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?

 

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25 COMMENTS

  1. And their IPO is today. Hey, with no profits and a stagnant user base, what’s a tech company to do?

    • It’s the new dichotomy! Profits don’t matter, solvency doesn’t matter! It’s all about “teh feelz” get with the program.

    • This is 1999 – 2000 tech bubble all over again. How can a company with no cash flow, who by it’s own admission stated it may never turn a profit, be valued at over $30 billion (as of today)? I bet Pets.com could be valued at least double that if they had their IPO today and people would still think it’s a great deal.

        • If more people read ZH, there’d be fewer fools buying these insanely overpriced, borderline worthless stocks.

      • At least for some companies, this is true. One of the hallmarks of the 2000 dot-com bubble was companies with no profits having valuations near or even above those of well established multi-national corporations with sales in the billions of dollars.

        A recent example of this happening again is the relative valuation of Tesla vs. an established, profitable car company like Ford Motor. Tesla’s valuation is closing in on Ford’s valuation, which is absurd on its face.

        • At least Tesla is (actually, physically) manufacturing something of value. A lot of these tech sweethearts are popular today, but they’ll be gone tomorrow. The only people making any real money are the venture capital firms and angel investors who got in early. If people think they can make money long-term buying these stocks, they’ll be very broke, very soon.

  3. I just hope Snapchat doesn’t ban us from selling guns like Facebook did. Then we have to go underground and pretend like we’re selling a paper clip next to a picture of a gun. Golly.

    Shouldn’t have to go through an FFL to exercise a god given right. Meet me in the Walmart parking lot!

    Btw, what’s Snapchat?

    • Way for pervs to find kids that are trying to hide their bad behavior from their parents or some such. “Technology” in search of relevance or utility.

      You are right. This funny. Illustrates that progtards will stoop to anything. Like the NRA would blow big $ on BS “marketing/advertising”.

      Trial Lawyer
      Used Car Salesman
      Advertising/snakeoil salesman
      demtard pol

  8. That is some sleazeball shit right there.

    And it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving organization…

  9. Snapchat?!? I thought that was the place where the 20 something crew goes to find sluts, drugs, online sex parties, and other illegal activity….

    • Man, what century are you living in that sluts and sex parties are “illegal activity”, gramps? Take a chill pill dude.

  11. Bwahahahahahaha! Squeeze a Proggie, hear it squeal!

    Snapchat used to have a digital expiration date on images its users sent. I applauded this at the time. But if they loved their privacy, they should never have encouraged pocket Napoleons like Bloombugger, let alone taken money from one of his Astro-turf activist groups.

  12. So, the courage of their convictions does not extend beyond their bank accounts. This is my shocked face.

  13. Whut? the fluke…elections have consequences. Bleed ’em dry with no return.

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