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Contextual Merchandising Not Always Good
The way the internet is moving with regards to advertising is putting a lot of emphasis on contextual merchandising. The basics of this is that you will get adverts on your web page that is related to what you are currently viewing - Google AdSense is the biggest example of this and it has helped wannabe Internet Entrepreneurs make a fair few bob since it’s inception.
That being said, is it really always a good idea. A few months ago (January 2008 actually) I was randomly browsing the Internet and on Yahoo’s news I noticed that a boy was shot dead in a McDonald’s restaurant in Brixton. Nothing really startling there, given today’s ‘day and age’ (God, I sound so old). Then, whilst perusing the adverts I notice a huge big McDonald’s advertisement offering me a Big Tasty at McDonald’s. A kid just got shot in McDonald’s but upon hearing that news all I oughta be thinking about is, “Hmm, you know what, a big tasty sure does sound great, thanks to that lad in Brixton, I now want to go to McDonald’s.”
It’s utter nonsense. I think it’s somewhat tasteless (and that’s just the burgers…boom boom) to have contextual merchandising picking up feeds from news stories. I mean, on Sky News I noticed an article about how it’s so awful to bit fat, coupled with ‘OMG LOSE WEIGHT NOW!’ style adverts. That surely isn’t right.
I’ll be keeping an eye out now for when contextual merchandising goes wrong. I have only got a screencap of the Yahoo incident:
Apologies for the quality of the screencap but you get the picture.
If you find any examples while trawling the web, let me know, email me a screenshot to neill@bloggyblog.co.uk or post a link in the comments.
Have a good day!
