UPDATE: Click on the headline for an update in NY Times: It was the business office, not the editor's, decision.
In another first, the Los Angeles Times sold its front page to The Walt Disney Company in a special promotion for “Alice in Wonderland,” which is opening on Friday.
Instead of the actual front page, readers in Los Angeles are treated to a faux front page, complete with the traditional “Los Angeles Times” masthead, splashed with a full-color photo of Johnny Depp as the
Mad Hatter. The image spilled over two “articles” on health care and Afghanistan.
The actual front page required readers to turn the page.
One media buyer insider said the ad cost $700,000, but others said that figure seemed high. Even at half that amount, it would be a huge take for the daily paper.
“We worked very closely with Disney to come up with an exceptional and distinctive way to help them open ‘Alice in Wonderland,’” said John Conroy, a spokesman for the Times. “It was designed to create buzz, and to extend the film’s already brilliant marketing campaign. “
The campaign may indeed create buzz, but perhaps not the kind that a newspaper might seek.
Last April, the paper stirred controversy by running a full-page ad on its front news page for NBC’s “Southland.” At the time, critics inside the paper and out accused the Times of selling its editorial integrity for an ad, because the ad appeared at a casual glance to be an article.
Similarly, this ad appears at a casual glance to be the actual front page, with slightly different fonts used for the articles on it.
1 comment:
Actually, this is nothing new . . . in a way. Remember how Ben Maidenburg used to make the "front page" of the BJ be a United Way promo, the entire page. Of course, it was his way of giving it away to charity. BIG difference.
Also, remember when we used to laugh at the Massillon Independent for being such a hick newspaper that it ran ads on the front page? Now the BJ does it.
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