• by Joe Mandese , September 13, 2005

In one of the most original examples of branded content in a print media buy to date, readers of the Letters to the Editor column in next week's edition of US News & World Report will see three extra letters: D - H - L. As part of a $50 million campaign unveiled by the express courier service, the DHL brand will break another wall between advertising and editorial, running a succession of nine-page sectional ads that will transform US News & World Report's Letters to the Editor page into a "checkerboard" of advertising and editorial content.

The unusual print buy, believed to be a first of its kind, is just one in a series of unusual print media extravaganzas in a national advertising category where TV normally gets the creative attention. Other print media stunts include a special edition of next Sunday's New York Times Magazine crossword puzzle, which has been written based on clues that either reference or relate to DHL.

But what makes the imaginative ad strategies really unusual is that they were not created by DHL's creative agency, Ogilvy & Mather, but its sister media shop, Mediaedge:cia.

"We challenged them to find ways of bringing the DHL brand alive through their magazine," says Roseanne Peterson, partner-account director on the DHL business at Mediaedge:cia, explaining what led to the creative brainstorming that inspired the unconventional print media executions.

In the case of the US News & World Report stunt, Peterson says the goal was to tie DHL into a place in the magazine where readers interact with the content.

The placement represents another milestone in the evolution of branded content in consumer magazines, a practice that is intriguing to advertisers, but frequently controversial among magazine editors.

This is not the first time advertisers have broken into sacred print editorial space. Over the past year, a variety of new ad formats have been creeping into editorial pages. In one of the most controversial formats--so-called "shadow ads"--advertisers have superimposed their brand names, logos, and icons directly on editorial content in newspapers.

"I don't think what we've done is anything that crosses the line," says Peterson. "It's very clear that the ads are the ads and not a letter to the editor. We're just weaving the DHL brand into the story."

Peterson says Mediaedge:cia plans other print iterations during the course of the campaign, which runs through the end of the year, as well as a variety of TV, online, and outdoor advertising.