When bad ads
happen to good people
Make that when the wrong ads are served up
By Heidi Dawley
May 30, 2007
Among its many marvels, the internet offers advertisers a chance to reach into all sorts of niches not possible with traditional media, and this is especially the case with Google's AdSense, which can reach into the nicheiest of niches to place advertisers' messages into the most fitting contexts using key word technology.
Or that's how it's supposed to work, and actually does work most of the time. But sometimes it doesn't work, with disastrous results.
Case in point: GoneTooSoon.co.uk, a British site set up for people to post memorials for friends or family members who have passed away.
Last week the site began taking Google ads in order to raise money to cover operating costs. It quickly stopped, yanking the ads amid a siege of complaints from distraught users and apologies from the site's creator, Terry George. As George wrote, “The last thing I want to do is cause offence or distress to any users."
The problem? The key word technology intended to place ads in a relevant contexts led to some distressing placements.
Some were merely inappropriate. An ad for a singer called Norah Jones appeared next to a tribute for a person whose first name happened to be Norah.
Others went well beyond, as an ad for baby products that appeared next to memorials for babies who had died.
George turned to the Google ads after spending over $50,000 of his own money on the site, which now has over 9,000 tributes. As the site’s popularity has grown, so have the costs.
“It seemed like a good idea to put sensitive ads on the site to help pay for some of the running costs, and our users would suffer no financial loss,” George explains in his apology. Indeed, he says he chose Google after reading a blurb on the company’s site that said users would benefit by being exposed to useful, relevant ads by virtue of its key word technology.
“Technically speaking,” writes George, “the service reads the web-page very quickly and ‘tries’ to show appropriate adverts, regretfully in our case, it did this distastefully.”
Within hours, users began reporting some heart-wrenching placements, and it wasn't long before British news organizations picked up the story.
There were ads for budget airline Ryanair that appeared on tributes for people named Ryan.
There were ads for self-defense lessons on a page in memory of two girls who were abducted and murdered some years ago. According to some posts, there were even ads for a book about the girls' killer, Ian Huntley, appearing on GoneTooSoon.
For its part, Google declines to comment on the specifics of the GoneTooSoon snafu but a spokesperson tells Media Life: “Webmasters should fully understand how the ad system works before they offer ads through that system.”
Also, in truth, the world didn't wait for the internet to be invented in order to place the wrong ads in front of the wrong people, points out Tony Evans, managing partner at Mindshare in London. The advantage of the internet is that when such things do happen, they can be fixed in a jiffy. Down the ads come.
That's opposed to a magazine where the ad, once printed, is there forever, beyond recall, sitting on a library shelf years later. As for the GoneTooSoon incident, Evans thinks in the future we'll like see fewer of them. Says he: “People will put more pressure on Google to come up with a cleverer algorithm to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen.”
Meanwhile, in online ratings for the week ended May 20, the top five parent companies were Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Time Warner and News Corp. Online for the 16th straight week. The top five brands were Google, Yahoo, MSN/Windows Live, AOL Media Network and Microsoft for the fifth straight week.
Experian was the top advertiser with 6.95 million impressions to No. 2 NexTag’s 6.3 million. With 28.4 million ads served, Yahoo was again the top advertising site, more than quadrupling No. 2 MySpace at 6.4 million.
Sessions per person per week were even to last week at 16, with domains visited per person even at 37. Average PC time per person per week was about even at 16 hours and 5 minutes.
|
Top 25 parent companies
Through May 20 |
|
# |
Parent
|
Unique Audience (000)
|
Reach %
|
Time Spent per Person (hh:mm:ss)
|
|
1
|
Microsoft
|
83,654
|
60.8
|
0:38:00
|
|
2
|
Google
|
78,655
|
57.2
|
0:29:42
|
|
3
|
Yahoo!
|
73,072
|
53.1
|
1:03:14
|
|
4
|
Time Warner
|
68,200
|
49.6
|
1:24:27
|
|
5
|
News Corp. Online
|
40,444
|
29.4
|
0:46:37
|
|
6
|
eBay
|
34,465
|
25.1
|
0:48:49
|
|
7
|
InterActiveCorp
|
27,312
|
19.9
|
0:13:12
|
|
8
|
Apple Computer
|
21,877
|
15.9
|
0:28:28
|
|
9
|
Landmark Communications
|
21,874
|
15.9
|
0:20:29
|
|
10
|
Amazon
|
20,889
|
15.2
|
0:12:31
|
|
11
|
Walt Disney Internet Group
|
20,787
|
15.1
|
0:17:49
|
|
12
|
Wikimedia Foundation
|
18,631
|
13.5
|
0:10:02
|
|
13
|
New York Times Company
|
18,243
|
13.3
|
0:08:45
|
|
14
|
RealNetworks, Inc.
|
17,761
|
12.9
|
0:19:35
|
|
15
|
United Online
|
13,043
|
9.5
|
0:24:44
|
|
16
|
Bank of America
|
12,920
|
9.4
|
0:22:39
|
|
17
|
AT&T Inc.
|
12,358
|
9.0
|
0:12:49
|
|
18
|
Viacom Digital
|
12,216
|
8.9
|
0:26:23
|
|
19
|
Verizon Communications
|
11,463
|
8.3
|
0:18:18
|
|
20
|
CNET Networks
|
11,030
|
8.0
|
0:05:36
|
|
21
|
Comcast Corp.
|
10,638
|
7.7
|
0:32:05
|
|
22
|
E.W. Scripps Company
|
10,332
|
7.5
|
0:05:25
|
|
23
|
General Electric
|
9,949
|
7.2
|
0:09:57
|
|
24
|
CBS Corporation
|
9,690
|
7.0
|
0:13:17
|
|
25
|
Gannett
|
9,195
|
6.7
|
0:10:16
|
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings
|
|
Top 25 brands
Through May 20 |
|
|
Parent |
Unique Audience (000) |
Reach % |
Time spent per person (hh:mm:ss) |
|
1 |
Google
|
74,158
|
53.9
|
0:22:56
|
|
2 |
Yahoo!
|
72,413
|
52.6
|
1:03:31
|
|
3 |
MSN/Windows Live
|
63,177
|
45.9
|
0:37:56
|
|
4 |
AOL Media Network
|
57,898
|
42.1
|
1:32:45
|
|
5 |
Microsoft
|
52,782
|
38.4
|
0:14:47
|
|
6 |
Fox Interactive Media
|
35,572
|
25.9
|
0:49:57
|
|
7 |
eBay
|
30,208
|
22.0
|
0:50:09
|
|
8 |
Apple
|
21,877
|
15.9
|
0:28:28
|
|
9 |
Weather Channel
|
19,591
|
14.2
|
0:21:37
|
|
10 |
YouTube
|
19,364
|
14.1
|
0:25:29
|
|
11 |
Wikipedia
|
18,551
|
13.5
|
0:10:01
|
|
12 |
Real Network
|
17,757
|
12.9
|
0:19:35
|
|
13 |
Ask Search Network
|
16,581
|
12.1
|
0:13:44
|
|
14 |
Amazon
|
16,445
|
12.0
|
0:12:26
|
|
15 |
Bank of America
|
12,319
|
9.0
|
0:22:48
|
|
16 |
About.com
|
12,275
|
8.9
|
0:03:52
|
|
17 |
Blogger
|
11,820
|
8.6
|
0:11:30
|
|
18 |
CNN
|
11,477
|
8.3
|
0:15:48
|
|
19 |
Comcast
|
9,274
|
6.7
|
0:35:31
|
|
20 |
Chase
|
8,860
|
6.4
|
0:17:09
|
|
21 |
Gorilla Nation Media
|
8,568
|
6.2
|
0:07:00
|
|
22 |
Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network
|
7,832
|
5.7
|
0:35:07
|
|
23 |
Facebook
|
7,811
|
5.7
|
0:26:47
|
|
24 |
Verizon
|
7,681
|
5.6
|
0:18:05
|
|
25 |
PayPal
|
7,310
|
5.3
|
0:11:38
|
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings |
|
Top 25 advertisers
(excludes house ads)
Through May 20 |
|
# |
Company
|
Impressions (000)
|
|
1 |
Experian Group Limited
|
6,950,747
|
|
2 |
NexTag, Inc.
|
6,300,573
|
|
3 |
InterActiveCorp
|
4,895,119
|
|
4 |
Low Rate Source
|
4,041,421
|
|
5 |
Countrywide Financial Corporation
|
2,677,565
|
|
6 |
Reunion.com L.L.C.
|
1,678,421
|
|
7 |
Verizon Communications, Inc.
|
1,248,680
|
|
8 |
AT&T Corp.
|
880,430
|
|
9 |
Blockbuster Inc.
|
872,101
|
|
10 |
Bank of America Corporation
|
830,149
|
|
11 |
Zango, Inc.
|
790,553
|
|
12 |
Altria Group Inc.
|
682,691
|
|
13 |
Deutsche Telekom AG
|
619,278
|
|
14 |
Monster Worldwide, Inc.
|
549,901
|
|
15 |
Vonage Holdings Corp
|
549,089
|
|
16 |
eBay, Inc.
|
520,025
|
|
17 |
Privacy Matters
|
436,099
|
|
18 |
The General
|
432,376
|
|
19 |
InPhonic.com
|
432,064
|
|
20 |
Netflix, Inc.
|
430,485
|
|
21 |
Scottrade, Inc.
|
418,996
|
|
22 |
AmeriValue
|
416,776
|
|
23 |
Ford Motor Company
|
411,981
|
|
24 |
General Motors Corporation
|
411,125
|
|
25 |
E*TRADE FINANCIAL Corp.
|
385,830
|
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance
Note: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Above data does not include any house advertising activity. Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service. |
|
Top 25 advertising sites
(excludes house ads)
Through May 20 |
|
|
Company
|
Impressions (000)
|
|
1 |
Yahoo!
|
28,398,100
|
|
2 |
MySpace
|
6,424,955
|
|
3 |
MSN
|
4,842,494
|
|
4 |
AOL.com
|
1,032,461
|
|
5 |
eBay
|
949,514
|
|
6 |
The Weather Channel
|
692,179
|
|
7 |
MSNBC
|
670,821
|
|
8 |
Comcast.net
|
668,319
|
|
9 |
Juno
|
638,477
|
|
10 |
YouTube
|
583,797
|
|
11 |
NetZero
|
529,753
|
|
12 |
FOXNEWS.COM
|
430,021
|
|
13 |
New York Times
|
360,114
|
|
14 |
IMDb
|
346,332
|
|
15 |
The Weather Underground
|
281,955
|
|
16 |
Classmates
|
268,454
|
|
17 |
CBS SportsLine
|
267,312
|
|
18 |
CNN
|
254,495
|
|
19 |
ABC
|
246,950
|
|
20 |
Photobucket
|
224,970
|
|
21 |
iWon
|
220,039
|
|
22 |
ESPN.com
|
208,042
|
|
23 |
Drudge Report
|
203,010
|
|
24 |
Realtor.com
|
194,663
|
|
25 |
EarthLink
|
190,907
|
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance
Note: Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance service estimated online advertising expenditures account for CPM-based image-based advertising. All reported estimated expenditures and impressions do not account for the following placement types: text only, paid fee services, performance-based campaigns, sponsorships, barters, in-stream ("pre-rolls") players, messenger applications, partnership advertising, promotions and email campaigns. AdRelevance currently does not report estimated spending for paid search advertising. Above data does not include any house advertising activity. Nielsen//NetRatings AdRelevance reporting data reflects advertising activity served on pages accessible via the World Wide Web and not within AOL's proprietary service. |
|
Average use
Through May 20 |
|
|
Current Week
|
Last Week
|
% Change
|
|
Sessions/Visits per Person
|
16
|
16
|
0
|
|
Domains Visited per Person
|
37
|
37
|
0
|
|
PC Time per Person
|
16:05:10
|
16:14:27
|
-0.95
|
|
Active Digital Media Universe
|
137,558,786
|
136,268,208
|
0.95
|
|
Current Digital Media Universe Estimate
|
212,940,156
|
212,940,860
|
0
|
|
Source: Nielsen//Net Ratings AdRelevance |
|
|
|
