• by John Gaffney , March 5, 2003

The strategy of cross-media advertising now has grass growing on it. The Weather Channel and its web site, weather.com, have teamed with The Scotts Company to form a multi-property advertising and content-sharing partnership starting this week. The partnership is the largest integrated initiative ever on The Weather Channel and its online component.

“In my opinion this is the quintessential example of effective online marketing,” said Paul Iaffaldano, chief revenue officer of Weather.com. “We now have overwhelming evidence that we present to advertisers showing that when you link an ad message to relevant content, consumers see it as an extension of that content. Consumers then walk away with better brand awareness and higher purchase intent.”

Weather.com has been consistently used for rich media ads by drug manufacturers for allergy products as well as other brands that focus on weather, health and timeliness. The Scotts campaign initiative includes product placement of weather-related Scotts, Miracle-Gro and Ortho Lawn & Garden Reports produced by The Weather Channel during lifestyle segments. It will also include a co-branded, weather-related lawn & garden section on weather.com. It marks the first time that both The Scotts Company and The Weather Channel are integrating sponsored on-air programming with online content.

RJ Palmer LLC/New York negotiated the partnership while Tequila/Minneapolis designed the lawn and garden micro-site.

Beginning this week, the "Scotts Lawn & Garden Center" found at the site will appear in the Home & Garden section of weather.com featuring geographically specific lawn and garden advice. Additionally, the section will provide access to interactive tools and other gardening resources. Scotts will also sponsor the Home & Garden versions of the weather.com Desktop Weather and Inbox Weather features.

Gordon Hecker, senior vice president of marketing for Scotts, said he expects to generate 50 million household impressions monthly on The Weather Channel, including our on-air Lawn & Garden Reports, while concurrently reaching up to 9 million gardeners each month with more targeted communications on weather.com.

The partnership with Scotts marks an early advertising initiative of the newly established Client Solutions Group at The Weather Channel. According to Iaffaldano, the Scotts deal and others like it has given The Weather Channel momentum among big brand advertisers who have been reluctant to commit large budgets to cross-media or even online media.

“For every deal we can talk about we have ten deals we have to keep to ourselves,” he said. “And for every ten we sign we have ten more that we’re working on. We expect this to be a very good year.”