Contextual advertising


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”

  1. 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
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