AOL Poised To Break Online Branding Campaign

America Online will next month launch an online branding effort as part of an estimated $50 million initiative to promote its portal, AOL.com, which offers free content and features that were previously available only to subscribers.

The campaign also will include paid search advertising, optimizing AOL properties for search engine crawlers and TV and print ads.

In a shift from prior ad strategies, the largest proportion of the total media spend will be online, instead of TV or other traditional media, said Kevin Conroy, executive vice president, AOL Media Networks. "As our business model is evolving, so is our marketing strategy," said Conroy, who is heading AOL's effort to launch its portal. "We're really leaning into online because we believe in this medium to ... reach the audience we want to reach," he said, adding: "TV is really the smallest element of this and we'll be very selective about television."

Paid search will represent the single biggest chunk of media spend, followed by online branding efforts. Online impressions are expected to run on more than 200 news, entertainment, sports, and lifestyle sites, such as E! Online, CNN.com, Maxim, Oprah, and WebMD.

The online branding campaign, developed by Atmosphere BBDO, will emphasize experiencing AOL's content in real time, Conroy said. OMD is handling media buying and planning.

Carat Interactive is leading AOL's paid search and search optimization efforts, while The Martin Agency is developing the offline campaign. Hill Holliday, AOL's trade agency, is also involved in promoting the portal launch.

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