Celeb Death Is Marketer’s Windfall
ADOTAS – I have never owned a copy of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Not on tape, not on CD, not on vinyl (though I do have all three editions of Nirvana’s “In Utero”).
Coverage of his passing irritated me not because I had never been a fan, but because the same journalism outfits that for years had covered any derogatory gossip on Jackson and pretty much insulted the man (“Wacko Jacko” anyone?) were now shedding crocodile tears that he was gone. Were they sad they couldn’t kick him around anymore?
Certainly Jackson’s demise boosted traffic on news sites — Carol Bartz in her apparent jubilation at what Tiger Wood’s philandering did for Yahoo! web traffic noted that they were seeing better numbers than when Jackson died — but apparently celebrity death has quite the benefit for advertisers as well. It’s kinda like the commemorative plate industry.
Talking to ClickZ, Blogads CEO Henry Copeland noted that advertisers on his network, which consists of sites such as PerezHilton.com and Wonkette, received a ton of free impressions when traffic surged on blogs as someone famous — Patrick Swayze, Farrah Fawcett and tons more this year — kicked the bucket.
With Jackson’s death in particular, PerezHilton.com saw a 40% boom in traffic (which just thinking about makes me a little queasy); an ad buy of 10 million impressions would get a slick 4 million for free.
Apparently Blogads has the resources to launch a campaign in a matter of hours, but hasn’t yet had any “drive-by” advertisers jump on a “hot story.” Yes, he really did use the term drive-by.
Reader Comments.
Don’t know if you saw this when Jackson died, but it does seem to agree with your comments here.
Jon Lajoie on Youtube
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