• by David Goetzl , April 3, 2007

It's hard to believe that MSNBC, where the TV network launched as the would-be antidote to CNN 11 years ago, hasn't run a branding campaign for its eponymous Web site since. But the site, which has performed better than its oft-struggling TV relative for years, is trying to give itself a lift with a new effort--perhaps more crucial now that bloggers and other alternative news outlets are offering increasing alternatives to the veteran Internet-news outlets.

Tabbed a "A Fuller Spectrum of News," the site says it's looking--perhaps directly in response to the rise of the blogosphere--to convey a message that its content is more than just Washington, Wall Street and global trouble spots. The tagline now appears in the upper right corner of the site, under the new all-lower case "msnbc" moniker.

Still, the theme is somewhat murky. Catherine Captain, vice president of marketing at MSNBC.com, referred to "the ever-unfolding human story" and an emphasis on "quirky stories, and (a) showcase (for) the diversity of media, sources and platforms consumers discover on the site."

The site has undergone a multi-phased redesign recently, with a much greater focus on its affiliation with NBC News. Links to NBC news programs from "The Today Show" to "Meet the Press"--where visitors can segue to sites rich with video--occupy a prominent line across the top of the home page.

Site operators apparently feel the NBC News link--especially with the mass consumer hunger for online video--is a key differentiation point. The move, at least a marketing boon for NBC, comes despite Microsoft continuing to own 50% of the site.

NBC Universal took operating control of the TV network, which had been split with Microsoft, in late 2005.

The MSNBC.com campaign includes traditional media such as broadcast (much of it within the NBC family) and print (33 executions), but includes elements clearly aimed at a younger audience, from an interactive screensaver (which delivers headlines to a user's desktop that can be customized by interest) to an "in-cinema motion sensor game." New York marketing firm SS+K assisted in the initiative.

The campaign comes as MSNBC TV, under new management, is hoping to use a focus on politics to differentiate itself and build some ratings momentum through November 2008. When the network launched in the summer of 1996, it looked to outfox CNN by offering a more youthful approach to news, dovetailing with the Microsoft-influenced Web site. That soon changed as the network morphed into a more standard cable news channel.

In any case, its best-laid plans were thrown asunder--if not immediately--by the launch of Fox News Channel a month later in 1996.