DaxThink: Digital life

[UPDATED] I spend a lot of time discussing media placements with our clients, and a common topic of conversation is blind network buying; the concept of buying media placements without knowing the domains on which they sit.

A great deal of brands today are against blind media buying because of previous cases where advertising has appeared on inappropriate sites.

Whilst I personally find it hard to believe, there is research that shows consumers will often think the advertiser is the sponsor of the content. So when Vodafone ads appeared on the Facebook page for the British National Party, outrage ensued.

Of course the problem existed in the offline world long before we all started playing with banners, but it tends to be forgotten now or little consideration given to it.

The photo shows a poster on the London Underground advertising a new movie called Righteous Kill and starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Nothing unusual as such in that.

The problem is that the poster is at Stockwell tube station, the location of a recent (and wrongful) police shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and is therefore untastefully incompatible with the movies strap line of "There's nothing wrong with a little shooting as long as the right people get shot"

What made the situation even worse was that the poster was in situ the day the jury visited Stockwell as part of the police trial!!

Whilst we must respectfully remember that someones life is involved here, I use it as an illustration that media placement is a serious issue we must always consider, whether be online or offline, in order to protect our client's brands.

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Creadit for the photo should be attributed to "coconinoco" who's Flickr Photostream can be found here.