Digg has noticed a case of really unfortunate ad placement for Hotels.com during an MSNBC news cast. Right after a commercial airs touting the hotel bargains at the site, a news report begins about how Hotels.com users are at risk for credit card fraud.Video after the jump...
At least we can be certain that news reporting is not being influenced by advertisers. Or maybe Hotels.com simply doesn't have the influence that, say, the tobacco lobby once had.
I do wonder what event the newscast was talking about (it was cut off before enough details could be given). I think it was this news item from 2006 which involved a stolen laptop from an Ernst & Young auditor which contained the credit card information for Hotels.com users. In which case it represents a security breach more of Ernst & Young than Hotels.com. You'd think the crew behind Tech Watch would have at least moved the commercial to a different commercial break to alleviate the irony.
Have any of you seen a similar situation of an unfortunately placed commercial?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
7-03-2008 @ 3:50PM
Jen said...
The people who set up the commercials rarely know what's going to be in the broadcast of that day. In fact, I'm willing to bet the order of the commercials are set up days (or more) in advance.
Additionally, I'm sure news crews rarely have any idea of what ads are playing. Most news organizations, be it print or broadcast, do attempt to keep the news & ads separate. (To the chagrin of the ad department...)
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7-03-2008 @ 4:14PM
Donna said...
I used to work at a small town daily newspaper. I was in the composing/production department (back in the cut-and-paste days), so I was smack in the middle of the ongoing "battle" between the ad department and the editorial department.
One day, there was a front-page story about a local candidate for D.A., and the story jumped to page 2, right next to a quarter-page ad in support of his opponent. The ad manager insisted that the editor cut the story at page 1, or jump it elsewhere. The editor didn't really care whose ad was on page 2, but he did complain it was too big and took up too much space. The ad manager retorted by saying that ad was paying his paycheck.
We composing room people just stood there shaking our heads while these two spent 10 minutes arguing over how to work out page 2. (The story ended up jumping to another page, BTW.)
Anyway, the ad was bought a week or so before and space scheduled before the editorial department even thought to get that story. And the editorial department's dummies only showed that there was an ad in that space, not what the ad was. The showdown only happened at deadline. That's the way it went. A lot.
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7-03-2008 @ 4:22PM
Evan Doyle said...
This is fake. If you watch closely, there is an MSNBC logo that appears on the screen during the transition from commercial to news clip. Then on the news story itself the overlay mentions CNBC and Weather Plus, both NBC Universal properties.
Also, network logos never appear over ads. This is simply someone's lame attempt to make a funny, it is not real.
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7-03-2008 @ 7:51PM
Matt said...
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. That is definitely also Chris Jansing, a reporter for MSNBC, not ABC.
http://www.reportercaps.com/Home_MSNBC/msnbc_cjansing.php
7-03-2008 @ 7:52PM
CMart said...
Actually it is an ABC logo that is on both the commercial and the news report that follows. Seems like the clip on YouTube (which indeed did originally come from an NBC station) was itself a clip from a blooper show or something that aired on ABC (if you listen closely you can here the beginnings of canned laughter at the very end). So I don't think it is a fake
7-03-2008 @ 10:56PM
Michael said...
actually sometimes network logos do appear over ads there not supposed to but ive seen a few times on my OWN tv when someone forgot to flip the logo switch or what ever it is
7-04-2008 @ 1:33AM
TVGenius said...
Sounds like it might be from Jimmy Kimmel's show...
But yeah, the bugs shouldn't be left in over spots, and I've seen the networks be a little late in pulling theirs out sometimes, and our local stations subchannels almost always have bugs during the national breaks.
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7-04-2008 @ 12:38PM
Bob Sassone said...
No, I'm pretty sure this is real. The reason why there's an ABC bug in the corner is because Jimmy Kimmel reran the clip (as he often does with funny clips/bloopers). This is not from an ABC newscast, it's from an MSNBC newscast. Then Kimmel reran the clip and that's why the ABC bug is there throughout the whole thing and you hear laughter.
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