Yahoo! and Fox Extend Partnership... Doh!
Expect to see Homer and the rest of Fox's television season permeate the pages of Yahoo! in a giant Fall advertising blitz.
Fox Entertainment and Yahoo
say they had such a great time working together marketing Fox’s summer movies that the two media upstarts have decided to do it again.
The two companies Thursday confirmed that Yahoo will plaster promotional ads for Fox’s Fall television shows from both the network and its cable offshoot FX.
Financial terms of the agreement were not discussed, but the deal is noteworthy because its Fox’s largest advertising commitment to a single Web publisher to date. The agreement is also a boon to Yahoo, which has been working hard to increase its ad revenue.
Among the television series slated for promotion on Yahoo include “The Bernie Mac Show” and “24”, in addition to new 2002-2003 season series such as “Fastlane”, “Firefly” (from the creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”), and “John Doe”. Yahoo said it will also cross-promote FX series “The Shield,” and “The Pentagon Papers.”
Yahoo said it would still maintain its marketing agreement with Fox to promote films like the upcoming “Daredevil,” “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,” “Solaris,” and “X-Men 2.”
For its part, Fox and FX will provide Yahoo with exclusive video material from the various TV series and films.
The enviable task of taking designing the various ads has fallen on the shoulders of Fox executive vice president of marketing Roberta Mell.
“With the launch of every season, we’re looking for new strategic ways to reach our target audience,” said Mell. “Online promotion is a key vehicle for getting the message to that key demographic.”
That key demographic being 18- to 24-year-old males and Yahoo said we can expect to see pretty much every online advertising trick in the book on this one.
The tactic is similar to others being established between traditional media and the online world.
Recently, AOL Time-Warner property Warner Brothers has decided to distribute several movies, including Harry Potter and Mars Attacks, via the Internet.
But this is not the first time that Yahoo has courted the movie industry as a promotional space. Ever since former movie mogul Terry Semel took the reigns at the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based media company, the focus has been on establishing better relationships with Hollywood, hence the move of key staff and offices to a location in Los Angeles earlier this year.
In addition to Fox, Yahoo has partnered with other major studios, including Disney , AOL Time Warner’s Warner Bros., Sony Pictures, and Vivendi Universal.
“At a time when television viewers are more selective in their programming choices, we are delighted that FOX is turning to Yahoo to reach their core audience,” said Yahoo Media, Entertainment, Information and Finance senior vice president Jim Moloshok.
For example, Moloshok said one of the early “The Bernie Mac Show” episodes centers on golf, so there is a plan to promote the show on Yahoo’s online golf channels.
