I thought it was interesting to read the recent news on the Olympics to find big disputes regarding a recent commercial showing a monkey doing gymnastics (see the article here). The commercial aired right after an interview with Gabby Douglas, America's African American gold medalist in gymnastics. The raises a great question for TV networks and many others in the ad industry... is it anyone's responsibility to be pulling commercials in the case that contextual effects (in this case, the interview) cause the commercial to potentially be offensive?
In marketing there is a large body of literature on contextual effects. In simplest form, the information around you or around an advertisement influences your perceptions of what you are evaluating. Take the example of a popcorn package. If the popcorn package is surrounded by unhealthy bags of fried chips, this will cause you to feel the popcorn is more unhealthy too (yes, there is research on this). Also, more research in this health arena shows that consumers develop perceptions of restaurants and use that to guide for consumption. For example, what do you think of when I say "subway"? You're most likely thinking of a sandwich shop, maybe a healthy sandwich shop, or maybe even Jared's pants. Interestingly, these perceptions actually cause consumers to eat more calories at Subway than they would if they went to a McDonald's restaurant. At Subway, you may opt for a cookie and a drink thinking the sandwich is healthier, whereas you may limit your consumption at McDonald's. Quite interesting, right?
In the case of the Olympics commercial, the contextual effects (in other word, the interview) caused consumers to change their perceptions of the following commercial. In my opinion, industry and consumers shouldn't make that big a deal of it. Yes, during high watched shows like the Olympics, there should be someone concerned with airing of commercials, but should we really be taking NBC down for doing this?
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