Aiming to boost awareness of its
multimedia offerings, the New York Times has
launched an online marketing campaign that
features video vignettes of celebrities
presenting unscripted descriptions of their
favorite corners of NYTimes.com.
The campaign includes videos of Kenneth
Cole, Padma Lakshmi, John Leguizamo, John
Cameron Mitchell, Isaac Mizrahi, Bebe
Neuwirth, Cynthia Nixon, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Lynn
Redgrave, Eric Ripert, Ben Stein and Justin
Tuck. While the site launched with 12 video
vignettes, Yasmin Namini, the newspaper's
senior vice president of marketing and
circulation, said more [from the same batch
of celebrities] will be published soon.
"This is a marketing micro-site,"
explained Namini. "The micro-site has
marketing modules on NYTimes.com. When you
click on them, they take you to the site."
She said the company also ran a full-page ad
in the newspaper Tuesday announcing the
micro-site. Other publicity efforts include
promotions on the Times's YouTube and
Facebook pages, Namini said.
Although the micro-site was created with
help from Your Majesty, a New York-based
marketing company, all other aspects of the
campaign were designed in-house.
The videos are built with viral
distribution over social networking channels
and blogs in mind. Namini and Soraya Darabi,
manager of partnership and buzz marketing,
noted the celebrity videos are easy to
e-mail and share on social networking sites.
"The public relations department has a
considerable contact list with influential
bloggers," noted Darabi. "There will also be
considerable press outreach... Ideally,
these videos will be promoted elsewhere off
of our channel."
Photographer and documentary maker
Douglas Keeve directed the videos. To get
the celebrities for the effort, the Times
"cast a wide net," said Namini. "We sent out
about 100 or so letters to various
celebrities in all different walks of life.
These 12 were among those that responded."
Because the vignettes were not scripted,
the celebrities sometimes do not clearly
describe where to go for the features they
espouse. To deal with that, the site
creators included drop-down menus that
appear with the videos. Viewers can click on
the menu's tabs to see the feature being
discussed in the vignette.
- Fred Aunz with Clickz
