Advertisers such as Pontiac and Wachovia are augmenting their TV campaigns on CBS' NCAA men's basketball tournament broadcasts by tapping into individual schools through their athletic departments'
official Web sites.
Big marketers always want to reach elusive college students, but now is a time to target alumni for the 65 teams chosen to vie for the national championship. These
grads not only have deep pockets, but intense emotional connections to their schools.
The colleges are getting help matching up with marketers from companies that put these small
sites together into a network, operate them and sell the ads. The giant of the field is CBS Corp.'s CSTV Networks. The other big player is Florida-based XOS Technologies Inc.
The March
Madness tournament--known in marketing circles as "March Ad-ness"--has had instant chemistry with the Internet. Television ad spending for the tournament on CBS reached $497 million in 2006, more or
less flat with the previous year. But the network's online broadcast of the games is expected to more than double its online tourney ad revenues to $10 million this year--an eye-opening growth rate.
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