A Dull HotWired November 14, 1998 Selling out! Whatever. It's an interesting exercise to take the sponsorship to this level with Hewlett Packard's colour printer division sponsoring the site not with banner advertisements, but by draining the colour from HotWired's usually explosive mix of graphics. Especially when people associate HotWired with their interesting choices of colours. Eureka! We have a campaign with a twist! Maybe you could take it up another notch: "We know some of you hate our colours, well HP is paying us money so that you don't have to see them!" The rollovers that changed some image elements to a colour version is clever. And the animated HotWired logo (which I believe was plain gray at the start of the campaign) reminds people they aren't at Yahoo. Enliven Java Applet I remember another advertising test that HotWired took last year and it had to do with an Enliven Java applet for an AT&T ad that used sound. Sound, that elusive medium on the web outside of Real Audio and MP3s. Frankly, I found it to be annoying implementation and it was pointed out to me by people at HotWired that it was only a two week test to measure a few different issues like audience reaction. I guess we can assume there will be a similar assessment with this campaign. When is the line crossed? Well like Scott Rosenberg said in his article: "Of course, even mentioning such ideas raises the scary possibility that somebody might implement them." They will... why? Because that's what happens. Loose lips don't sink ships... loose lips leak satire that gets a marketing strategy wrapped around it. "Click here".

Related links [1] Microsoft Launches Innovative "Own the Day" Advertising Program; Microsoft Online Sales Press Release [2] HotWired advertiser sponsors a blackout; Scott Rosenberg in Salon Magazine [3] Web ads: Nothing says click here like "click here"; Joey Anuff on HotWired [4] Let There Be Color - Lycos' Wired Digital Introduces Breakthrough Concept in Integrated Web Advertising with New Hewlett-Packard Color Printing Leadership Campaign; Wired Digital Press Release