CitizenSpin

Bloggers' new brand starts to click with advertisers

Bloggers' new brand starts to click with advertisers: Web logs are generating such an enormous following that they are becoming valuable marketing spaces, writes Aline van Duyn
From Financial Times - 28/03/2005
By ALINE VAN DUYN

If all goes according to plan, more than 1m Americans will soon be gripped by the mystery of the missing car. The hunt for a stolen Audi A3 - a sporty hatchback that will hit US showrooms in May - will begin next week with a launch party in New York.

At the event, the thriller's first scenes will be shot, with pictures and clues about the theft then distributed on the internet. From there, participants in the chase will use interactive tools to choose alternative plot endings.

How will the publicity be generated? With the latest weapon in the ad man's arsenal - blog advertising.

Blogs, web logs or journals, which cover topics from politics to parenting, have such enormous followings that marketing and advertising executives can no longer resist advertising in them.

The most recent Pew Internet and American Life Project, which researches internet use, found that 7 per cent of the 120m US adults who use the internet have created their own blog. Assuming one blog per person, this comes to 8m US blogs alone. The study also found that 27 per cent of US internet users say they read blogs.

"It's a brand new space, but when you get the right kind of messaging in it, the results can be astonishing," said Brian Clark, who has bought blog ads for agencies Weiden+Kennedy and McKinney-Silver, including for the Audi campaign.

Blog advertising came into its own during last year's presidential election. For the first time, political parties had budgets and strategies for online advertising. Recognising this, bloggers sold space on their sites.

"Blogs themselves have started to realise the potential for blog ads and much more space has become available," said Michael Bassik, director at Malchow Schlackman Hoppey & Cooper, which ran John Kerry's online presidential campaign.

He admits that a year ago he dismissed the idea of blog advertising. Now, he has clients spending up to Dollars 15,000 per week on blogs. "You are reaching a very actively engaged group of people, much more so than readers of more general web sites," he said.

Large companies such as Sony and Amazon have advertised on blogs, and the likes of Nike and GE are also experimenting with the medium.

For bloggers, selling ads provides income to support their hobby or even helps them make a living.

Blog ads are cheap compared with other forms of advertising. Blogads.com, where ad buyers can take space on blogs, lists its most expensive placement at Dollars 3,000.

This buys you a week in the top slot on dailykos.com, which claims to be read daily by more than 400,000 "committed progressive activists".

Demand this year has been higher than expected.

"March blog ad sales will exceed our best month last year," says Henry Copeland, director of Blogads.com. "We thought it would be the end of 2005 before we got back to (presidential) election levels."

The United Church of Christ, a protestant church with about 1.3m members, became aware of bloggers after two television networks, NBC and CBS, refused to run a UCC commercial showing a gay couple trying to enter a church.

"We were impressed by the power of the blogs," said Robert Chase, director of communications at the UCC. "We decided to include blog advertising in our next round of commercials. We have had such a great return that we will now always consider blogs in any campaign."

UCC spent Dollars 1m on cable televison ads and Dollars 15,000 on the blog campaign. With about 74,000 clicks so far (the ads run until the end of March), the cost per viewing of the ad was about 20 cents, Mr Chase said.

Blog ads clearly generate interest, but users say the ads work best if they engage the reader. "In the blog sphere, a standard, loud ad is the equivalent of yelling at a cocktail party," said Mr Clark. "The ads need to be designed so that the bloggers are part of the conversation."

It is not yet clear if big advertisers will go beyond small-scale campaigns and make blogs a regular part of their marketing strategies.

"It is still not for everyone, but it can, at the moment, work for specially targeted ads," says Alycia Hise, account director at TMP Worldwide, which buys blog ads for her education clients.

In the meantime, bloggers should look out for a missing car.

The Audi campaign chase is about getting bloggers to think of an A3 next time they want to buy a car. Not so different to other ads, after all.

Copyright 2005 The Financial Times Limited

Date: 28/03/2005
Publication: Financial Times

The Apple Case Isn't Just A Blow to Bloggers Why should bloggers be denied rights given a pamphleteer in the past?

The Apple Case Isn't Just A Blow to Bloggers Why should bloggers be denied rights given a pamphleteer in the past?
From Business Week - 28/03/2005

The blogosphere took a hit recently when a California judge ruled that Web loggers must reveal their sources for confidential Apple Computer Co. documents that they posted on their sites. But the collateral damage in that case may spread to all media, including the business press, by undermining its role in disseminating information to the public. Apple certainly has the right and obligation to seek prosecution for those who stole its intellectual property. But the transmission of information to the public at large is the job of the media, both online and off.

Against the wishes of powerful people trying to control information, the media have revealed corruption in Enron, WorldCom, and elsewhere in Corporate America, as well as questionable government policy going back to the Pentagon Papers. In a free society and a free market economy that depend so much on information, the media play a key role.

Clearly, there are built-in tensions between the media's dissemination of information to the public and the demands for secrecy from the government and industry. But courts have been adjudicating that for many years. The newer issue arising from the Apple case concerns the position of bloggers as journalists in America. The judge ducked the question of whether or not bloggers deserve the same First Amendment and state shield law privilege to protect sources that mainstream journalists possess. That was unfortunate. In principle, it's only fair to say bloggers acting like journalists are, in fact, journalists -- regardless of what platform they use. America has a long history of pamphleteers expressing their views, and it has extended First Amendment rights to nearly all of them over the years. Bloggers are no different.

But in practice, the prospect of 10, 20, or 50 million bloggers claiming journalistic privilege terrifies judges and First Amendment lawyers alike. They fear that anyone who has a Web site, if called to testify by a grand jury, could claim the privilege and refuse to cooperate. The flow of information to the judicial system could dry up as courts spend countless hours balancing the need for testimony against the public's desire for information and the blogger's demand to protect sources to give it to them. The great fear is that the courts will simply get overwhelmed and judges won't extend First Amendment protection to any journalist -- regardless of medium. The courts will, in effect, say that a privilege extended to nearly everyone is a privilege that no one should receive.

What to do? At the risk of being accused of being an elite mainstream media publication, we believe we must face this judicial reality and begin a conversation about who is a journalist. Courts have struggled with this issue for some time. The 31 state shield laws already on the books can help.

Most argue that you must work at some kind of media organization, be it a newspaper, magazine, TV show, or something else, to be awarded special privilege. A number of states define journalists functionally, as newsgatherers or investigative reporters. So a certain regularity and consistency in posting information would help qualify a blogger as part of the media. Being independent and not on the payroll of the organization you are covering would also be part of the definition (whistleblowers aren't journalists but are protected by different laws). The number of people bloggers reach might also be a consideration, but that can become tricky. If only your Mom reads your blog, are you really a member of the media?

It's easy to see where huge philosophical problems might emerge. Employees who put their companies' trade secrets on their blogs can't be journalists. They're thieves. But what if they've been blogging for a long time, providing real information to many people? Do these bloggers have First Amendment and state shield law privileges protecting themselves as sources? It's a very complex issue.

Over time, the courts and the law have extended journalistic privilege to an ever-wider range of people. Freelance writers are now covered, as well as book authors and scholars. The courts have split on giving academics privilege but have extended it to such political advocacy groups as the Anti-Defamation League.

What is needed is yet another expansion of the criteria to encompass those bloggers who truly practice the craft of journalism. Technology has liberated individuals from having to work within any specific journalistic organization and it is time for the law to recognize that fact. Both the media and the courts will be grappling with this issue for years. But by many of the criteria already on the books, the blogger sued by Apple, who runs the ThinkSecret.com site, is a real journalist.

Copyright 2005 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. http://www.mcgrawhill.com
All Rights Reserved

Date: 28/03/2005
Publication: Business Week