Radio one to offer cross-channel ad buys with social net acquisition

Community Connect owns and operates three minority-oriented social networks: BlackPlanet.com, AsianAve.com, and MiGente.com, which mark Latinos. It was acquired for $38 1000000 last week by Radio One, the largest radio broadcaster in the U.S. Targeting African-Americans and "urban" audiences.

Radio One also owns Giant, a civilization and hip-hop magazine, as well as part of TV One and ReachMedia, which green goods the Tom Joyner Morning Show.

Radio One has immediate plans to let marketers advertise across all its on- and off-line holdings with a single ad buy, said Tom Paul Newman, president of Radio One's Interactive division.

"We are presently working with several marketers to buy [ads] across radio, TV, print and our online platforms," he said. "Of course of study, Community Connect allows us to truly offer an online presence at significant scale. I think our marketers will be excited about that."

On its own, Community Connect boasting over 23 1000000 members and about half a one million million hits per month, according to its president, CEO and laminitis Ben Sun. Unlike some sociable network supplier, the 12-year-old company offering standard ad fare like streamer ads, but also works with marketers to reach its audiences through sponsorships, personal pages and microsites.

The company maintains an ad staff to helps marketers tailor their messages across various minority audiences, as well. For illustration, for its 2007 movie War, electric current Entertainment bought advertising across all three of the company's networks, alternately highlighting the movie's Asian star, Afro-American director and Latina leading lady.

Community Connect also collects extensive demographic information upon enrollment to any of its sites, which can be used to sharply tailor ads. But Sun said the Radio One deal will greatly expand the value it can offer advertisers.

"We've grown our sites without any advertising, so Radio One's audience will allow us to really expand our reach," he said. "It will also allow us to offer that much more by going cross-platform, to really offer a deeper interaction with our brand. This will put us in a true leadership position."

It is still not clear, however, what Radio One will do with Community Connect's non-black sites. Newman acknowledged that sites such as AsianAve.com and MiGente.com rest outside Radio One's usual target audience, but said they are still close enough to add value.

"Our primary focus at Radio One is the urban market and folks interested in that lifestyle, he said. "But we think [the other sites are] a nice complement to our existing content, and there will be a lot of overlap in terms of content and interests."

Just last week, IAC debuted the first-ever black-oriented search engine, RushmoreDrive.com. The service uses a patented algorithm to merge mainstream search results with sites most frequented by African-Americans.