by Melinda Gipson
Gipson is NAA's director of new-media business analysis.

Few publishers would argue the fact that the advertorials, or special advertising supplements as The New York Times prefers to call its sponsored print sections, are worthy contributors to the bottom line. But perhaps they are something else as well. Used properly, they could be an engine to entrepreneurship that could spawn industries in your back yard and, with them, new advertising.

A Times supplement, Internet Untethered: Living and Working With the Wireless Web, appeared Monday, Aug. 21. The Times’ ad department paid Angelbeat (www.angelbeat.com) to write the 20-page supplement’s copy.

Inside, the pages helped readers navigate the wireless Web with subjects such as “Killer Apps of the Wireless World,” “Guidelines for Mobilizing Your Web Site,” “Building Next Generation Wireless Infrastructures” and “Investing in the Mobile Internet.” It also mentioned a seminar on the wireless Web, hosted by Angelbeat and co-sponsored by the Times advertising department and Harvard Business School Club of New York City.

Angelbeat lent credibility to the supplement because it consults with businesses in this burgeoning field. The New York Times, along with the Harvard Business School Club, lent credibility to the conference as sponsors.

The conference, set to take place the day after the supplement ran, had sold out the week before, thanks to e-mail marketing. But the package created rich promotional layering for the companies. Angelbeat organized the conference, keynoted by Dennis Patrick, president of AOL Wireless and former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Having the agenda appear so prominently in the Times couldn’t have hurt Angelbeat’s chances for attracting big-name talent. Patrick, on cue, defended the worth of brands on the wireless Web such as AOL-Time Warner and The New York Times. Other speakers were culled from companies that had advertised in the print supplement.

The event drew 500 people paying between $200 and $300 apiece, and Angelbeat retained all revenue, the exhibit sponsorships and the fees for the corresponding editorial contributions. The Times kept the advertising revenue from the supplement--and plans three more Oct. 3, Nov. 1 and Dec. 4.

What obviously works for all involved is the business-to-business networking opportunity that the supplement-cum-conference presented. Who initiated the project? In this case, opportunistic Angelbeat, whose leaders knew enough to make themselves a resource. But the Times’ managers are always on the prowl for such opportunities.

What publishers should consider is the bigger picture—that their advertising supplements, and the real-life networking opportunities they may spawn, could help fuel businesses as surely as venture capital. Business-to-business publications have known this for decades; they use the credibility of their products to brand their conferences and use their conferences to sell subscriptions.

The online side of the house didn’t play, perhaps depriving the product of still another layer of multimedia punch. The reasons are complicated, but one seems to be that cyberspace “advertorial” doesn’t sell well. When it’s presented on the Web, it certainly doesn’t have the punch of a print edition. Advertisers sometimes complain that online supplements aren’t as well integrated with independent editorial online as they are in print--online news shops have had to battle the issue of whether sponsorships compromise the brand. Giving way to such fears cuts off the earning potential that could come from marrying this medium to print supplements and the interactive networking that online does best.

The bottom line: Advertising supplements are entrepreneurial engines, online and off. And the smartest entrepreneurs among us could be publishers.