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Advocacy is a staple of the blogosphere, and advocacy advertising on blogs is quickly becoming a popular tool for groups hoping to mobilize the online masses. That is exactly why readers of some popular blogs, most of them progressive or left-leaning, saw two ads on the Supreme Court vacancy almost as soon as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor announced her pending departure.

The National Abortion Rights Action League was behind one ad. It urged readers to "stand for freedom" and warned, "Don't let Bush's choice end yours."

Readers who clicked on the ad were redirected to a site where they could endorse a form letter or edit it to their liking before sending it to their senators. The canned text read: "We deserve to know where the nominees to the Supreme Court stand on such core mainstream values as privacy, personal freedom, and a woman's right to choose.... Please ask tough questions during the confirmation process."

The second ad was the work of Unite Our States, a political action committee launched by Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., as he explores a run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

The ad pushed the idea of "a Supreme Court for all Americans" and sent readers to a site where they could sign a petition to President Bush. "Tell the president to pick a unanimous choice," the ad said, and the petition notes the 99-0 vote in 1981 to confirm O'Connor.

Unite Our States ran its ad on about a half-dozen sites, including Dem Bloggers and Taegan Goddard's Political Wire, for about a week. The NARAL ad was online for about 10 days, according to communications director David Seldin.

"We have used them before and found them to be a very efficient way to reach an audience" that cares about NARAL issues, Seldin said.

He noted that blog readers who saw the ad visited NARAL's site, donated money, became "rapid responders" to spearhead grassroots lobbying on Supreme Court vacancies, and contacted their senators. "People are definitely energized," Seldin said.

The group ran a series of blog ads during the 2004 presidential campaign, Seldin said, and it probably will make another ad buy after Bush nominates someone to replace O'Connor.

Unite Our States is newer to blog advertising but just as enthused by the prospects. "We're trying to find politically aware, politically active Democrats," said Eric Carbone, a one-time Internet entrepreneur and now the coordinator of Web development for the group. "I find the blog ads to be a great way to get people to be aware of what you're doing."

Noting that Biden is "intimately involved" in the confirmation process, Carbone also said the PAC's online activities, which include ads on major sites like the Yahoo and Google search engines, are designed "to amplify what he's doing."

Carbone served as the director of online communications for the failed 2004 presidential campaign of Democrat Wesley Clark and helped create a blogging community for the campaign. He said Unite our States also will be creating a community of bloggers, and blog ads are helping spread the word about the PAC.

"I've already had bloggers writing to me asking what they can do to help," he said.

The online ad rush after O'Connor announced her retirement highlights the role blog ads can play when news is breaking, but they are fast becoming a staple in the policy world even when issues are not at the top of the agenda.

A recent sweep of the most popular blogs revealed ads on prescription drug imports, healthcare policy, stem-cell research, the anti-terrorism law known as the USA PATRIOT Act, the Central America Free Trade Agreement, the Free Trade Area of the Americas and U.S. policy in Iraq.

The business has soared in the past year, said Blogads founder Henry Copeland, who was in Washington last week to help teach the K Street crowd new ways of lobbying. "It's far bigger now than it was even going through the election" in 2004, he said, adding that "the advocacy stuff is up tenfold even over last September."

The ad rates are posted at Blogads, and they range from $10 a week for a slot at lesser-known sites like LeftyBlogs to $5,000 for prime real estate at Daily Kos. Advertisers can pick their audiences based on issue or political philosophy, among other options.

The company, which will mark just its third anniversary next month, now arranges ads for self-organized networks of bloggers who sell blocs of space geared toward certain audiences. The current options include the Law Blog Ad Network and the Political Insider Ad Network, which includes blogs as diverse as D.C.'s Political Report, Political Wire, PoliPundit, Talking Points Memo and Wonkette.

Even small buys can be surprisingly successful, Copeland said. He noted one "home run" by a candidate who paid $20 for a blog ad that netted a $2,000 contribution. "There are some people who swear by the $10 blogs," he said.

Copeland would not disclose any overall revenue numbers for proprietary reasons, but he said that a year ago, the company was surprised to receive one $5,000 ad order a week. Now such orders are placed every couple of days and sometimes daily. A year ago, he said, groups that were trying to sell their messages were just experimenting with blog ads. "At this point, it seems to be an established part of everybody's media mix."

Copeland has a prediction for this fall, when the people who authorize ad buys are back from summer vacation: "I really get the sense that there's going to be an avalanche come September."

Posted by admin at July 18, 2005 07:19 AM

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