Advertising Targeting Gone Wrong – Tragically Wrong

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my computer, I brought up my Web browser. I traveled to a (not to be named) Web site whose lead story was of Princess Diana’s funeral with a photo of her casket adorned with flowers and the simple card from her sons that said “Mom.” It was an image that many can still remember today. However, when I arrived at that Web page I heard what I would soon discover to be an ad without user-initiated sound. It was a female child’s voice knocking on a hard surface saying “let me in, let me in.” Just below the fold, or where you can scroll down with your browser to view what was initially out of sight, I discovered an advertisement of a little girl knocking at the computer screen—my computer screen—saying those very words. Without this image, as I’m sure you’ve already put together, it sounded like Princess Diana was knocking on her coffin and asking to be let in. Or in my mind, let out.

In this case, I happened to know the agency that handled this advertiser and made a phone call to a friend and the ad was removed very quickly. This ad in 1997 was what ad folk call a premium placement—the home page of a prominent news site—with no targeting at the time. Today we have many more tools at hand and expect more than what 1997 Web advertising had to offer. For instance, one might exclude a page that a news provider tags “Breaking News.” Just a thought.

We need to do better no matter where we sit at the table. This is disheartening and tragically wrong. I don’t believe AccuQuote or CNN or whoever handles their ad targeting intended this result, but I hope it serves as an example for all of us to be conscience with our incredible technical prowess and a reminder of how sensitivity is not always built in.