Today's Apple Homepage takeover of the NY Times is brilliant in terms of creativity and execution. The ad, which celebrates the one billionth download of iPhone apps, is cleverly synched and even features nice music.
However, the placement is a bit questionable. Running such celebratory creative next to a story and images of a horrific attack in Baghdad may be perceived by some as in poor taste.
Granted, media buyers can not predict these things, but still, there has got to be a way where ad servers can detect particular keywords that would then trigger an alert to the advertisers who can in turn make a decision on wether they want their content next to sensitive content.
TIP:
Enter the amount, and click "Tip" to submit!
John Jacob Di Gasbarro
Bill Maher
resistanceisfruitful
Kerry Lauerman
Joan Walsh
Salon.com
Comments
(I consider an ad like that -- or any other -- on A1 of the august Times as a travesty anyway. Call me a dinosaur.)
I remember a web ad for lumber and supplies that was placed next to a story about a man who committed suicide by building his own "gallows." This is inappropriate and the advertiser would certainly prefer to have the ad moved. As a journalist, I find it distasteful and want the ad moved, too, out of respect to the man's family.
And there is software to match ads with content - that's why the lumber and supply ad wound up next to the suicide... metadata (wood, build, etc) in the story keyed the ad up. We just need to make sure humans are checking these things to correct inappropriate matches. (And it is the advertising department's job to check where these ads end up, too. They missed the ball on this one.)
I think the Apple ad was poorly placed in general. But newsies and ad folks are still trying to figure out how to translate our old print ways to the web.