Lots of online advertising watchers surely felt their stomachs lurch reading an e-mail newsletter alert from Adbumb Monday morning. It said the three largest online advertisers, DoubleClick Inc., L90 Inc. and 24/7 RealMedia are merging.
Under the headline, “Merger Announcement!” the release was an April Fool’s hoax, said Adbumb’s publisher Pesach Lattin.
Adbumb is a muckraking satirical weekly e-mail newsletter based in New York.
The story said the three online advertising companies “will create one of the largest advertising conglomerates in existence, with an expected worth of more than $2 billion.”
One begins to see the joke when reading a fake quote from DoubleClick’s CEO Kevin Ryan: the merger would combine the “market expertise” of DoubleClick; the “technology expertise” of 24/7 RealMedia; and “the whatever of L90.”
A made-up quote by CEO of 24/7 RealMedia said: “The whole industry needs to celebrate our ability to strive in an industry such as ours.”
Lattin, who occasionally publishes satirical news stories, but who also investigates and breaks stories on false or misleading online advertising and industry deals, said he received about 10 e-mails asking if the story was real.
He did not hear from any of the three companies he wrote about, “but three additional people from DoubleClick signed up for the newsletter,” he said.
A merger “is not a possibility,” said a source close to DoubleClick. Neither 24/7 Real Media or L90 could be reached for comment by press time.
Lattin said he has about 3,000 subscribers to his free weekly e-newsletter. His site, (www.adbumb.com) contains a sign-up form. He makes money from ads in the e-mail, he said, because subscribers are top online advertising executives.
Lattin also runs Adspire, an online advertising consulting company in New York.
