London Evening Standard to e-auction ad slots and up distribution by 150,000

Executives at the newspaper are hoping to ramp up advertising revenues ahead of and during the London 2012 Olympics, by mirroring the outdoor industry and using e-auction to offer Olympic sponsors premium advertising packages in the paper.

Commercial executives at the Standard are now in discussions with a number of companies over the possibility of hosting the e-auction, which would be a first for the newspaper, according to sources.

The title is hoping to get a head start on other newspapers by auctioning off a number of commercial packages, such as cover wraps, front and back page strip, page two and page three ad slots.

Currently, the London Evening Standard publishes on average one cover wrap a month, but executives are hoping to lift this quota significantly during the Olympics.

London 2012 sponsors such as McDonalds, Coca-Cola and Cadbury will get first chance to buy the packages. The likelihood is that the e-auction will then be opened up to non-sponsors.

The move by the London Evening Standard apes that of the outdoor industry, which kicked off an e-auction process of outdoor sites last year, which was handled by Media Equals.

Separately, the Standard is planning to up its distribution by 150,000 to 850,000, distributing the extra copies near to the Olympic Stratford site.

All the major newspaper groups are targeting the Olympics as a possible big earner amid a difficult newspaper market.

Telegraph Media Group (TMG), the publisher of The Daily Telegraph, for instance, has created campaigns with Olympic sponsors including BT, British Airways, BP and Visa.

In January, The Sun unveiled its Olympic-themed campaign, which ran with the headline, "The Sun. 2012 is here let's make if great, Britain."

All the major national newspapers are expected to run major campaigns before and during the Olympics.

Follow John Reynolds on Twitter @johnreynolds10

This article was first published on mediaweek.co.uk