Adventures in contextual advertising
In addition to being a news junkie, I am now a habitual contextual ad consumer. Many Web surfers, when visiting a news page try to block out all the ads that layer the screen to focus on the news text. But me, I look for the news and then I go in for the fun stuff--the sometimes very poorly placed contextual ads. Let's just say it gives me something to sardonically scoff about as I drink my coffee every morning.
A few examples (poor taste and all)...
--The quickie divorce ad that runs alongside a news story about a man murdering his family (if only he'd known he could have been divorced in 48 hours!)
--The luxury cruise ad that floats across the screen when you are reading about a ferry disaster (because it's always sunny in Greece!)
--Alongside a story about Sen. John Kerry runs an ad about visiting County Kerry, Ireland (ah, the luck of the Irish)
--Reports on car accidents are accompanied by text ads pushing the availability of cheap cars (because I'd love to buy one they just unwrapped from that light pole!)
You get the idea. Some of the flubs I see are just egregiously bad; others are just kind of amusing. So what is it going to take to clean up this part of marketing? It seems like a great opportunity for some smart database marketers and computer programmers to get together and find a solution. It is obvious that advertisers don't want to be paying for ads that accompany the wrong message, and news sites don't want to appear foolish either. Who's going to pick this up and run with it? Don't worry about me, I'll find something else to ridicule.
