Contextual Advertising Gone Bad

A week before today’s 61st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army, Landeszeitung Lüneburg, a local newspaper in Germany, ran an article about the deportation of a Sinti boy from Lüneburg to Auschwitz.

The article was accompanied by a large red ad from one of the biggest energy companies in Germany bearing the tagline (roughly translated): “E.ON provides today for the gas of tomorrow!”

Click for a larger version.

The paper later published an apology to the author, readers, and energy company for the ad placement, claiming they had not checked the content of the ad.

(Thanks S.K.)