Fail Snapchat · 2018
An ad that asked users to slap Rihanna
🇺🇸 United States🇬🇧 United Kingdom
What happened
A third-party game ad on Snapchat asked 'Would you rather slap Rihanna or punch Chris Brown?' Rihanna responded publicly; Snap apologised, removed the ad and its share price fell sharply.
What went wrong
It made a joke of a documented domestic-violence assault, aimed at the survivor. The ad passed automated review because no rule in the system understood who those two names are.
The rule
Programmatic and third-party inventory is your brand's creative. Automated policy checks do not know context, and context is the entire risk.
Takeaway
Human review for anything naming a real person. Always.