• by John Gaffney , February 10, 2003

At a time when the media economy is on hold awaiting events in Iraq, MSNBC.com has added two senior marketing staff to expand the company's cross media advertising efforts.

Mary Paris, former director of business development at NBC, joins MSNBC.com as Director of Cross Media Sales. Paris will oversee MSNBC.com's media ad sales and branding across MSNBC and NBC, in cooperation with MSN. MSNBC.com also has hired ad sales veteran and entrepreneur Thomas Bosco as Regional Sales Director for the East and Midwest.

Charles Tillinghast, Sr. Director of Business Development and Sales for MSNBC.com, said the timing of the new cross-media initiative was based on the availability of Paris and Bosco, as well as advertisers attraction to MSNBC.com’s themed TV/Internet model.

“In some respects this kind of advertising divisions has been in the works since the co-venture was started,” Tillinghast said. “Our model does not pull together inventory from disparate properties and offer them to advertisers. We’re putting together themed packages that match a TV news property with an interactive component.”

MSNBC.com has already scored several times with the model. Two of the highest profile cases involved last summer’s two events: the Summer Concert Series, and The Today Show Wedding. The wedding feature was sponsored offline and offline by Target’s Club Wed. The Summer Concert Series was presented lived by FYE, and online retail selections were sponsored by the chain as well.

“The model is the same for Meet The Press or The Olympics,” Tillinghast said. “We want to promote interactivity and give sponsors a chance to connect their TV effort to an online effort.”

Tillinghast said “dozens” of packages are being presented currently to clients.