Blog Advertising Totters Forward

Blog advertising seems to be taking some more tottering steps towards hitting the main stream with this positive write up in the New York Times about the Up Your Budget treasure hunt campaign. The throng of advertisers now willing to chance their arm within the world of blogs seems to be growing and for interesting reasons. As Scott Deaver executive vice president of Budget (a car hire company) says "I've got to be smart and make my brand feel smart to the consumer. I can't just out spend Hertz," Mr. Deaver added, "but I can outsmart them."

For me this speaks volumes for how innovation is often born out of adversity, and that may well be the driving force behind the growing flirtation with blog advertising.

Also something that was of great interest in the New York Times article was how certain blogs were selected for advertising the Up Your Budget campaign. Jay Arnold, president and chief executive at the Impax Marketing Group in Philadelphia who coordinated the Budget marketing strategy outlined the process:

"With the help of a consultant, B. L. Ochman, using criteria like how frequently a blog is updated and how interesting they are to the so-called technorati. In fact, Mr. Arnold said, the tracking service technorati.com was used to help pick the blogs."

Whilst I think Technorati is an excellent tool on a number of fronts, it is a little hard for me to accept that it will continue to be a benchmark for selecting blogs in future ad campaigns. What is really needed is a comprehensive database of blog traffic statistics. I suspect that this need will become more acute as every week passes.

(Via Adpulp)