Kris Oser from AdAge.com drops the inside scoop (free registration required, or BugMeNot with clarus84[at]hotmail.com/fpdcB2B) about Sony’s sponsorship deal with Nick Denton’s Gawker Media and their new Lifehacker blog:
The deal, which also includes placements on Gizmodo, Gawker’s earlier gadget title, will cost Sony in the range of $25,000 a month, according to a source close to the deal. The sponsorship runs for about three months.
—Kris Oser
This deal is nearly unparalleled in the rest of the blog world, and caught myself and others I shared the news with completely by surprise. Denton and his Gawker Media empire are firmly planting themselves in the forefront of this new medium, and the only thing that slows them down periodically are sites that don’t do as well as Fleshbot or Gizmodo. In the article Denton mentioned that both Kinja and Kotaku didn’t get the traffic he was looking for and were considered “flops”, but two out of X ain’t that bad.
About Mike Rundle
My major concern is that Sony might consider this a failure after 3 months and totally trash blogs making other companies weary of the idea that sponsoring them might be a good idea.
You also have to wonder why would they sponsor Life Hacker and not go for full sponsorship on Gizmodo? Logic would point to the fact that maybe Denton is pulling in more than $25k per month from Gizmodo. o.O
Maybe they failed because their names really really suck.
Most of the other blogs in his empire have somewhat descriptive titles.
Yeah, see they missed the mark with Jalopnik, they should have chosen something more descriptive like The Car Blog or something ;)
I am a partner at BlackInc Ventures, which represented Gawker in this deal. I’ve know these marketers from Sony for a while now, and they are sharp and open minded.
Although I feel that this sponsorship will be successful for them, I also know that they understand that blog marketing is in a nascent stage, and believe that they would not write off the entire medium based on the results of one program.
They understand the growing importance of blogs, and I’m confident they will continue to explore opportunities regardless of the specific outcome of this sponsorship.
Plus, it seems very likely that other marketers who are not as forward-thinking will now take notice of this move by a major player and step up their consideration of marketing via blogs. This should result in far more positives than negatives for bloggers seeking to sell ads and sponsorships.
Damn. :|
but why would they sponsor a B New Site for 25K/month, i mean hiring a crew of 3 writers would v been better for them.
All I have to say is WOW and congrats to them. I hope it works out for them and all bloggers.
This gives new bloggers like myself hope that we haven’t already missed the boat. I’ll be happy with just 1/5th of that monthly take. :)