Everybody seems to agree that the context within which ads appear is an important factor in determining performance. This was not always accepted as being the case. At least it’s progress from the blind following of ever-larger and ever-more-meaningless numbers. But, how to define “context?” And what are the implications given the influence of the major platforms? The positive is easier than the negative, or rather the positive attracts less attention. The hard bit is handling the negative. To take a very extreme and recent case, when film of the massacre in Christchurch, NZ was uploaded onto social media platforms, and then shamefully on to mainstream media websites, ads were visible next to the footage. How come the footage was on the platforms at all?
Context and Platforms
