This left the Telegraph, who picked up a story on this blog regarding the ads yesterday, facing a rapid exercise in erasing all evidence they had inadvertently aided the promotion of their greatest rival.
The extent of the climbdown can be revealed by the images below. A search for 'Barack Obama, David Cameron, CERN' sees the Telegraph appear top in the rankings:
Clicking on the link, however, produces an error page:
The story, which was picked up from the Telegraph by a number of sites internationally, from Current, Absolute Radio and CMM News to Postively Barack in the USA, ran for a full six hours or so on the Telegraph site in the 'Weird' section of their news site. It was removed at around 6pm yesterday evening.
The full transcript of the Telegraph article, which included my image of the Barack Obama advert and quotes from my good self from one of my original stories, is below:
Barack Obama, David Cameron and CERN adverts baffle commuters
Mystery adverts featuring images of Barack Obama David Cameron and the CERN particle collider have sparked debate among baffled commuters and bloggers.
The adverts, which all have bold black backgrounds, started appearing at London Underground stations and on trains earlier this week, and were published in several national newspapers this morning.
They contain no text, and there are few clues to what they are promoting.
At least six separate designs have been spotted around London: Barack Obama outside No 10 Downing Street, David Cameron walking past a statue of Winston Churchill, an overweight boy in swimming trunks, a golden football, a section of the Large Hadron Collider, and a stretching woman athlete.
The topical nature of the images – which cover British politics, the US election, childhood obesity and the Olympics – has led to speculation in the blogosphere that they are a promotion for a news magazine or television show.
Blogger Rick Lamb was one of the first to notice the posters and post pictures on the internet.
“This is obviously a big outdoor campaign for someone, but they are keeping quiet about it and it is generating a decent amount of buzz around London,” he said.
“My best guess at the moment is that it's for a news outlet, either a newspaper or TV News, or at a longer shot a new TV show.”
Initial suspicions that the adverts featuring Obama may be part of a Democratic campaign to mobilise American voters living in London have been undermined by the emergence of the other designs.
Advertisers are becoming more sophisticated in their attempts to attract the attention of consumers and generate interest in their products.
The release of low budget horror film Cloverfield earlier this year was preceded by the leaking of viral "teaser trailers" that gave no information about the film.
Barack Obama on the London Underground - What is this?
Barack Obama London Underground ads - Update
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