA ads. Saliterman, who previously held a similar role at Google, said that “the story has the potential to be bought by any advertiser, including the NRA,” but added, “The advertising will not impact the editorial content within the story as our teams are independent.”
Subtle. Nice anti-gun event you’ve got there. It’d be a shame if anything were to happen to it.
Not wanting to miss a golden opportunity to embarrass the malevolent miniature anti-gun billionaire and his bought-and-paid-for telegenic sock puppet during a high profile event, the NRA reportedly played along.
[…] The NRA then found out about the story through the normal sales channels and expressed interest in buying one of the ads, which are available on a first-come, first-served basis (assuming they meet Snapchat’s political guidelines).
They probably knew they’ve never get the sponsorship, but why not drive up the cost of the event for Everytown and drain some of their cash?
In Snap’s view, Saliterman was simply providing Everytown with information that it would want to know — it’s hard to imagine (Everytown would) have been happy if Snapchat ran NRA ads with the story and didn’t tell Everytown this was going to happen.
Uh huh. Just a little Glengarry Glen Ross-style brass balls tactics. Gee, we were just doing Everytown a favor…we wouldn’t want them to be blind-sided by a NRA ad running in the middle of their little event.
Michael Bloomberg keeps $150,000 in the change tray in his car where the rest of us keep quarters for the parking meter. So what happened?
While a(n Everytown) spokesperson declined to comment, Snap said that the organization did end up contributing to the “Guns in America” story after all.
So Saliterman’s a closer. Do you think he went home with the Cadillac or the steak knives?