Ok, this one is a bit of a stretch, but every once in a while, a story like this pops up, and it makes me wonder…should newspapers care about working to prevent this sort of thing? Should advertisers care if their ads appear in such ironic places? Some suggest using competitive ad filtering options included in most ad serving software in order to curb these unfortunate contextual matches, but would that even work? Would newspapers forgo millions in contextual advertising revenue simply to prevent some of these unfortunate matches from slipping through, and causing a few select people to say “eeek” when they see one?
I know some of this material is a bit outdated, but remember this one? Stuff like this happens fairly frequently it seems, but I don’t know…is it that big of a deal? I don’t think so. I mean, we live in the “if it bleeds it leads” news culture of the 21st century, so if you are used to reading or watching the news on a regular basis, things like this should not be the most shocking thing on any given page. Just my two cents.
March 9th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Another example that was particularly tasteless were all the “Beaches” and “Waves” triggered ads for resorts that were all over the tsunami coverage.
March 9th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
Or maybe music suggestions to download the last “Katrina And The Waves” album.
October 8th, 2006 at 11:55 am
The funniest I’d ever seen was an early 90’s USA Today — Damn I wish I held on to a copy. The top 2 stories were whether Food Lion Supermarkets were bleaching beef so it would stay fresh longer, and homosexuals in the military –
The 2 headlines:
Navy To Reinstate Gay Sailor
How Safe Is Our Meat?