NEW YORK: About.com, the online portal that boasts original content on 50,000 topics, has hired Stanton Crenshaw Communications as AOR.
The agency will help the 9-year-old web company, which was acquired by The New York Times Company in February, launch a campaign in January 2006 to highlight its offerings and build upon previous successes.
"Like other online destinations, About.com has had a lot of good news; traffic and advertising are up," said Dorothy Crenshaw, Stanton Crenshaw president.
Nielsen NetRatings calls About.com a "top 15 net property" and the company claims 20 million visitors a month.
"Some land on About.com content through other means like search engines," Crenshaw said. "Our goal is raise visibility and increase traffic that originates on About.com."
Crenshaw said that media relations, both online and off, would be a large part of the strategy. The company is still planning its other promotional initiatives. She said the agency will highlight that the portal has over one million pages of unique content, and focus on specific areas of coverage like healthcare and technology information. The agency is also considering "where it makes sense," making some of its more than 500 employee content contributors available to the media for expert opinion.
The agency will coordinate PR efforts with the New York Times Company communications staff.
Stanton Crenshaw will contribute a team of five employees. Billings are undisclosed. Sloane PR, which was About.com's AOR for one year, helped the agency through the acquisition process. It did not pitch for the new business.
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