And the winner is ... ad-laden Oscar.com

USA Today

Online advertising might be doing a slow fade elsewhere, but blue-chip marketers still want to walk the Web carpet at the Oscars site.

Oscar.com is attracting ads from major marketers such as Pepsi, Microsoft, AT&T, Compaq and General Motors.

And ad revenue for the "official" Academy Awards Web site is up 30 percent this year, according to Meredith Yoder, vice president of ad sales for ABC.com, which jointly produces the 5-year-old site with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The growth comes at a time when the overall online ad market is tanking: Merrill Lynch predicts spending will drop 25 percent to $6 billion this year overall from $8 billion in 2000.

Exceptions to the slowdown seem to be Web sites for big events such as Sunday night's Oscars and the Super Bowl, Yoder said.

"Online advertising is down, but these big events still draw an audience. And the audience draws the advertisers," Yoder said.

In fact, page views at Oscar.com are up 80 percent. Traffic so far indicates that Oscar.com unique users this weekend will top the record 1.5 million who visited in 2000.

"You can be 'E!' or 'Access Hollywood,' but there's only one Academy Awards telecast," Yoder said.

The Oscar site offers previews, games and other content. And it promises visitors "exclusive" streaming video of stars arriving at the red carpet and the media area.

Such Web sites appeal to marketers as a cheaper way to get "rub off" from a big event without paying a big TV price, notes analyst Christopher Todd of Jupiter Media Metrix in New York.

Some Oscar advertisers, including Microsoft and Compaq, are only advertising online, Yoder says.

While 30-second ads on ABC's telecast this evening cost $1.4 million, Todd predicts total ad revenue for Oscar.com will be less than $1 million.

"You get more bang for your buck," he said.