Rocketboom Auctions Ad Space on eBay

Posted on January 30, 2006

Rocketboom, a popular video blog, has placed advertising space up for auction on eBay. The eBay listing says Rocketboom will create five original commercials and each commercial will receive over 200,000 views.

For the highest bidder, we will create five original, fifteen second (minimum) - one minute (maximum) post-roll commercials that will span five days of programming, Monday-Friday, March 6 through March 10, 2006. Each day that week a different commercial that we create for your company will be played at the conclusion of the Rocketboom episode.
Rocketboom reaches a minimum of 130,000 people per day and each day's video, over the course of several days, receives over 200,000 complete views. Thus, the advertisement reach for this auction is currently a minimum of one million views.

Currently the highest bid is $2,100 but it will likely go much higher as there are still nine days to go in the auction and the reserve (a hidden minimum price) has still not been met. Advertisers will not have control over the commercials which might keep some companies from bidding on the ads. A post on Adrants explains:

UPDATE: Baron clarifies writing us, "The advertiser will relinquish all control. If we get a high bidder, they will pay us right away. Then we will make the ads and play them on Rocketboom whether they like the ads or not. They will understand that by placing a bid, they give up complete control to us to do what we will."