One thing we keep hammering on about in workshops and client meetings is that content and reputational information never dies online. In fact it seems to have a half-life that can jump back to bite companies at any moment.

Both JC Penney and Heinz are learning this at the moment thanks in no small part to their misguided belief that they can still control media once it is created.

First Heinz, a company that commissioned a fairly innocuous TV ad in the UK for its deli mustard range, only to pull the ad in the face of some 200 viewer complaints. Their problem? The ad shows a "normal" British family getting ready for school except the mother is played by a gruff, short-order NY deli chef projecting a tough-guy De Niro accent. He’s serving sandwiches and gives the whole family a kiss goodbye, including the father (who in full disclosure is played by a friend of ours, David Charles).

Two men kissing? Shock, horror!! Cue the outraged complaints that this ad promotes homosexuality. Bizarrely, Heinz immediately apologised and pulled the ad.

Regular readers of this blog know the next bit. It’s up on YouTube in various incarnations with the most-viewed versions attracting over 232,000 visits in the last few days. (UPDATE – this version has been taken down but another version has 63,000 views.)

Here it is:

Then there’s JC Penney who are equally dismayed to discover that one of their ads seems to promote teen sex. The company claims the ad – now clocking 220,000 views on YouTube – was produced by agency Saatchi & Saatchi without JC Penney’s consent. Saatchi says that it didn’t produce the ad, but that it was the work of a third-party vendor who then posted it on YouTube.

Saatchi has apologised to JC Penney for the millions of eyeball of free publicity and has vowed to "remove the ad from public circulation".

As Silicon Alley Insider asks: as Saatchi didn’t post the ad in the first place, "Exactly how are they going to do that?"

Follow the furore here and check out the ad here while you’re at it.