Periodically I watch the Daily Show or Stephen Colbert at the Comedy Central website. About a year ago Comedy Central became really reliably consistent in delivering little TV ads during the intermissions of their streaming video. The ads were annoying but I could hardly begrudge them.
At first, mostly I was seeing ads for other Comedy Central programming. Then it branched out to include MTV programming, and lately, they’re really dropping this truly obnoxious product/program (I can’t even figure out which it is) called “game trailers.”
In general, the ads were painfully repetitive and didn’t seem at all “targeted” – they mostly made me remember late-night infomercials on 1980’s cable.
Then suddenly, about a month ago, things got interesting. My Comedy Central streaming video ads turned Swedish. Seriously.
Is this an effort at geo-targeting gone horribly wrong? Is it something meant to be funny? Do other people watching Comedy Central online get Swedish ads, or only people in Korea, or only me?
Regardless, I like the Swedish ads a lot more than the previous fare. There are quite a variety of them, and I have always enjoyed advertising more when it’s in a language I don’t really understand. It becomes quaint and culturally intriguing, that way.
Above, a screenshot of an ad for some express train service. The tag-line is: “Ju fler som åker, desto billigare blir det.”
