Travis ShinnAn online video ad for Disturbed's just-released album, Immortalized, has been pulled by Warner Bros. in light of Wednesday's shooting in Virginia that claimed the lives of a TV news reporter and cameraman, USA Today reports.
The ad sampled the band's animated video for its single, "The Vengeful One," in which a dark creature shoots people at a TV station.
Reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27, were fatally shot during a live news segment for Roanoke, Virginia, CBS affiliate WDBJ at Bridgewater Plaza Wednesday morning. The suspected shooter, Vester Lee Flanagan II, a former WDBJ reporter who used the name Bryce Williams on air, died Wednesday afternoon as a result of a self-inflicted gunshot hours after the attack.
Gupta Media founder Gogi Gupta, whose agency placed the Disturbed ad, tells USA Today, "The Disturbed ad was served via retargeting. Retargeting ads are matched to previous web-browsing behavior, so only a visitor who had interacted with Disturbed websites would be eligible to see this ad. The content of the video is irrelevant in this type of advertising because we know that they are Disturbed fans. There was no use of key words or any other kind of targeting for this particular ad.”
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