There’s much more to the site than topnotch news content, and the new ‘surround sessions’ model is just the latest of many ad innovations. NYTimes.com contains everything that appears in the national
and New York editions of the paper. But as you would expect, there’s a lot more to the website than topnotch news content. It also includes a variety of additional interactive features, including a
Flash animation photo journal of the war in Afghanistan, audio and video cooking programs, interviews with reporters and editors, and tours of restaurants reviewed in the paper.
The site is also
renowned for its innovative advertising, especially the surround sessions it introduced recently. A surround session is a succession of ads from the same sponsor played throughout a visit to the site.
At least five different ads are guaranteed to advertisers, and if a visitor signs off before seeing five there’s no charge to the advertiser. That number may soon change to three, however, according
to vice president of advertising sales Jason Krebs. Surround sessions are innovative because they allow an advertiser to sustain a message. They also allow for audience-based instead of
impression-based advertising, suddenly transforming online advertising into a medium more like TV, which measures audiences through gross rating points. The measurement factor is what made surround
sessions so popular when they were first introduced. A number of advertisers have been using them, including American Airlines, Nexium, Etrade, Verisign, and Visa.
NYTimes.com didn’t rest on its
laurels after launching surround sessions. Its latest innovation is a full-page interstitial for British Airways, which first ran in January. The format isn’t new, but it was a first for NYTimes.com.
The site has also been running 30- and 60-second TV commercials in different areas. An ad for Coke ran on the sports page, while one for Miramax’s The Shipping News ran on national news and
business.
“We push some formats on our own and look at what the industry is doing, the IAB and OPA, and we work with clients who help push the envelope,” Krebs says.
A survey participant
praises NYTimes.com’s surround sessions as being ideal for communicating an extended message. “Much information needs to be conveyed, and this provides the needed real estate.” The participant also
says, “When you buy banners and skyscrapers, you pay for impressions separately, but with this you pay for the session. It’s not impression-based, it’s user-based.”
Unique audience: 6.6 million
Time per person: 36 minutes 2001 ad revenue, through Sept: $9.4 million