(PaidContent.org) This story was written by Amanda Natividad.

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Bringing our conference to a close, Andrew Wallenstein, deputy editor, The Hollywood Reporter, talked up advertising on celebrity content, or, as Wallenstein calls it, the "straw that serves the drink," with Henry Copeland, CEO, Blogads and director, sales and technology, PerezHilton.com; Brian Fitzgerald, co-founder & president, Gorilla Nation Media; Mari Katsunuma, VP of Digital, Bravo; Karin Kovacs, associated publisher, People.com; Dave Rosner, director of innovations, Initiative Media. The main points made during this discussion were that while it may be safer to advertise on a better known brand, say People.com, there's still money to be made in the smaller sites. The idea is not necessarily to advertise your product or service on the biggest site, but to find the site that works best with your brand.

-- Similar basic tenet of traditional media: Rosner: The online space has the same basic tenet as traditional: "who are we trying to reach and what are we trying to say?" Katsunuma agreed, saying that it's clear to go where the buzz is, but also to know where your audience is. "Those kind of things," she says, "haven't really changed."

-- Where to advertise: Fitzgerald: There's always going to be a throng of new sites attracting audiences. At the end of the day all that noise and clutter creates a situation where as a media buyer, you have to be focused on delivering the most integrated, compelling platform for the marketer messaging across a particular audience. Copeland added: There's so much inventory, so many places you can go. You need to go to a big property where you know people are seeing it [the site]. If you got to 50 small blogs, you don't know who's looking at it. Kovacs brought attention to the fact that users aren't going to just one place for their celebrity gossip, that they always come back to sites like People.com to verify the info. "They check us 3-4 times a day and from a marketer's standpoint, there's a role for each of those [sites]." Rosner: People are going to different sites to meet different needs and that completely helps us understand who we're trying to reach. There are times it completely makes sense to work with a bigger brand (like People) and other times to go to smaller brands. There's definitely roomin the brand perspective-- for everybody.

-- Cross-platform sales: Kovacs: This is one of the biggest trends. Last year and this year, most of our proposals asked for 360. People want to rely on the brand, our video. People want one idea that works across the entire brand. I don't have to prove my brand; I just have to show how I can bring it to life together. With custom programs you need to serve the reader, not detract from the experience, and create a platform with which you can communicate with advertisers. For example, we've got fan sites and blogs sending traffic to our blog, asking readers to vote for their favorite celebs on our poll.

-- International initiatives: Kovacs: At the end of the year we'll have an international strategy and mobile one. People have to check what's happening with the entertainment worldand not just sports and weatheron the phone. It's not enough to get the news a couple of times a day, you need it whenever you want. For international, People.com is one of the number one celeb sites in Canada and soon we'll have a strategy how to monetize it. People Magazine is launching in India but most of our reach is in U.S. Fitzgerald: International is tough, especially in terms of monetizing the traffic. Copeland: Perez is big in Canada; he gets 20 million impressions per month. In Australia and UK he's got readers but he's just another blog.

By Amanda Natividad
Copyright © 2008 paidContent.org

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