Just one week ago, allegations emerged that the mobile phone of murdered school girl Milly Dowler had been hacked by the News of the World. Outrage spread across Twitter, Facebook and Mumsnet, with demands that brand advertisers withdraw from the newspaper.
There began the seven days that shook marketing. First Ford, then Halifax, T-Mobile and Npower came forward to publicise via our journalists their boycotting of the paper.
Brand-owners, we now know, realise they do not market their wares in a vacuum. In archaeology, an artefact can tell us its whole story only when it is viewed in 'context'.
The same is true for advertising. Ads are, of course, always consumed in the context of the media in which they appear. Brands, as well as consumers, are well aware of what this symbiotic relationship means.
In journalism, as in advertising, there is 'a line'. Lapping up the tittle-tattle in the red-tops may be everyone's guilty pleasure from time to time, but there is always that line. We know this because it has been crossed.
Were he alive today, Dante would surely have reserved a special place in hell for the executives and journalists involved in the scandal.
In some cases it may have been consumers that prompted the brand boycott, but I don't doubt marketers shared the general horror too.
What next? Brands needing to advertise to the paper's distinctive demographic need not be overly concerned by the demise of the News of the World; the 'Sun on Sunday' domain name has already been purchased.
Nonetheless, this whole sorry tale is a forceful reminder that marketing operates in a moral context where honesty and probity still matter.
Noelle.McElhatton@haymarket.com