Marriott is targeting Slate magazine?s audience of iPad users with an in-application advertising campaign.

The magazine worked with Medialets to create the ads. The Slate application is available for free download in the App Store.

?The iPad is perfectly suited for video, so we created rich expandable banner ads that integrate videos highlighting the Marriott experience both visibly and audibly across multiple touch and viewing points,? said Eric Litman, chairman/CEO of Medialets, New York.

?Because Marriott?s customers are traditionally early adopters, it was important that we created an experience that matched both their technology and hospitality expectations,? he said.

Marriott has a portfolio of more than 500 hotels in 60 countries, including brands such as Marriot, JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton.

Slate is a daily online magazine that covers politics, news, business, law, culture and technology. It reaches more than six million unique visitors monthly.

About the ad
A persistent banner ad remains at the bottom of all application pages, showing the Marriott logo and reading, ?Introducing the new Marriott lobby. Designed for the driven.?

Here is a screen grab of the banner ad:

Consumers can click the ad, pulling up an in-application landing page with a photo of a Marriott lobby and three videos.

Here is a screen grab:

The videos quote three executives detailing the improved meeting areas, personal spaces, electronic charging stations, power ports and WiFi.

The free Slate application is optimized for iPad to include media integration, the ability to share material on social media Web sites, and a homepage that highlights Slate?s lead stories. It features Slate articles, videos, podcasts and, ?The Slatest? news aggregation feature.

Medialets offers rich media advertising and analytics platforms for Android, iPhone and iPad applications. Its portfolio includes The Associated Press, CNN, Photobucket and The New York Times.

?We give Slate the platform to offer their advertisers branded mobile experiences that not only delivers a message to their readers, but inspire those readers to spend time with the brand,? Mr. Litman said.

?We also provide Slate with the tools, technology and support they need to present our rich media ad formats as a strong complement to their already existing online offerings,? he said.

?We want to create an optimal experience for reading Slate on the iPad,? said Jacob Weisberg, chairman and editor-in-chief of the Slate Group, New York.

?We decided to make the app free both to reach the largest possible number of mobile users and to maximize revenue,? he said. ?Because, while the potential audience is limited by the installed base for the device, we didn?t stand to make very much money on a paid app.

?But advertiser demand for the device looks to be strong well into the future. ?

Slate will next roll out an application on the Android platform. It was first created for the iPad due to the product?s design.

?We?ve always wanted a way to read Slate on the go,? Mr. Weisberg said.

?The iPad is the first device that lets mobile readers get the full value of the magazine ? the design, the video, the podcasts,? he said. ?As we?ve already seen from traffic data, it?s much more of an evenings and weekends audience, as opposed to our audience on the Web, which comes mostly during the workday.

?So it?s bringing us new users, and encouraging our Web audience to spend more time with the site when they?re not at their desks.?

Final Take
Kaitlyn Bonneville, editorial assistant at Mobile Marketer, New York