• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 31, 2004

The sudden explosion of blog publishing has created a paradox for some publishers. While blogs, or weblogs, have become wildly popular sources of news and information for many Internet users, publishers still seem to be struggling with how to turn them into a critical app for the advertising business. Now, a seemingly unlikely source appears to be doing just that--developing a blog as a means of communicating with the nation's largest national advertisers.

The Association of National Advertisers has quietly launched the ANA's Weblogs, a periodic series of musings and missives from two of the organization's leading thinkers: President-CEO Bob Liodice and Executive Vice President-Government Relations Dan Jaffe.

Liodice plans to post his "ANA Marketing Musings" two to three times per week, offering the ANA's take on major marketing industry developments, ANA initiatives, as well as his personal insights on the trade.

Jaffe's "ANA Regulatory Rumblings" will appear weekly, and will focus on key regulatory and legal issues that pose a potential threat to the "freedom of commercial speech" of national advertisers.

Current postings include an update from Liodice on public service initiatives being deployed by the ad industry to address childhood obesity, and a position paper by Jaffe on the ad industry's opposition to elements of the Children's Protection From Violent Programming Act.

Currently, there are no user postings, but Liodice said the site, located at www.ana.net/blog, would welcome them as an opportunity to generate feedback and dialogue from ANA members or the community at large.

At least one expert on blog-related marketing doesn't think the effort--at least not its initial iteration--may be the smartest move for the ANA.

"Just because everyone is writing about blogs doesn't mean everyone should have one," opines Drew Neisser, president-CEO of Renegade Marketing Group. "Are we to believe that the copy in the blog will be any less pasteurized than the rest of the site? Not a chance. This is just another blog to slog through."