A few months ago Jaycee Dugard was recovered (along with her two  daughters) after being abducted, sexually abused and held captive for nearly 20 years. It's a frightening and compelling story that was first brought to my attention via Google News. I clicked on one of the headlines and was taken to a major news site. Then I saw that there was video of an interview with Jaycee's aunt. Clicking again, the video that I saw was not that of Tina Dugard relaying portions of her niece's story, but instead there was a 10 second laundry detergent commercial with cute mascot talking to a little girl and showing her how to wash a blanket. Needless to say I was taken a little by surprise. There was nothing at all wrong with the ad itself, but the content of the ad seemed inappropriate in context, and the experience was so abrupt that I was left with a negative impression of the detergent company for sending marketing content out into the world with such apparent disregard for the context in which I would encounter it. 

Today I was catching up on back episodes of Lie to Me. One of the episodes, "Black Friday" is a ripped-from-the-headlines type story of the Lightman group team trying find out who is responsible for a "doorbuster deals" stampede that kills a few of the people in the scrum.The episode was sponsored by Sears, and opens with a newscaster reporting that "retailers are promising big discounts to lure cash-strapped consumers". This is disconcerting, as later ad-breaks reveal that Sears is offering "better than black friday" deals on their electronics. This fictional event is very similar to real-life incidents that have occurred at Wal-Mart and other big retailers. The episode is about a month old, so I hope I'm not spoiling it for anybody when I reveal that the fictional electronics superstore is ultimately found culpable for the conditions that led to the deaths of their own shoppers. Also, the executives from the company are depicted as willing to hide their responsibility in order to save money. (albeit a lot of money)

Once again, there is nothing wrong with the Sears ad, but its proximity to the dramatic depiction of this sort of very real-world consumer violence is unfortunate. Furthermore, the fact that the fictional chain had a red and white color scheme and that specific key marketing phrases were present in both the ad and the show made for a less than desirable brand presentation. 

In regular broadcast content these issues can often be planned for. There are people whose whole job it is to review the scripts of shows so that advertising content is not insensitive to entertainment content. You shouldn't see a sleep-aid advertised during a Lifetime movie about a woman whose daughter kills herself with sleeping pills. You shouldn't see a liquor or beer ad during a show about a girl who gets drunk and then is raped at a frat party. It's bad for the show, and it's bad for the advertiser and most importantly: It's bad for the viewer. News content is more unpredictable, but viewers have come to understand that the commercial break is disconnected from the news content, and those ads can be shuffled or suspended if the content of the broadcast makes the advertiser look insensitive or reflects poorly on them in some other way. 

This doesn't seem to be the case with pre-roll (short ads that play when embedded video is initiated) or online show-sponsorship. Ads are served based on all kinds of statistical rationale like user demographics or even just raw traffic numbers. Old content often doesn't even disappear, so site owners have to continue to serve ads on a show based on which brands are buying inventory. The audience is more dispersed, so show/advertiser partnerships are likely to be less impactful. I refreshed Lie to Me 7 times and got 7 different advertisers. While none of the others had the same sort of content dissidence, it still begs the question of whether it was appropriate or useful for Jeep, AT&T, Toyota, 'Up In The Air', Flip, Windows 7 and Sears to all put their names on the same show with equal weight and hope I'll sort out what purchases I'd like to make for myself. In one instance, pushing play yielded the sponsorship message of "the following show was brought to you with limited commercial interruption by Jeep", followed immediately by an ad for AT&T's line of smart phones. Was the show brought to me by Jeep or AT&T? And exactly how much does it mean to me that Jeep paid to limit the commercial interruptions if that gracious announcement leads into a commercial for another brand? 

As a marketer and a user, I'm concerned. What do users think about the products we put in front of them if they know that these items are interchangeable? Or that none of these advertisers seems to stand out as caring which show they are watching or what the content of that show is? In an era and market situation where advertisers should care more and more about forming and demonstrating a relationship with and deep understanding of their consumers, can they really afford to be undermined by sloppy ad placement, secondhand sponsorships and shotgun-style targeting?