Contextual Advertising Blunders
Marketing / PR March 26th, 2007
Here’s another case of contextual advertising producing really, really inappropriate results:
I was watching the CNN video about Iran kidnapping British Navy personnel from their boats, when the ad in the bottom slid in: “Life is better with a boat. Discover Boating”. Yeah, right. I’m sure the 15 British hostages agree right now.
A previous case of unfortunate ad placement also includes boats. Yahoo Headlines talk about the Katrina Catastrophy, Navy ships and rescue teams rushing to the region, while the associated ad reads: “Down the Shore… Enjoy the last days of summer.”
By far not as tasteless as this one from Southern Comfort: “Born in New Orleans (where anything can happen)” - right after Katrina.
(credit to Jeff Clavier)
This last one actually goes beyond just a “blunder”: as proven by a job ad, it was not a case of unfortunate timing, but intentionally tasteless, exploitative advertising.
Related posts:
- The Scary Thing About Ads - Part 2
- The Scary Thing About Blog Ads
- What You See Is Not What You Get
- Feel-good ads feel weird on hurricane coverage
- The Scary Thing about Contextual (?) Advertising
Zoli Erdos
That is a funny, yet sad coincidence. If I was selling boats I would not want to show my ad in a time like this.
I just noticed the born in New Orleans one. I can believe this.
Sarah
LA Ad Agency
This makes me think, who reads the fine print ? We should be a little bit careful today because there are all kinds of predators who just wait for us to make a mistake so they can make a profit.
discussion
Reminds me of an old screenshot I took. I was reading an article about a local house fire where a baby died. Above it was an ad for some sort of Iomega storage product, and the headline was “BURN, BABY, BURN!”.
Call me sick, but I had to laugh at the contextual association. (Not at the baby… that part sucks.)
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