A successful marriage, on the other hand, can bestow enduring benefits. The same theory applies online. Heavyweights such as Ford, Honda, Nestle, and Charles Schwab have discovered the benefits of that enduring institution called sponsorship, liberally investing their resources to break through the clutter of ubiquitous banner ads. The Web is so flexible that advertisers can design a sponsorship to any marketing objective, with a whole range of different capabilities. Arrangements vary widely, depending on whether it's an exclusive deal or a joint sponsorship, how much of the site is included, how involved the sponsor gets, and what it hopes to accomplish.
Sponsorships help advertisers build brand awareness in a particular niche market.
The secret is to go where your customers are already spending time, and provide content they're interested in, says Susman. On the other hand, Nail warns maketers not to risk alienating consumers by trying to conceal the sponsorship within the content. We can bring a benefit to the users of iVillage and a benefit to the sponsor. Mediconsult, which runs a number of health sites online, stopped selling banners last fall, because they had proved less cost-efficient than sponsorships. It's basic mathematics.