Home  › Media › Media Planning Hollis Thomases  Is "Advertorial"
a Four-Letter Word? Part 1    |  June 7, 2005   |  Comments  I
support content as an online advertising vehicle. The large
majority of people go online to research and read; their
attention is focused primarily on words, not pictures. Google,
Yahoo, and contextual ad networks serve text-based search ads
within relevant content. They've proven successful, so why not
expand text ad opportunities?  Advertorials, paid editorial
content provided by an advertiser, define this expanded text ad
buy. Advertorials have existed for years in print, but online
advertorial opportunities seem rare and elusive. Is this fact or
simply perception? If advertorial opportunities are scarce, why
is it so? Is paid editorial evil?  In 2002, the online
advertorial made headlines when Sony disclosed plans to launch a
$10 million online advertorial campaign. The concept revolved
around first-person informational accounts, written by real
consumers (according to Sony), wit