Bad ad placement

The Herald reports:

TVNZ has apologised for airing a condom advertisement that features a woman talking about her sexual enjoyment during a television movie about one of New Zealand’s most high-profile rape trials.

Consent: The Louise Nicholas Story aired on TV One on Sunday night and told of Ms Nicholas’ fight for justice when she took a police officer and two former police officers to court over allegations of rape.

The small-screen adaptation of her plight, spanning 1981 to 2007, was the most viewed show in its time slot, with an audience of over 305,000, according to Nielsen ratings figures.

During its screening, an advertisement for Skyn condoms aired that featured a woman in her underwear saying how much she enjoyed sex.

The ad attracted immense criticism on TV One’s Facebook page and on Twitter, and complaints were made to the Advertising Standards Authority.

Viewers said they were appalled and horrified by such an ad played during a real-life account of alleged sexual assault, and said it reinforced a “rape culture” in the country.

“Bloody disgusting seeing a near naked woman pitching condoms in the middle of a harrowing tale … ” wrote Stephanie Kane.

“Great drama and horrifyingly real – bad choice of advert,” wrote Suzanne Mary Bull.

It was totally inappropriate, but I doubt it was a choice. People don’t pick ads to appear during specific programmes or episodes generally. They pick timeslots and channels. The problem would be is that this programme was not flagged as having sensitive content where the ads should be vetted for appropriateness.

Inappropriate ad placement is a bigger problem online. If you write a story on someone hacked to death by an axe murderer, then Google is likely to display ads for axes 🙂