With a truly shrewd sponsorship, the user will barely, or rarely, detect a paid advertising presence at all. The online sponsor can realize the newspaper advertiser s dream of the continuing advertorial sole responsibility for generating and distributing content of direct concern to the advertiser. The sponsor can share in and profit by the trust and loyalty a site has extracted from its users. Advertising can become embedded in and virtually indistinguishable from the content of an established and respected informational site. The field is new, and not without its rough spots.
Sponsorships can be expensive.
Prices vary wildly. There is likewise no standardized system for measuring consumer response. Yet the possibilities cannot be ignored. At the very outer limits of the nascent sponsorship spectrum, it s possible for an advertiser to slyly sponsor itself. At the bottom of the page lay a modest announcement stating the site was sponsored by the pharmaceutical company SmithKline Beecham.