• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, October 30, 2004

The New York Times is rolling out a new ad campaign for its electronic edition--targeting consumers who work in the business world and international consumers, Guy Tasaka, product manager for the electronic edition, said Friday.

The campaign will run on a point roll platform, which is a banner that can expand vertically, depending on what a user does with his mouse. The banner contains buttons reading "Get a Free Sample," Learn More," and "Buy Now," and, if a user moves his mouse over those buttons, more information will automatically scroll the page.

The point roll ads, which will run on the Yahoo! News site TheStreet.com, and other online sites read by business people, were expected to start running by today, said Tasaka. A second component of the campaign, a rich media ad, also began running last week on sites such as Salon.com, and a third component--a banner ad with flash--will soon break, said Tasaka. The campaign was created by Digitas, which the Times uses for direct response advertising.

The electronic edition of the Times, unlike the online version on NYTimes.com, offers readers a version that looks like the hard copy, with the same fonts and layout as the printed version. Unlike the NYTimes.com, users must pay a subscription fee for the electronic edition.

Tasaka said the electronic edition subscribers skew slightly toward business people and international readers, but the Times declined to provide exact percentages.

The new campaign--the first since May, when the Times relaunched the electronic edition--comes as other online sites are figuring out how to increase subscriptions. For example, the Wall Street Journal announced last week that it would allow readers without subscriptions to read the online Journal between Nov. 8 and Nov. 12.