Is Don Imus in Your Affiliate Program?

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Don Imus has been in hot water since last week when he called the Rutgers women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos.” People can’t distance themselves from him fast enough.

Many of his sponsors pulled their campaigns and Presidential candidates were calling for Imus’ ouster. CBS Radio suspended him for two weeks, and MSNBC announced Wednesday they will no longer simulcast the Don Imus radio show.

He’s a pariah. But for what? In reality, he has been saying ridiculous, offensive stuff for decades. He’s a shock jock after all.

Anyhow, this whole thing with hand wringing about a problem after the fact reminds me of affiliate marketing.

Once in a while an embarrassing, shady, or offensive affiliate is revealed to be marketing a given affiliate program. Righteous indignation follows.

We saw it first about six years ago when a Web site called Psycho Ex-girlfriend became a phenomenon. The site featured what were purported to be audio clips of tear-filled phone messages from a jilted girlfriend.

There were plenty of sponsors, too. Well, not sponsors, but rather affiliate links from Moviefone, Sports Illustrated, and a host of others. Everything was peachy keen until the Wall Street Journal published a story about it, “Some Marketers Rethink Links to Strange Web Sites.”

Then affiliate marketing came under attack for being risky and dangerous. No word about how the affiliate programs that accepted Psycho Ex-girlfriend were gladly accepting the referrals until they were exposed.

Moral of the story – know who you are working with now. If you’ve got any affiliates in your affiliate program who would embarrass you to be listed as a partner in the media, stop working with them.

Don’t leave yourself open for an Imus or Psycho Ex-girlfriend incident.