• by Ken Liebeskind , August 14, 2001

To promote "Win the Hole Thing," an instant win game, Life Savers is running a series of innovative online promotions.

About.com has replaced its familiar red logo with a Life Savers, which can be clicked to go to Candystand.com, the Life Savers Web page where the game can be played. The two week campaign is going on now.

Visitors to Pogo.com, a game site, see a trail of multi-colored Life Savers whirling across the home page, with a link that can be clicked to Candyland.com. The two-month campaign launched August 1.

MediaPost was unable to speak with a representative from Nabisco, Life Savers' parent company, so it was unable to learn whether the campaign is going on on other sites. Beth Larson, vice president of advertising sales at Electronic Arts, Pogo's parent company, says it's a multimedia campaign with a major online component. Modem Media is the interactive agency of record for Nabisco and made the buys, she says.

Mark Josephson, general manager of About.com, calls the logo switch or "brand sharing" campaign a new form of online advertising. "With all the fury over pop ups as an intrusive unit, publishers are looking for new ways to balance in your face ads that don't turn away users," he says. "Brand sharing partners our brand with leading consumer brands to grow both."

He sees the campaign as an example of heavier online spending by package goods companies. "Traditional marketers have increased their savvyness in targeting their campaigns. It's less about technology and more about the quality of the audience," he says.

Larson says the campaign on Pogo demonstrates the value of game sites for advertisers. "They can integrate their messages into the games," she says, noting that one of Pogo's games, Sweet Tooth, incorporates the Life Savers icon into the game, whereas other Life Savers advertising runs on the home page outside the actual games.

She also says people playing games are more receptive to advertising than people at other sites who are more rushed for information.

Life Savers is running banners, interstitials and a sidebar on the home page for the first two weeks of the campaign.

Electronic Arts formed a partnership with AOL in 1999 and programs all the games on the AOL Network. The Life Savers campaign is also running on Ea.com, the Electronic Arts game site that runs on AOL.