Advert placement on online site.

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Sun Dec 04, 2005 2:02 am

Presented without further comment.

edited to correct subject line typo -pw

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Sun Dec 04, 2005 3:50 am

Wow.

Please forgive my ignorance, but is/was this a respected news source? Affiliated with a paper or magazine?

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Sun Dec 04, 2005 4:38 am

The Sunday Star Times is a Fairfax New Zealand newspaper. I would hold respect for its business section, but note I left New Zealand in 1993. Stuff.co.nz is Fairfax New Zealand's online web site. The portal was set up by a company Fairfax took over.

SusanV · **Posted:** Sun Dec 04, 2005 9:21 am

I guess the caffeine still hasn't kicked in, because I don't see what you are referring to. What am I missing?

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Sun Dec 04, 2005 5:09 pm

The ads that were there refer to a share prospectus for a company mentioned in the story. The site has changed the placement.

SusanV · **Posted:** Sun Dec 04, 2005 5:40 pm

That was gone by the time I saw the page. Like Wayne said, wow. You have to wonder, what were they thinking?

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Sun Dec 04, 2005 10:45 pm

Automation the culprit I think.

Angela Moxley · **Joined:** Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:55 am **Posts:** 40

isn't there software that searches the text and finds an ad to place on the page that matches some word in the story?

I remember reading recently some story online - it might have been cnn - involving a custody battle and on the page were links to ads for lawyers and other services offering custody mediation. It seemed distasteful. Given the chance that kind of stuff can happen I don't see why sites choose to use that kind of software.

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Sat Dec 10, 2005 11:03 pm

Angela Moxley wrote:

isn't there software that searches the text and finds an ad to place on the page that matches some word in the story?

Ie.

Most probably, but Fairfax aspires to higher values.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Sun Dec 11, 2005 3:20 am

How are staffing levels in your part of the world, Paul?

Are stories edited before they appear on papers' web sites? (At least some U.S. papers post stories before copy editors read them.)

Would ads show up on a web site without an editor and/or designated person in the ad dept. checking for appropriateness?

paulwiggins · **Posted:** Sun Dec 11, 2005 4:18 am

Apart from wire stories, papers seem to post copy on the form that has been approved for publication. Wire stories clearly identified as such, though obviously reservations remain. It's not unusual to work blind to ad placement on papers. Ad placement people generally work blind to editorial copy. So much so that I once put through a half page story that condemned a business above a half page yarn for same business.

Wayne Countryman · **Posted:** Sun Dec 11, 2005 4:01 pm

In the now-scorned pre-pagination days:

A co-worker laid out and edited a story about a woman finding a roach in her ice tea at a fast-food restaurant. The story ran beside an ad for a local fast-food restaurant in that chain. The publisher received an interesting phone call the next morning.
My friend, who also approved the finished page, denied ill intent.

That's how we learned to check our page dummies against the pasted-up ads in the composing room early in the shift. Or, if ads were late to be placed, then we checked the dummies for the I.D.s of the advertisers.

We didn't have proofs, but we checked every page when the paper came off the presses. If that's the earliest you can do it, do it.

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