• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, June 9, 2006

State Farm, AT&T, and Georgia Pacific have signed on as sponsors for Disney Online's site for the new Disney and Pixar animated movie "Cars."

The official movie site, www.disney.com/cars, offers visitors a plethora of features beyond the now-standard trailer--including games, trading cards, and podcasts, among others. In addition to the three main sponsors, the site is also running banner ads from Fandango--which offers a widget for users to obtain showtimes, and a link to purchase tickets--as well as from other marketers.

The initiative marks the first major ad effort surrounding a movie site since Brad Davis, vice president of ad sales, joined Disney Online last September. Davis served as a director of sales at Comcast Cable's Spotlight division; he also worked at AOL. While Disney Online built a similar site for "The Incredibles," that site just had a single sponsor.

Davis said that Disney Online plans more content-rich movie sites. "This will be a major component of our sales strategy going forward." The next movie site that Disney intends to build out with multiple sections and sponsors is "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," set for release next month.

The "Cars" site is being promoted on Disney's own editorial properties as well as the sites of its sponsors.