Mele’s Musings

Woman to Woman, Online

Authenticity appeals to readers, but are advertisers ready to play?
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Picture: dooce.com

Article excerpt:  Heather Armstrong’s wickedly funny blog about motherhood, Dooce, is more than just an outlet for the creativity and frustrations of a modern mother. The site, chock full of advertising, is a moneymaking machine — so much so that Ms. Armstrong and her husband have both quit their regular jobs. J. C. Penney and Crate & Barrel sell their furniture and offer decorating tips next to posts on Ms. Armstrong’s conversations with her 4-year-old daughter, Leta. Walgreens promotes its photo printing services next to pictures of the family dog. And the W Hotel chain of Starwood brags about its Internet-friendly rooms on the Dooce (pronounced deuce) home page. These advertisers are eager to influence the 850,000 readers, mostly women, who avidly follow Ms. Armstrong’s adventures. Although Ms. Armstrong will not disclose exact numbers, Dooce’s revenue this year is on track to be seven times its size in 2006, according to Federated Media, which sells ads for the blog. Sites aimed primarily at women, from “mommy blogs” to makeup and fashion sites, grew 35 percent last year — faster than every other category on the Web except politics, according to comScore, an Internet traffic measurement company. Women’s sites had 84 million visitors in July, 27 percent more than the same month last year, comScore said.
The rest: NYTimes.com

Musing:   Some really interesting pieces in this article, but two that I would like to point out.  The first is that many of these women’s blogging sites are blogging articles related to the sponsors of their websites.  At first glance, this seems to be a really bad idea – doesn’t there appear to be a huge conflict of interest if articles about steak preference are created to house ads for steaks from Wal-Mart?  Interestingly enough, this may actually be ok with many readers. Some of our research has found that people are ok with content from brands that crosses between ad and editorial – as long as the content is of value and is real.  The second is that what makes these sites popular is exactly the thing that makes them difficult for advertisers to deal with – they are often irreverent and definitely not afraid to tackle some sensitive issues.  Rather than worry about guilt by association, brands should be more focused on the halo effect of supporting real conversations on real topics.  Brands that are willing to be brave like that will likely thrive.