Online Content Sponsorship-Sometimes Good, Sometimes God Awful (ESPN Frosted Flakes WTF?)

I recently polled the great bloggers of Bloguin about their receptiveness to having some content sponsored. The example I gave was what if Yahoo Fantasy Sports sponsored a blog (meaning they would have their advertising or branding in or around the post) on the worst fantasy pick you have ever made. Yahoo wouldn’t have to be mentioned or have any editorial control, but would just be the sponsor of the segment. Most of the bloggers liked the idea but a lot of their openness to it really depends on the actual campaign and how it fits with their blog. That being said here are some examples of when this is a good thing and when it goes terribly wrong. Frosted Flakes and ESPN= Wost Concept Ever So lets start at the top with this campaign. ESPN had ads all over ther site which direct you to to this “Earn Your Stripes” co branded ESPN and Kellogs page. Every single thing on this page is fluff that doesn’t sell Frosted Flakes well and feels like forced content that just wreaks of cheesy ridiculous shtick . They point you to videos like this which pretty much leave you wondering why this was ever made.

So why is this being jammed down your throats at espn.com right now? Brands like to get more integrated with content and look to align their brands when it makes sense. Plus ESPN really sold them that this was cool and was going work. In reality this doesn’t make any sense and is a huge turnoff. Cool Nike/Cavs Viral Video Below is a cool video the Cavs and Nike have put online. Its already got 400k views. I give it high marks except the first minute could be edited down to 10 seconds. Save yourself some time and just start at the one minute mark. Its pretty funny and plays off the recent Heineken advertisements.

Funny and memorable. This is much better. My all Time Favorite. If you go to the College Humor page where this is housed, you get a better feel of how Axe sponsored this video. This is the gold standard in terms of content sponsorship for me. Axe gets a mention in the video and both display and video ad units that are connected to the theme of the video but does not take way from the terrific content itself.