Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive yesterday kicked off its first advertising campaign for mywashingtonpost.com, a service that allows readers to tailor washingtonpost.com to their liking.
The campaign comprises print, radio and television and will be limited to the greater Washington area. Adworks, Washington, is handling the effort. The cost of the campaign was not disclosed.
“It's really targeted to 18- to 54-year-olds, and I think it's really focusing on our current users and new users, people who generally go and use the Internet for this kind of information,” said Christine Dobday, director of marketing at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive.
Washingtonpost.com, the online version of the newspaper, is published by Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, which is owned by The Washington Post Co.
The campaign includes a 30-second TV spot and two 60-second radio spots, all airing on local stations. The introductory print ad will run in The Washington Post.
The TV commercial features Post columnists David Broder and Tony Kornheiser touting the new customized offering.
Dobday said the campaign conveys the message that washingtonpost.com has the information that matters to readers in their daily lives and that Mywashingtonpost.com's customization helps them get the news they want.
Washingtonpost.com attracts an estimated 3 million unique visitors a month, according to the company.
Mywashingtonpost.com offers modules that cover local and national news, columns, traffic, stock, weather, horoscopes, comics, sports, restaurants, clubs, show times and local events.
The mywashingtonpost.com campaign follows an ongoing ad effort for washingtonpost.com that began in late 1999. This attempt hopes to take the online newspaper a step closer to its target audience.
“We have a lot of people that come to our site and only click through a couple of pages,” said Don Marshall, director of communications at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. “The challenge is to get these users to spend more time, to be deeper, more valuable users to us.”
