Death Does Not Become Your Ad: When Run-of-Network Campaigns Go Awry

It’s unfortunate enough that violence, gloomy economic forecasts and natural disasters now make up our everyday news, but when you’re an unlucky advertiser whose online ad happens to get placed next to such content, chances are, no one’s really in the mood to click on it.  Unless, of course, you peddle in mortuary services, disaster clean-up, or credit salvation services.

If your ad campaign is set up to deliver on a run-of-site (ROS) or run-of-network (RON) basis, you have even less control of where and when your ad will be displayed, and such is the problem with these kinds of ad buys on news sites.  Most of the time, users will just ignore your ad if they find it irrelevant, but recently I read an article where the content of the article and the ad were so horribly juxtaposed, I had to call it out.

The below article describes the macabre circumstance of two children found frozen in a woman’s freezer, apparently there at least since February.  Awfully, the ad in the middle of this article is for 1-800-PACK-RAT!

This is another example of technology gone amuck.  In other media, since human intervention is often involved, the placement of appropriate ad content next to editorial content might have been handled a bit more judiciously.  Unfortunately, online advertising has not mastered this control.

If you’re an advertiser willing to gamble with your brand image, running ROS or RON campaigns is a smart way to go for less expensive awareness building.  On the other hand, if you’re worried about your brand, consider employing more targeted ad placement tactics like buys on specific channels or avoiding certain web sites altogether.

Have any other examples of ill-matched ads to content?  Please send them our way:  tips@webadvantage.net.

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