Online Media of the Year: Biz & Fin No. 3 CNN

Category: Business & Finance

Owned by: Turner International Asia Pacific

President, CNN Worldwide: Jim Walton

Managing director, CNN International: Tony Maddox 

CNN managing editor Europe, Middle East and Africa: Nick Wrenn

CNN's recent online advertising initiatives with clients like Suzuki Motor Corporation and Konica Minolta are a breath of fresh air to those of us who are used to seeing the usual banner and pop-up advertisements.

The website has been actively creating interactive online specials with its clients, combining information with extensive branding and sponsorship exposure in raising consumer interest.

It is easy to see why these initiatives sit well with consumers and advertisers alike - cnn.com's recent collaboration with Konica Minolta, ‘Digital Biz', gave readers an in-depth look at the world of digital business with news, analysis and features. The initiative drove traffic to Konica's own website, The Future is Here, helping with the company's attempt to draw attention to their digital business.

Set up in 1995, CNN lays claims to being most respected and trusted sources for news and information, with reach extending to 14 cable and satellite television networks and five websites, of which one is cnn.com. CNN sites also lay claim to being the number one destination amongst all online news and information sites, averaging more than 51 million page views per day based on 2004 figures.

Cnn.com was the first entrant of foreign origin in this category, right behind local sites channelnewsasia.com and asiaone.com. It fared well in our Online Media of the Year survey, taking up an overall 3^rd ranking, having gathered 9.24% of all respondents' votes as one of the top three business sites respondents would advertise with.

Overall, majority of respondents who voted for cnn.com ranked it 1^st, and this pattern occurred with respondents from companies of local and foreign origin, as well as respondents with both local and regional responsibilities. Ostensibly, cnn.com received wider recognition from respondents with regional responsibilities than those with local responsibilities, which is hardly surprising given the website's reach worldwide - 63% of the former as compared to 53.9% of the latter who gave cnn.com their votes ranked it 1st place.

Agency-side respondents and client-side respondents coincided in their ranking of the website. Both sets of respondents ranked cnn.com 1^st, although more agency-side respondents ranked it 1^st than client-side respondents - 68% of the former ranked it 1st while 29.5% of the latter ranked it 1st.

Across job functions, cnn.com got a relatively equal number of votes from agency people performing CEO, creative, account servicing and media buying functions although interestingly, public relations consultants kept their distance from cnn.com, preferring to vote for 5^th placed Business Times and 1^st placed Channel NewsAsia, both Asian outfits. Vice presidents, directors of marketing and brand and product managers on the clients' side were the most supportive of cnn.com, putting in 11.01% and 17.65% of votes respectively.

Indeed, cnn.com's efforts at new forms of collaboration on the advertising front upholds its parent company Time Warner's claim on its website that its divisions are at the top of their categories, maintaining "unrivalled reputations for creativity and excellence as they keep people informed, entertained and connected".