$nark - Advertisers Wise Up To The Interweb-Savvy

Two recent incidents made me do some serious soul-searching

1. My Mom asked how my
Bog
was going
2. My mother-in-law asked how many
Blobs
i write.

I kind of laughed off their mispronounciations and went about my business...until this morning. My 8-month-old son had a fecal explosion that went out of his diaper and up his back. As i cleaned the filth off the little critter it occurred to me that inevitably, my wife and i will be technologically retarded and at somepoint the little kid with poop in his jammies will make fun of me. Worst of all, i will deserve it.

Like my Mom, marketing professionals have been slow to warm up to nontraditional means of promotion.

Increasingly, advertisers are realizing that newer forms of media are far less expensive and equally successful in reaching certain target demografics. Enter Rocketboom. Rocketboom creators will conceive and execute the ads for Earthlink and TRM. Using nontraditional advertising, like the use of video blogs. While this route may seemingly be less expensive and riskier, Rocketboom creators say it can be good for the right advertisers.

"Our key target is the tech-savvy early adopter," said Scott Thomas, director of media and messaging for EarthLink. "We want to be cutting-edge and we want to extend beyond traditional media."

Deals like this mean big things for companies like Rocketboom and Audioblog. With usership on the rise, an ever-expanding audience means expanding advertisement budgets and everyone will be scraping for a piece of the pie.