Friday, June 14, 2013

Standing Out In The Chaos

Digital media is one cluttered, frenzied, assaulting market.  Sometimes it feels like thousands of general contractors are all working independently on building the same skyscraper.   Some great ideas, approaches and products, but overall ... total pandemonium.



One media property that stands out in it's ability to leverage all the tools and technologies, and create an engaging environment for visitors and advertisers alike is The Bleacher Report.  (Their purchase by Turner also represents one of the smarter new media company acquisitions by a traditional media company in recent years - millions of new visitors come from ever present links on the CNN.com home page.)

Seamlessly bringing together professional sports reporting, user generated commentary via social media apps, online video feeds and contextually relevant and perfectly targeted advertising, Bleacher makes it all easy on the eyes.  They also quite effectively lead visitors to become subscribers through a variety of frequency-capped sign up tools.

Here's my experience this morning as I was taken to a Bleacher story from CNN:


Perfect tie-in for Dewars and their "For The Man Who Deserves More Than a gift"campaign.  (I was actually sipping a Scotch last night during the game.)

Multiple video clips through out the story with pre-roll ads from Dewars

Tweets from fans, ESPN reporters and NBA players also embedded in the story to add more color.

Frequency capped pop-ups to convert visitors to subscribers.

The only lost opportunity as I see it, was the addition of a highly shareable piece of branded video content for Dewars supporting their Father's Day campaign and deepening the brand integration experience.