A Slate of Innovation
Last week the popular, maroon-draped news site Slate came equipped with saloons, spittoons, and Wild West gun slinging. Visitors to the site may have noticed a banner which, when rolled over, caused the entire front page to warp back in time to replicate a Texas newspaper circa 1867. Printed across crackled sepia-toned paper were witty headlines imagined from the perspective of a Slate reader’s great-great-great-grandparent. The “Dear Prudence” advice column, for example, sported the era-fitting teaser, “I’m in love with a fellow cowboy.”
After seven seconds, Slate transported its cowboy and cowgirl readers back to 2006. No, they soon found out, they hadn’t wandered into Rufus’ phone booth or a flux-capacitor-fitted Delorean, they had witnessed an advertisement for PBS’ Texas Ranch House reality show. The ad, cleverly tailored with Slate’s front page in mind, is a telling example of the publisher’s progressive strategy to integrate advertising and editorial content in a manner that is both intriguing and non-intrusive to online readers.
Since Mobil Oil popularized the print advertorial format to combat negative publicity during the energy crisis of the 1970s, advertisers have learned that speaking the same language as publishers is a powerful way to reach audiences. While the advertorials we’re used to seeing in the backs of magazines and editorial sections of the newspaper can be obvious and tacky, they demonstrate that there is a sharp edge to be gained from blending your message into the look and feel of the publication. Rather than barging into the editorial space and shouting technical gibberish at the top of their lungs, advertorials quietly invite the reader over to the corner of the room to chat.
In the online space, the challenge to blend in is still great, but the creative possibilities are endless. With sundry contextual and behavioral targeting tools at their disposal, online advertisers already have a huge leg up on print in terms of getting their message in front of the right users. Substantially and intellectually engaging them with this message, however, requires incorporating the ad into the overall experience of the site.
The PBS Texas Ranch House campaign was just one of Slate’s several recent experiments in creating a new digital breed of advertorial. The publisher’s strategy exhibits respect for the intelligence of its readers while hoping in earnest to provide them with ads which can enrich the experience of the site.
“Slate has been known for a long time as a place with very fresh original editorial content, a fresh take on everything. That’s what our readers love about it,” Cliff Sloan, publisher of Slate and vice president for business development and general counsel at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, tells ADOTAS. “We want to make Slate a site that is known just as much for its original interesting advertising approaches as its original interesting editorial approaches.”
To accomplish this, Slate sits down and initiates a creative dialogue with the advertiser and their agency. “We’re always looking to brainstorm with advertisers about innovative ways of reaching our audience,” Sloan says. This back and forth collaboration allows them to meet at a solution that is attractive to the consumer and on even keel with the tone and layout of Slate’s site.
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