MSNBC Announces Largest Blog Advertising Campaign In History

Last Saturday morning, everyone in the blogosphere woke up to the news that MSNBC had purchased advertising on 800+ blogs (including this one!). This is the largest single blog ad buy in advertising history and was planned by Frank Radice and Jon Accarrino at NBC’s in-house marketing and promotions group called The NBC Agency. (Note: Jon Accarrino is a frequent MethodShop contributor).

The campaign is to promote a special day of TV programming taking place on Wednesday, December 14th, 2005. MSNBC is calling it “Digital Day” and will feature special Internet related TV programming, a live blogger, and interaction with bloggers throughout the day.

Although MSNBC’s intent in purchasing the blog ads was to gain TV viewers, most of the press around Digital Day has been about the massive blog ad buy and controversial advertising creative, and not about the content of the shows. Clocking in at an estimated $1 million dollars, the campaign is by far the largest ad buy

To help raise awareness of the topics being covered on December 14th, MSNBC has put together a special video teaser tape for Digital Day in iPod and Sony PSP video formats.

MSNBC’s Digital Day Programming

The subjects being covered on Digital Day range from Oddball Videos and the Porn Industry to more serious topics like Internet Addiction (chat rooms, online gambling, shopping, gaming, etc).

Many of the clips being covered in the Oddball Video segment have probably been in your inbox before. My favorites are the fishing monkey, Pope drinking beer, Elvis impersonator pumping gas and the singing Swedish kid.

Rita Cosby’s coverage of the Porn Industry and Internet Addiction will probably strike a chord with a more sophisticated audience. Call me simple, but I just want to see the funny clips.

You can download the MSNBC “Digital Day” Teaser Tape here:

• MSNBC Digital Day Teaser: iPod Video (17.5 MB)
• MSNBC Digital Day Teaser: Sony PSP Video (11.2 MB)

If you don’t know how to copy videos onto your PSP, then check out this MethodShop.com tutorial: How to Copy Videos onto Your Sony PSP

Program your TiVo’s now. Here are the MSNBC shows to checkout on 12.14.05:

• Oddball Video – Keith Olbermann: 8 p.m. ET
• Inside the Valley of Porn – Rita Cosby: 9 p.m. ET
• Internet Addiction – Joe Scarborough: 10 p.m. ET
  

Press Story Links:

• Technorati Search: MSNBC + BlogAds
• MSNBC Launches Largest BlogAds Buy
• MSNBC’s Plan to Inundate the Internet
• MSNBC’s Big Week for Online Ads
• Blogads Sells The Farm!
• Offensive MSNBC Porn BlogAds
• Why I’m Happy I Didn’t Get the MSNBC Porn Ad
• Nice Neon, Bad Splash Page