• by Shankar Gupta , May 1, 2006

Slate Magazine Friday launched an ad campaign for PBS's "Texas Ranch House," the latest in a series that includes "Colonial House," "Manor House," "Frontier House," "1800s House" and "1948 House."

When users point a mouse over the ad, it takes over the Slate.com home page with a speculative version of what the Web site would look like if it detailed news from Texas, circa 1867. For instance, the "Dear Prudence" advice column on the sepia-toned speculative page carries the teaser, "I'm in love with a fellow cowboy." (The actual "Dear Prudence" column, on the real Slate.com home page, is teased with the question, "Can I get past my girlfriend's cancer scars?")

The spot is technically similar to a Visa ad that ran on Slate in February, which displayed the home page as a mirror image, and then when the ad was rolled over, the screen flipped back to normal. "We're doing a lot of different innovative campaigns; we're definitely working with our advertisers for any kind of innovative way for reaching with our users and connecting with them, and a lot of times that involves the home page," said Slate.com publisher Cliff Sloan.

Also running on the Slate.com home page this week is an ad for the Cooper Mini, which links to a Mini-branded microsite that collects a set of "good news" from Slate, including "My Year of Hurricanes: Calculating the good things that came out of Katrina," "The Peace Epidemic," and "A Little Anthology of Love Poems."

The PBS ad is expected to go dark today, coinciding with the launch of the series. The Cooper Mini campaign began in mid-April, and will run for two months.