Pull up the Washington Post website and you may notice something peculiar. All ad space on the site belongs to MSNBC. Sister publication Newsweek.com has the same MSNBC saturation-as do 800 blogs sanctioned through Blogads. The campaign is part of MSNBC’s effort to test whether online advertising can have an impact on television ratings.
Promoting a host of new programming, MSNBC’s ad campaign is aimed at, as Washington Post publisher Caroline H. Little says, “the audience that these quality news sites attract-smart, informed and active web users.”
Blog visitors were quick to notice the neon silhouette of nude femininity pole-dancing down the side of some of their favorite blogs. Those ads were to garner attention for an upcoming “Porn Valley,” an expos on the prolific and profitable sex video industry.
The campaign is especially unique not only because of the scale of it, but also because it sets a record for buying ad space on blogs. Until MSNBC’s buyout of space on 800 blogs, Audi held the record at 286.
While attending the Syndicate Conference in San Francisco, Murdok Inc. CEO Rich Ord discovered via Jim Brady, Vice President and Executive Editor of WashingtonPost.com, that MSNBC is testing the campaign to measure what impact a large-scale online campaign would have on television ratings.
Prilosec recently took similar measures by buying all the advertising spots on ESPN.com, promoting a Super Bowl sweepstakes. If these campaigns are deemed successful, web users can expect more of the same.
