Advertising in the blogosphere -By Chris Batty

April 26th, 2007

5 comments

Posted in: Blog Bash Expert Posts

Expert: Christopher Batty, Gawker Media

#26 of 30

An Interview

Q. Advertisers see the Blogosphere as a swamp land but we see the blogosphere as a fertile ground. What are your thoughts on this?

A. Well, apologies in advance for having it both ways (or, every which way!) but the truth is that the blogosphere runs a very wide gamut — from professional journalistic enterprises that have already developed strong brand equity with readers and advertisers all the way to personal websites with readerships that extend no further than the nexus of its creator’s personal relationships (or fewer).

Advertisers have two challenges; first, they need to find vehicles that are appropriate to their task and, second, find an efficient way to transact with them. For brand advertisers (who typically define success by lift in metrics like awareness, message association, brand favorability, purchase intent), finding blogs that have real equity with their readerships is first and foremost. Second, and frankly more challenging, is finding a way to transact with these people. There are challenges to validating audience on small sites given the current market for ad research, finding professional counterparts at these publishers with which to engage and frankly getting enough scale (reach) to make it worth their time, agency transaction costs being what they are.

Q. What does the blogosphere need to do to get the same love from advertisers as the mainstream media sites do ?

A. Small publishers need to create advertising solutions that marketers demand that the larger publishing organizations for a variety of reasons cannot execute or can only execute at significant minimum outlay — so things like — custom ad integration, reader contests, promotions, & custom publishing.

Q. Every blogger craves for some link love from Gizmodo or LifeHacker. Can you walk us through the thought process that goes into linking to other blog articles ?

A. Its not really some drawn out thought process: break a story, dig something up no one else has, and present anything in an extremely entertaining fashion.

Q. There is a thin line between product endorsement and product promotion (as has been the topic of heated debate lately). What are you doing to maintain that balance?

A. We make every effort, from every angle, to make sure that our editors have a free hand to speak their minds without any undue influence from our marketing partners (including PR) and so, at this time, we don’t see any role for product endorsement in our advertising mix.

Q. Any advice for budding Gizmodo-wannabes on blog monetization?

A. Honestly taking on the entire consumer electronics category is a big bite so if I were an independent publisher with a passion for consumer electronics and gadget porn, I’d look for a niche to cover with a deep expertise and relentless focus.

5 Responses to “ Advertising in the blogosphere -By Chris Batty ”

1. 
   Leo Says:
   April 26th, 2007 at 2:45 pm

   I gotta say it I love Gizmodo.com, I visit the site at least twice a day. I think that blogs like gizmodo and techeblog has so much more info to offer about the product than the actual brand site. Bloggers are people just like me, with the passion for eletronics, and I don’t buy anything else before reading what other blogs have to say (good or bad)about the product.

2. 
   SoulFire Says:
   April 26th, 2007 at 3:52 pm

   Christopher - very cool post but one question:

   When you mention attracting advertisers by doing things that larger sites cannot (like promotions/giveaways, etc.), it still seems like a difficult task to get an audience with those advertisers. Any advice on getting that audience?

3. 
   Make Money Online: Weekly updates 28-April-2007 Says:
   April 29th, 2007 at 4:16 pm

   [...] Christopher Batty, Gawker Media - Advertising in the blogosphere [...]

4. 
   “Advertisers have two challenges…” « Roll With Us. Says:
   August 3rd, 2007 at 7:23 pm

   [...] August 3rd, 2007 “Advertisers have two challenges; first, they need to find vehicles that are appropriate to their task and, second, find an efficient way to transact with them. For brand advertisers (who typically define success by lift in metrics like awareness, message association, brand favorability, purchase intent), finding blogs that have real equity with their readerships is first and foremost. Second, and frankly more challenging, is finding a way to transact with these people. There are challenges to validating audience on small sites given the current market for ad research, finding professional counterparts at these publishers with which to engage and frankly getting enough scale (reach) to make it worth their time, agency transaction costs being what they are.” [...]

5. 
   Stephanie Ponn Says:
   November 15th, 2007 at 12:03 pm

   As to be expected of someone of this caliber, Christopher is indeed quite talented, which he shows in his current position with Gwaker, an on line magazine.. Gawker, with its fourteen titles displays some of the most outstanding, creative, yet tasteful ads I have seen in this market. The difficulty of managing quality versus quality must be a tremendous task. It is clear that the time well spent by Mr. Batty, managing the diversity of the various journalistic venues only proves his expertise of this field, vastly stealing the market share. In addition, to many artistical well done ads, Christopher displays first rates artists in his own work, many in connection with gallerys. This kind of expertisee is a treasure on the internet.

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