Becca Owen, 22, and Chloe Taylor, 19, died after being thrown from a packed car with an exhausted driver at the wheel as the vehicle plunged off a dark road into a remote ravine. A news story from the Guardian about the deaths of two young women on a gap-year in Mexico was interrupted by the picture below.
Scanning, I caught the face of the young woman – was it one of the dead girls? Why show only one of them? Before these thoughts had really registered I realised that it was a Land Rover ad, extolling the exotic, off-road possibilities of ownership.
It would have been generated automatically (an ad for Australia appeared when I clicked back), but its position and message seemed utterly inappropriate. Still, you can’t blame a computer – it’s only doing its job.
3 responses to “Contextual advertising”
I too have seen an advert like this on a news page, carrying a story about a car that crashed off the road and killed all occupants.
The large pop over advert that popped up carried the slogan ‘Mazda – The car in front’
Not a great match for the news story!!!
Thanks for the post
Profit share advertising
Algorithms lack that human touch!
Awhile back, I did a screen capture of something I thought particularly ironic with a placed ad. I stumbled upon it again today, remembered your post about unfortunate ad placement, and decided to share.
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/1/2874688_c8e6e62867_o.jpg