Ads Gone Bad

OK, so maybe it was too soon for Hudson River Plane jokes, but Virgin Airlines didn’t need to file a lawsuit over it.

Our good friends at industry blog (and side-splittingly funny and sarcastic) Adrants are on the wrong end of a legal assault for posting a fake ad (cached page), mocking the big red airline for taking advantage of the news cycle.

Good think that satire is protected under the free speech part of our constitution. And, Hey Mr. Branson, lighten up, dude.

Not sure what to say about this one. Guess ad revenue is getting tight.

Check it out.
http://www.seakittens.com/seakittens.html

Not exactly ads going bad, but this is pretty damn funny and was close enough to share here. Creative types in Berlin have taken to the subways, stickering ads with photoshop toolbars.

J. Brooke Aker, CEO of semantic tech firm Expert Systems, contributed this column to iMediaconnection on how to avoid contextual tragedies.

Just another example of one of the hurdles the online video ad industry has to deal with. Advertising surrounding other brand’s content, aka “advercontent.”

Here’s a minute-long viral video for Vodophone. Guess they want you to pay for it with your AMEX.

From a very legitamate video aggregator, we find a typical pre-roll and companion banner from you typical brand advertiser. Nothing wrong here, per se.

But if you were actuall watching the content, you might ask yourself if this was the type of content, with an acceptable level of profanity, for a particular brand. This takes nothing away from the quality of the content, mind you.

So why the fuss? Well, this webisode, Beverly Hills Anger Management, is quite funny. For those of you who haven’t seen it, Its set in - ironically - an anger management class in Beverly Hills, with badboys like Tommy Lee and Tom Sizemore.

But alas, we’ve come to the sticking point. Sample dialogue:

“Yeah baby, the fucker let us out early.  Idont know why. All I know is these anger management classes are starting to piss me off. I don’t care if you are sick of hearing it, you’re the fucking cunt that called the cops in the first place.”

Ok, so its not for everyone. But I’m guessing it isn’t for WalMart either.

At least I got a more appropriate ad the next time around.

This happens, if you are using contextual advertising.

Can’t imagine that Burger King is happy with this association……

Sure its a spoof of porn, and it is pretty funny, but I’m still guessing that this would get a “no” answer if you asked an advertiser if they wanted to advertise around this specific piece of content. Then again, Seth McFarland’s comedy is pretty racy itself, so the folks at BK probably knew there’d be some risk with their reward.

Overheard on TV: “It looks like Lisa Simpson giving a blow job”

Not even an online ad. Just funny.