Apple Ran The Worst Possible Ad Beside A New York Times Story About Flight 370

Apple hoped to make an impact with a big ad on the New York Times website, and it did - for all the wrong reasons.

The tech giant's big video ad for the iPad Air at the top of the Times homepage ended with a shot of a snorkeler using an iPad underwater. Unfortunately, it ran right beside the New York Times' top story at the time ... about Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak's announcement that Flight MH370 had landed in the Indian Ocean and no one on the flight is thought to have survived.

To be fair to Apple, no advertiser knows what the Times will lead its front page with at any given moment. It's just a one-off piece of bad luck.

Ad Age's Michael Learmonth captured the error on his Twitter account:

A New York Times spokesperson told Ad Age that "It was an unfortunate coincidence that this particular creative ran adjacent to that particular article. The ad was taken down by mutual agreement and we are still determining a resolution regarding placing the ad again."