Memo to Advertisers, Campaigns and Bloggers: Ad networks are stupid.

By
Andrew
on April 5, 2008 3:39 PM | | Comments (199) | TrackBacks (0)
Ok, so last week John McCain took some flack (ok, bad choice, how about we'll say encountered hostile fire...wait...non military metaphor coming...) was attacked by the DNC for running an ad on a Northern Virginia blog that has, among other things, blamed illegal immigrants for the housing crisis...

McCain's campaign is running banner ads on the website www.bvbl.net, which includes posts blaming "illegal aliens" for the "real estate meltdown" and sensationalizes "illegal alien crime." The blog is credited with helping shape public opinion in Prince William County, Virginia, which has embraced policies to crack down on illegal immigration. [Washington Post, 4/4/08]


Oh, the other hand, the same blogger has had ads from Obama and Senate candidate Mark Warner (D) on the exact same site. Straight from the Blogger's mouth:

When the Democratic National Committee decides to take John McCain to task for having his ads appear on BVBL via Google AdWords, they might want to do a little homework first. Ads for Mark Warner and Barrack Obama have appeared on this site, and it never seemed to bother them before.

RNC Spokesperson Liz Mair had this to say about it:

"In view of the fact that the DNC attacked John McCain for running ads on a blog at which we now know Barack Obama and Democratic US Senate candidate Mark Warner have also advertised, the DNC should either apologize for, and withdraw, its ham-handed attack on John McCain or similarly condemn both Obama and Warner."

(here is where Andrew puts on his "voice of reason" hat)

Now, children. Let's all calm down. If the DNC had done their homework, they would realize that yes, these ads come from Google's advertising network. Now, Google actually has a extra-special Political Advertising Platform which allows you to control where your ads show up. I've actually talked to the guy who runs it. Like a month ago.

Liz is right. The DNC should withdraw the attack, and they should actually do a bit more work with their vendors to understand how ad networks serve up ads. Neither the McCain folks or the DNC had any control over where that ad would show up (unless they use the Political tool that Google has) so I really can't see why they would try and manufacturer outrage when it comes from a total lack of understanding on how so-called "new media advertising" works.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Republican. I'm actually a registered I in Maryland. Seriously. On the other hand, I'm seriously disinclined to vote for any candidate that can't hire people smart enough to understand how modern internet advertising works, and even angrier at people who blame campaigns when network-based ads run on subscribing sites, and they haven't been pro-active in looking at who the ads get served to.

Lawyers call it due diligence, people. 

If you don't understand online advertising, stop using it until you do, and please stop attacking each other because Google's servers made a decision you had zero control over.



This is why Alex and I don't have ads served to you, our fantastic readers.

Oh, if people would really do their homework, they'd know that Banner ads are oh so 1999. 


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