• by Masha Geller , June 10, 2003

Larger ads are al the rage these days in the online advertising world. Following the example of several major publishers, including New York Times Digital, Forbes.com and CBS MarketWatch, Weather.com yesterday announced it has secured its first advertiser utilizing the site's 300x600 ad unit, which was specifically designed to strategically position the ad so that it can be viewed in its entirety along with weather.com content.

When a user scrolls down the page to bring the content into full view, the half page ad is presented above the fold. These ads will appear throughout the site and can be targeted based on geography; weather conditions, using the sites weather-triggered capability; or to users who have shown an interest in lifestyle-content sections within weather.com.

American Airlines became the first advertiser to utilize the new ad size on weather.com on June 10. Their campaign is targeted to consumers who live in or plan to visit New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco and will run for a period of two months.

"In the competitive field of online travel, creating impact with online customers is critical for American Airlines, therefore we believe taking advantage of this larger ad size on weather.com will help our client generate increased message awareness and revenue" said James Hering, senior vice president and director of interactive marketing of Temerlin McClain, American Airlines' Interactive agency. "The prominent placement is integrated very well into the site's content so that users have an adequate amount of time to absorb the complete message and be compelled to book online."

"We made a conscious decision to position these ads in away that ensures they will be effective," said Paul Iaffaldano, chief revenue officer for weather.com. "Since the goal of these campaigns is to increase brand awareness and purchase intent, it is important that the ad is completely visible to users while they are interacting with our content. We believe that these ads will become a very powerful tool for our clients, who already understand the impact that advertising on weather.com has on creating product preference."

Additionally, weather.com now features a prominent ad unit, referred to internally as the Triple Decker. This advertising product consists of three units that are sold as a package a header sponsorship and a top and bottom 300x250 placement.

Weather.com is the newest addition to the team of sites offering half page ads, a movement that was started by New York Times Digital in April when MCI began running the large ads on both of its sites, NYTimes.com and Boston.com.