Hoppin’ Down the Religious (and Not-So-Religious) Web Ad Trail

Much like during election season, we will likely see a number of Web ads designed to either defend or rail against the holiday.

Whether you’re celebrating a religious holiday this spring or railing against one, there’s bound to be a Web ad running right about now that aims to appeal to folks of your creed. From the one featuring a harmless little bunny in the crosshairs of an assault weapon, to the one demanding, “Don’t Passover this Comedy,” to the one capturing the morning light as it breaks above the mountaintops, ’tis the season for spiritual ads.

Among the more off-beat campaigns running is the “War on Easter” campaign promoting the anti-Christian documentary film, “The God Who Wasn’t There,” produced by Beyond Belief Media. Starting last Sunday, Beyond Belief ran tongue-in-cheek ads featuring a photo of a rabbit caught in the crosshairs of a hunting rifle on blogs including Talking Points Memo, Eschaton, Jesus General and BAGNewsNotes. The ad creative changed yesterday to present a still image from the movie, linking to a video clip from the film which argues that Christ never existed.

Brian Flemming, director of the atheist flick and Beyond Belief Media president, is a big proponent of blog ads, specifically those he places in the Blogads network, which he said usually garner click-through rates of between 1 and 5 percent. The company, which formed in March of last year, also runs Google AdWords image ads on specific sites such Salon.com, liberal commentary sites like Air America and The Huffington Post and news site BreitBart.com…. Source: ClickZNews

[tags]election season,points memo,war on easter,bagnewsnotes,blog ads[/tags]