AD-Mania

A relatively new take on site sponsorship has started being used more and it is worth discussion. Themed sponsorship is when the overall theme of a website is entirely changed and attributed to a new sponsor.

Here is an example of a recent themed sponsorship done at an online forum community:

Original theme that was in use for years:

And here is what happened when they sold off sponsorship of the theme:

Now, with themed sponsorship the changes don’t have to be as dramatic as this, but it is hard to argue that this wouldn’t get the attention of the members of that community. The only real argument is were the changes too much? Were members of the community offended by such drastic changes? And that is a hard argument to settle, although there was much discussion at this site about those things.

Themed sponsorship, if done correctly, could be a great way to reach hundreds or thousands of people devoted to a specific niche. But, it is a fine line you walk as a site owner because you don’t want to scare off your members by having them think your site is under new ownership or has been hacked. Dedicated members of a web community sometimes also don’t like to feel they are being sold something every time they open a new page.