Clear Channel Radio has found its first buyer for blinks, its new one- to three-second radio spots. Fox Broadcasting Co. is the first to purchase and use two-second radio spots in an effort to promote the fall season premiers of “Prison Break,” “House” and “The Simpsons.” [AdAge]
Tod Maffin calls these “pop-up’s for radio.”
From Podcasting News:
“About.com, a New York Times property, has launched a sponsored medical podcast about heartburn and acid reflux. Each podcast will be approximately three to five minutes long and will be introduced monthly. The series –the first of its kind on About.com– is sponsored by AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company that makes Prilosec and Nexium heartburn and acid reflux medications.”The podcasts allow us to provide educational information to patients in a unique and creative way,” said Dana Settembrino, brand communications manager, AstraZeneca.
Topics to be covered include: What Causes Heartburn; Acid Reflux and Your Diet; How to Talk to Your Doctor about Acid Reflux; Exercising with Acid Reflux; and How Stress Affects Your Acid Reflux.
According to Marjorie Martin, general manager, ABOUT Health, “Podcasts provide an exciting new format for delivering trusted health information. Users can now choose to listen online or take the information with them. This series on heartburn and acid reflux disease should provide the millions of sufferers with the tools to better manage their condition.”
Dr. Mona Khanna, M.D., M.P.H. is the program’s host. “Dr. Mona” is a quadruple board-certified practicing physician and Emmy award-winning medical correspondent.”
We covered heartburn on the Living Healthy Podcast back in February.
I find Henry’s conversational style more to my taste than Dr. Mona’s scripted read, but I’m hardly objective. Would love to know what AsstraZeneca is paying for this and their expectations. But one can assume they think this makes more sense than 30’s and 60’s. About.com seems like a good fit. You go looking for info on heartburn…and find a podcast on the subject.
But how sustainable is this? I think sponsoring something with broader topic scope might make more sense.
Keith and the Girl fans received an email today, touting a new movie coming out in a couple of weeks. Crank stars Jason Statham (Snatch, The Transporter, The Italian Job) and opens September 1st. The email pointed me to the trailer:
“It’s a cool ad, and it brings KATG a little scratch whenever it’s viewed. So take a look-see and pass it to your friends. And then get back to work! How are we gonna survive as a society if everyone’s watching movie promos all day?!”
I really like Statham so I was glad to know about the movie. And I’m even more inclined to watch the trailer (and tell others) because it helps KATG… and I’m a fan. Do you see how this is different than just running the ad on one of the TV networks? Would love to know how much KATG got for this. Hope it was a lot.
“While Rocketboom reaches a mass audience, Baron sees his next opportunity in niches. As an example, he suggests a program to target “high-end tennis players.” It would be natural for Wilson Sporting Goods to advertise tennis racquets and “Viewers might actually be interested in the commercials,” Baron said. He believes that while only 10,000 people might watch, it’s so cheap to do Internet video that such programming is economically feasible.”
— Rocketboom’s Andrew Baron on possible sponsorship opportunities
Tod Maffin is looking forward to the day his satellite radio delivers ads he wants to hear:
“So, let’s take this to its natural next step in, say three years. You call up XM or Sirius and activate your radio. Besides asking for your billing address, they also seek out some basic demographic information. How old are you? What are your interests? Suddenly, your radio begins playing ads that are aimed at you and people like you. With my demographic profile in hand, the satellite service could have screened those (crappy spam-like ads) out and sent me ads specific to my interests.”
I sort of dread going through some long “check the products and services you’re interested in” procedure, but you’d only have to do it once and then keep it updated. Then, maybe once a month, they send me a link to a web page where I see a list of all the advertisers that hit my reciever in the past 30 days. I remove any that I don’t like. Sort like signing up for Netflix. Or, maybe they just have a bot crawl this blog and figure out what I care about.