ReveNews
About CJ vs PJ and the Rules of the Community We Work In
It has been a few weeks now since I wrote about the hot subject Commission Junction versus PepperJam and brought the story into the open, which was until then limited to the post by PepperJam’s CEO Kris Jones at the PepperJam corporate blog.
The story caused a lot of debate within the affiliate community and the opinions vary. In addition to the about 90 comments at my post are there a great number of other interesting posts and discussions going on elsewhere as well.
I would like to highlight the following:
- “PepperJam is not exactly Robin Hood, Commission Junction is not exactly Prince John” by Angel Djambazov here at ReveNews.com
- “PepperJam Jammed” by Scott Jangro
- “Drama Down at PepperJam Junction” by Shawn Collins
- Podcast by Sam Harrelson of ReveNews.com with an interview with Kris Jones, the CEO of PepperJam to hear his perspective about the incident, with the ability to clarify some of the statements he made in his original blog post a few days earlier.
- Various threads at the PepperJam forum at ABestWeb
I have not heard any updates yet, but I also have to say that I had my own problems during the last several days, which caused me to spend a considerable less attention to everything that is out there in the blogosphere. So if I missed anything, please point me to it.
But this is not the purpose of my post actually. I wanted to clarify a few things about what I said and how I said things in my post that some considered “strong” or “harsh“.
I was not complaining about CJ protecting their business interest and also not defending PepperJams own, what I would call “aggressive” marketing of their network. What I was complaining about is the “HOW”, the methods used by Commission Junction. I did not and would not deny CJ the right to protect their own business interest, nor am I as naïve as to believe that playing fair is a rule of business. However, lines should be drawn where aggressive ends and unethical starts. I am not accepting the extended saying “that everything is fair in love, war and business“. Heck, I don’t even accept the original short version that says that EVERYTHING is fair in love and war.
Chinggis Khan’s tactic from the 13th century would probably not be considered “fair” and “okay” nowadays. He sacked whole cities, killed everybody or sold them into slavery, if they resisted the Mongolian onslaught. A few were kept alive to tell the story and let other, not yet conquered cities and towns know what their fate will be, if they dared to resist the Mongols. “Kill a few to safe many” somebody might argue, but my question back would be “How many are “few” exactly?“. Because the majority of people voiced their opinion that it is not okay, tactics like that are “outlawed” by the international community.
Now the affiliate marketing community is not the UN and does not represent the international community, however, each community, regardless of its size decides for itself what behavior and practices are okay in the internal activities within that community. There are usually laws for the straight forward cases on a much higher level, such as state government or even international law, but those laws are often broad and vague and not clear in every case. It is in the individual communities where the precedence cases are decided that in return provide the basis for future interpretations of those vague laws. Laws do not cover everything and precedence cases do not exist for all laws for every community yet. As a result, communities do (to some extend) create their own sets of outspoken or unilaterly accepted, but never made public rules. This is a natural process and it happens automatically.
What those rules and interpretations of laws are in reality is up to the members of each community. What might be okay in one community is not okay for another and vice versa. If no lines are drawn by anybody, many things that are legal yet despicable, will be okay and living or work in such a community is probably not were enjoyable. I for my part do not wish to live nor work in a community that allows, accepts or even encourages cut-throat behavior and back-stabbing. That is the reason why I speak up, if I feel that somebody crossed the line that I draw for myself and want to be the line that was also drawn by everybody else in this community.
“You are what you do.” And what you say does not always count too much, but it is a start and might even be the expression of the commitment to an action that has to follow afterwards. Speaking up, voicing your opinion is also important, because it is a signal to others around you, who might have thought that they were alone and lonely in their believes and now realize that there are others or that maybe even the majority of people share the same believe.
Back to CJ and PJ, was it okay what CJ did? Not in my opinion. Was the reason okay why they did it? Probably, but that is not what this incident is about. I voiced my opinion, because I do not want this behavior to become accepted business practice in this industry, which requires trust, transparency and communication more than anything else to make it work. Behavior like this does not help to improve on those issues.
The lack of engagement and response by CJ is also a signal by CJ for what they think of the community, including me. Silence says sometimes more than thousand words ever could. Don’t come with the argument that CJ is a publicly traded company. Yes, they might not respond openly in forums and blogs via comments, but there are other ways, safe ways, where their lawyers could sign off on.
You want to hear some examples? Sure, how about Miva’s official response to my allegations in November 2006? Or what Wayne Porter did to handle the TRUSTe/Ben Edelman incident (also see this, this, this and this)? Those were perfectly fine vehicles for big and public companies to let everybody know what their official opinion is on the subject matter. As a matter of fact, Sam Harrelson offered something like this to CJ in his podcast, where he interviewed Kris Jones from PepperJam.
There is no need to be silent. Silence is a choice that you or a company can make. It is sometimes the right choice, but it is not always. Responding with silence where a different response should have happened is a sign of ignorance, arrogance and disrespect of others in the community.
Do those properties apply to CJ? I could tell you what I think, but I do not know about you. It also does not matter, because you have to make that decision for yourself.
Important Update (evening)!
CJ’s General Manager Kerri Pollard did actually made some public statements, which is available in podcast format at the CostPerNews.com blog. Sam Harrelson did not post it here at ReveNews like the Kris Jones interview, probably because of his recent resignation as editor of ReveNews.com.
It’s a start, although the interview failed to address the issue of how CJ reacted and not why. She said that PepperJam did not contact CJ prior their network launch, what I assumed based on previous comments and statements that were made. I also agree that this was a major oversight of PepperJam and that they should have contacted the networks (all networks where they manage programs as OPM) prior to their own network launch. I don’t believe that failing to do so was done intentionally and out of bad faith, but simply “forgotten”. A fundamental business mistake, but not the end of the world nor the reason to response in a way that CJ did.
As I also repeatedly said, it’s not too late for CJ to rethink how they do things. C’mon, Kerri, cut the bonds to the old CJ and take the company into today’s business landscape. Think about what you, as a company (CJ) did to PepperJam and it’s clients as if CJ is a person, PJ is you and the advertisers CJ contacted your friends. I honestly believe that you would consider this behaviour okay and appropriate, without to question the morals and ethics of the ”person” CJ.
Kerri Pollard did a podcast on CostPerNews last week to address this issue.
You might want to listen to that, then re-write your entire rant.
Thanks for the info Ryan. I listened to the podcast and don’t see the need to re-write my post at all. However, I felt that I had to extend it, what I did.
I am not ranting btw. It might looks like it on the surface. I am shouting and try to wake some people up and spell some stuff out that people tend not to talk about very much, because it makes them feel uncomfortable.
I hope that my additions to the post make my intention with it much more clear now.
Cheers!
Carsten
The affiliate world is a very competitive place and there are only a finite number of good affiliates and then lots of affiliates that can become super-affiliates one day if worked with and educated. CJ has an incredible universe of affiliates and publishers and great brand-name merchants and I think deserves to protect what they have built up from other companies that would seek to “recruit” advertisers and affiliates from CJ to somewhere else. I know everyone wants peace and love in the affiliate world but we all know that there are plenty of “entities” (like big forum people) that have had falling outs with each other over the years in the affiliate community. Affiliate marketing is big business and getting bigger, so like anything in business everyone is trying to get a piece of the pie. What Pepperjam did just simply crossed the line from working with CJ to working to be a CJ. Fundamental difference in my opinion. At the end of the day its about building relationships with affiliates and working with affiliates to create productive affiliates regardless of their experience or knowledge level. You know what I’m about!
“The lack of engagement and response by CJ is also a signal by CJ for what they think of the community, including me.”
That’s nonsense but what Ryan said, Kelli did address it some in the podcast. And the “lack of response” has nothing to do with the community, more that this is being handled where it always should have been handled and it’s not in one way blog posts. This has been milked to death already. And if you’re got another Jason Calacanis blog post ready to go, trash it.
Hi Jonathan,
“That’s nonsense but what Ryan said, Kelli did address it some in the podcast.”
I must have missed the part where she explained why they sent CJ Access advertisers who use PJ for their OPM services unreasonable (time window) ultimatums behind the back of PJ and without explaining the advertisers the reasons for sending out such an ultimatum in the first place.
“more that this is being handled where it always should have been handled”
Silently without anybody knowing about it.. but you are right, dirty business is done that way. Leaving no trace of what happened behind and shred the little bit of documents that was done on paper for whatever unfortunate reason. Is that the way you do your business as well? Do you like it? I hope that this is not the case, because I would be a bit disappointed in you.
“if you’re got another Jason Calacanis blog post ready to go, trash it.”
Not really, but I am thinking about one that was triggered by some of the discussions that happened. It’s interesting to hear a complete outsider, but Internet business veteran, talk about what he perceives of the affiliate marketing industry and what his understanding is of how it works.
Some other stuff kept me more busy than I intended so I didn’t find the time to write about a bunch of thing that I wanted to write about. Well, eventually and you will may be liking some of the stuff as well. We will see.
Hi Evan,
thanks for your comments.
Again, I am not complaining about what CJ did or does, but how they did it.
If you got to fight, you got to fight, but if you do, would you prefer doing it in a ring with rules and a neutral who makes sure that the rules will not be broken or do you prefer a street fight without any rules where any nastiness goes unpunished and is accepted as legitimate and okay?
It’s not that I would prefer a street fight to one with rules but I’d don’t really think that analogy works in this situation. Why should CJ have given any warning to Pepperjam before notifying their clients and giving an ultimatum or gone about it differently when Pepperjam went around proclaiming their network as the “answer”. They certainly have convinced several merchants to join their network in the last couple of months (check their blog and digitalpoint postings), I haven’t compared if those merchants were in CJ previously but I would think a lot were. I guess they really are going to have to deliver for their merchants now instead of relying on CJ to produce for their merchants. We shall see…
“Is that the way you do your business as well? Do you like it? I hope that this is not the case, because I would be a bit disappointed in you.”
I’m disappointed in you because it seems like you didn’t even listen to the podcast. I would be disappointed in CJ if they actually fell for your continuous baiting. I was disappointed that on your first blog on this, 3 weeks ago (old story)that you had to be contacted to correct some of your statements to “accurately reflect the known facts.” and the other edits you had to make. That was sloppy.
http://www.revenews.com/carstencumbrowski/questionable-business-practices-in-affiliate-marketing-part-278/
And again, you don’t have all the facts but you continue to make judgements and blog away. This is between them and their legal departments.
Evan, if somebody would have a problem with you or what you did and would go around behind your back to get your friends away from you without you having a clue what is going on. Would you consider this to be okay or do you think that the person should have contacted you first and try to sort things out before they become unnecessary messy.
Jonathan, I’m expressing my personal opinion. Regarding the facts that I had to correct I have to say that it didn’t change anything about the core of the message at all. It was a mere technicality. I am not legally involved with this incident and play cat and mouse games. What CJ actually did had the same goal as what I was stating. The only difference was that they did it in a more sneaky way with a few hoops in between to distort the situation from a legal point of view. My personal guess is that this was done based on recommendations made by CJ’s legal council.
I think it was mentioned somewhere, but I won’t spend the time and try to dig it up, because I also do not need to, because I said that I “believe” and not that I “know” if it is the case or not. And it also does not matter if I am right or not about it, because it does not change anything and it is also not defaming and thus questionable from a legal point of view.
If it would be a legal hearing and statement, things would of course be different. There you have to play the game differently. Opinion would not matter anymore.
I don’t like paying time wasting games and tend to cut right to the chase whenever possible. That is how I am, if you like it or not. You either cope with it or ignore it, its your choice.
The whole PepperJam CJ issue sounded very familiar to what happened with Azoogle a few years ago. I blogged about it here, http://www.marcporcelli.com/2008/03/07/pepperjam-and-commission-junction-feud-rings-a-bell/
http://www.marcporcelli.com