I am very sure that the people reading this article on MSNBC are probably not blind (unless they are listening to the podcast version of the news.) So really the fact that the first ad that showed up was for eye care products on a story about blind kids is more amusing than it is a really bad placement.
I would guess that someone reading this article about how students in Chicago, that are officially blind, are required to pass drivers education, probably don’t want to be thinking about their dry eyes at the same time. Though I am sure there are some marketers that would argue the total opposite and say that someone that is reading about blind people would be very aware of their eyes at the time and would be incented to take more care and invest in their health and wellbeing (i.e. spend money!)
Anyway, I found the actual ad itself interesting and it does suggest that the continued approach of marketers to run blindly (sorry about that one) across the web will just prolong the propagation of the direct response bias in online advertising spend (i.e. punch the monkey or what do you think of George Bush), rather than moving to real high value brand focused marketing.
So I am not against blind networks, I just really think they are relied on too often and it is time to use some eye drops to clear up big advertisers' vision!
