Last week, AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka and PRNewser’s Joe Ciarallo called out ad:tech for making an offer for coverage of the upcoming ad:tech New York conference in exchange for different event passes — something journalists are usually granted anyway. Today we have ad:tech’s apology, issued late last week by ad:tech event director, North America, Mike Flynn:
“Today, we sent an email to a select group of past ad:tech attendees presenting them with an offer to post tweets for ad:tech in exchange for a free expo pass or discounted conference admittance. We now realize how wrong this was and apologize whole-heartedly for suggesting that we buy anyone’s personal endorsement. I’ve been around long enough to know that pay-to-play is not appropriate in any situation. It was a foolish move. With only a few weeks before our New York event, we hastily drafted this offer without proper thought or consideration. We immediately canceled the program as soon as we realized our error.”
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See the full apology, here.