As you can see from these images these “branded cards” look almost identical to the regular cards that the company stocks, but feature a small logo from the paid sponsor near the bottom of the page. Generally, the sponsor is in someway tied to the greeting on the card. For example, a recent "branded card" had the greeting “ I hope a sexy, exotic woman we smuggle across the Mexican border never gets in the way of our friendship” and was sponsored by the hit series about urban drug dealers, Weeds. Another for Daily Candy had the following greeting: “May you never let the crumbling economy get the way of fulfilling my Christmas list (see below for a snapshot of both of these aforementioned cards).
(Images taken from httphttp://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/11/someecards-have-ads-i-actually-pay-attention-to-and-theyre-about-to-do-video/://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/11/someecards-have-ads-i-actually-pay-attention-to-and-theyre-about-to-do-video/)
In my opinion, selling “branded “ cards is an excellent business move on the part of the company. Not only is Someecards able to substantially increase sales through these new “branded ad” (these new ads are sold at a premium, and in addition to regular banner/wrap ads that are still featured alongside the cards), but these ads have the real potential of going viral because they can be easily shared through social media sites. Moreover, by tying the content to the advertiser's brand and vice versa Somecards is ensuring greater brand synergy/ logic/ fluidity to the cards, while at the same time not compromising or cheapening its content.
In the future, I think this technique could be used by other E-Card/ greeting services such as BlueMountain or Hallmark. I also think that this technique could have possible extensions with free Facebook applications. Moreover, in the long-term I think these integrated forms of online advertising will start to pose a real threat to the banner ad approach to the online marketing.
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