What I’m actually referring to here is the divide between theory and practice of digital strategy. Whether by accident or design, the latter which I doubt, the optics of this juxtaposition of an article about a poor struggling couple in the American South and a banner ad for a luxury vehicle points to a number of things:
1. With all of the analytical tools available, it’s astounding such a placement of advertising would even take place, especially in a relatively sophisticated content environment such as CNN;
2. This also suggests that no one is monitoring the actual placement vs. planned placement of digital advertising;
3. Either Jaguar or the agency in charge of media placement has no idea of the digital footprint for their brand. Juxtaposing an ad targeted to the highest of income brackets against a story ofAmerica’s poor is not only in bad taste, it just doesn’t make sense in terms of goood media management and social responsibility.
There a lot more work to do in the digital space to get it right.
The CMO Dilemma continues…
- Ted Morris, 4ScreensMedia
