• by P.J. Bednarski , Staff Writer, July 10, 2014

Back when there actually was newspaper advertising and airlines did substantial advertising, as policy, many papers pulled advertising on those days its news pages were reporting a major airline crash.

It obviously wasn’t the right time or place for that.

In online video, where pre-roll routinely fronts content of all descriptions, it’s inevitable that lots of times, the message is wildly inappropriate, so much so you have to wonder if news organizations, particularly, should run advertising at all before video of their hard news stories . 

I just zipped over to CNN.com and before watching the video titled, “Cops Reenact Toddler’s Hot Car Death,” I saw an ad for Quicken Loans and before I watched a story, “What’s a Human Worth?” about ruthless cartels, I  saw a commercial for Target.  Those didn’t bother me, but I’d bet the advertisers wouldn’t think it’s a perfect environment.

But news is a messy business. By my reasoning, every pain reliever/shingles preventer/erectile dysfunction aid wouldn’t want to have its advertising located on the “CBS Evening News,” which is almost always a pretty grim environment.

Algorithms in theory can get an advertising message close to a person who will appreciate it, or a place it makes sense.

But in a thoughtful piece last summer by Michelle Rivera, the marketing coordinator  at OneScreen, she noted, “sometimes relevance isn’t the problem – it’s context. If an automotive brand is running a campaign for its latest sports model in an automotive section of a Website, sure it’s relevant. However, it wouldn’t benefit the advertiser if its ad ran against a news story linking the brand to poor consumer satisfaction, a model recall, or rising gas prices.”  

Something much worse than that has turned up in Britain, where the BBC just reported that viewers visiting YouTube and searching for violent jihadist videos are not only finding those kinds of videos, but also finding that the videos are preceded by ads, and at least in theory, a portion of the proceeds should be going back to the terrorists.

DailyMotion also was flagged for the videos and the ads.

Worst yet, the ads were for  Oxfam, the international organization that fights poverty and injustice worldwide;  the government-funded  National Citizen Service, a voluntary do-gooding service designed for 16 and 17 year olds to serve their country with good deeds; and the BBC itself.    

 “Companies' and taxpayers' money may have gone to jihadi groups because of the way the sites like YouTube operate,” the BBC program Newsnight explained.

Referring to Oxfam, the Website reported, “Newsnight found their adverts running directly before videos used to spread Islamist propaganda and encourage young people to join the conflict in Syria.”

Oxfam said it takes measures to know where its messages show up. But it noted, “On sites like YouTube, these decisions are made automatically and in this instance the system has led to a placement that is not acceptable. The ad has now been removed and we will work to make sure this doesn't happen again."

In truth, YouTube serves up so much, there will always be those cringe-worthy videos popping up.

And it’s also true that online video overall is filled with advertising that seems a stretch compared to the content that follows--- it can be a pretty distasteful world out there.

But the fact that advertising can show up in thousands of the darndest places, automatically, is another kind of viewability problem in the biz.  

pj@mediapost.com