Yes, it has Aishwarya Rai Bachchan in it. She looks good. Some dancers jump about. The music’s not too bad. but the ad is about watches. That are also shown, I must admit. But why will I buy this watch? Because it makes Aishwarya’s “head spin”? She actually said “go round”, but it has been replaced with a voice-over.

Seriously. Why will I buy this watch after this ad?

If it is because it makes my head spin, then how will I tell time?

Facebook ad vs. Linked Page

And then there’s the link to which this ad goes (lest the content on the page be changed, here’s a screenshot):

I already have a friend who’s confused about when Father’s Day is. And this isn’t helping!

So one question: Did you spot the difference?

For the uninitiated, a 404 in the online world is simply bad news! It denotes a ‘page not found’ error and for a company like Yahoo!, that’s simply money lost. I would have to say that in the case of this particular ad, it is money lost!

But what about some other situations? How about a cigarette ad appearing next to the ad of a cancer survivor? Some may find it crude and humourless (and it is) but the fact is that it’s plain darn dumb not to check what’s running around your ad at the time, eh?

While these measures may be possible in the real world, what about the virtual world? With ‘contextual’ ads now becoming the norm (and behaviorial ads on their way), you will see an ad relevant to the content you are perusing at that time on the web page. And the outcome can have rather hilarious results:

Once again, this is distasteful to some, while plain bad luck for others. But most would have a snigger at this! I did.

These aren’t the only two examples, either. Check out this page for a whole list of more such stuff and mind you, there are two ads that are meant to be on this page; they belong to the publisher of the site!

Got more? Share with me. I always enjoy a good laugh!

And notice the small arrow on the right? Hovering over that will reveal (refer image 2):

I first spotted the ad on Wired How-To but I doubt if it’ll be available at all times. Try hitting refresh and you may get lucky! To me, the position and mannerisms of the ladies on the extreme left and right look very odd. And on the whole, this scene is a little strange and kind of Juhu-Tara Road, if you know what I mean! And for what joy does it say "Tooting High Street, London"? It looks more like New Bombay, Sagar Vihar!

I tried clicking the ad, but it didn’t open. So I Googled "the Human Network" (don’t get me started on how strange that sounds!) and this is where it got me. Nothing wrong. It’s a website for Cisco and you can find out what the Human Network exemplifies too. But where are the women in the above photo?

I thought theirs would be a story like many others on the site, but evidently not. Truly, this kind of an ad baffles me. It seems lie a B2C ad, but then where’s the connection? If it’s a brand identity ad, it’s even more confusing.

Can someone help? Please?

Tags: Ads, Cisco, Human Network, bad advertising