Nieman Journalism Lab: Gawker Media’s Ad Chief Sees a Future in Sponsored Posts

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 29 /PRNewswire/ — Gawker Media, which operates some of the web’s most popular blogs, is well known for innovative advertising that breaks the mold of typical display ads. But has it gone too far this time?

On Wednesday, the company rolled out a new site that’s written and paid for by HBO to promote the network’s noir vampire drama, True Blood. Entries from the fictional blog, which is written by a vampire, appear as cross-posts in the mix of Gawker Media’s other sites, but the word “advertisement” doesn’t appear anywhere in the project’s vicinity.

Gawker Media’s vice president of sales and marketing, Chris Batty, defended the ad sale and predicted, “In three or four years, the majority of our advertising revenue will be in sponsored posts like this.”

Our interview with Batty, along with a discussion of how advertising and content might mix in the future, can be found at:

http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/05/gawker-vp-says-sponsored-posts-will-bring-in-majority-of-revenue-one-day/

The Nieman Journalism Lab is a project at Harvard University to figure out the future of quality journalism online. Its site is http://www.niemanlab.org/.

SOURCE Nieman Journalism Lab