"WIN A $25 MUSIC GIFT CERTIFICATE!
Everyone’s familiar with the song ‘Jingle Bells’. It’s traditional. It’s classic. But ChannelOne.com wants to liven things up a bit by giving YOU the opportunity to WRITE YOUR OWN NEW LYRICS to the tune of this very old song!
ChannelOne.com will choose the song with the best lyrics and post it on the web site for all to see. The writer of the winning song will also receive a $25 GIFT CERTIFICATE to the online music store CD NOW!"
This is a new feature on Channel One’s official web site. Forget the news, these young goofoffs at Channel One are into marketing, big time. This appears to be a contest to win a gift certificate if you write new lyrics to Jingle Bells. The content is really a cleverly disguised advertisement for a new advertiser called CDNow.com. This is an example of blending editorial content with advertising. No company does it better than Channel One. If a young person clicks on the CD NOW link at the end of the last sentence, he or she is not taken to another page explaining more about the contest, he or she is instead zoomed off the Channel One site to the CDNow.com site.
"Channel One’s web site will be a big issue for parents and educators in 2001," said Jim Metrock, president of Obligation. "These people out at the Channel One’s Hollywood studio who are in charge of this web site are being reckless. They think they can do anything that makes them a buck. They are dead wrong."
