Another "what were they thinking?" rant. It's pretty obvious that no human was responsible for the ad placement above.
Or at least, I hope not! It's more than likely that the coffee company had signed up for a period of rotating ads. In other words, their ads would be shown in different places on the site at different times.
But the image above shows how dangerous this can be. (Actually, I'm not sure that 'dangerous' is the word. Maybe 'foolhardy' is better. Or 'pointless'.)
When you agree to rotating ads on a site such as the one above, you can never guarantee what content is going to be shown on the same page as your ad.
Now, the coffee company in question are not a small firm. They presumably have marketing people and an advertising agency and the whole kit and caboodle. But you'd think that someone from the ad firm or their marketing department might have thought about this possibility? We read these so-called health-scares in newspapers and on news sites all the time. It's not unusual for a news website to carry an article about the effects of coffee - or at least, not a total surprise when they do.
It could have been a story about someone being injured by spilling hot coffee. It could have been a negative comment about the coffee industry. It could have been an article about caffeine addiction and its effects. It could have been lots of things that would have been completely inappropriate.
It should have been considered.
Comments