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Budweiser is ad sponsor of new TampaBay.com mobile site

The St. Petersburg Times, Florida's largest newspaper, and its TampaBay.com site have launched a mobile site to coincide with the Super Bowl in their hometown.

Created by mobile site developer and network Crisp Wireless Inc., the TampaBay.com mobile site will offer Tampa Bay news and information for readers and visitors on the go. Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser beer brand has agreed to sponsor the mobile site to tie in with its Super Bowl advertising campaign.

"Thousands of people will be coming to Tampa Bay and looking for things to do and both Crisp and TampaBay.com realized that there's no better platform than mobile to provide information," said Sasha Javid, director of business development at Crisp Wireless, New York.

The St. Petersburg Times has an average audited circulation of 390,289 Sunday and 268,935 daily subscribers. Its TampaBay.com wired Web site is TampaBay.com's No. 1 news site with 1.6 million unique visitors monthly.

The newspaper's mobile site will cover Tampa Bay, FL, news, sports, entertainment, business, events, weather, local and Florida politics and information for visitors.

In addition, the site will also serve as a guide to local events for Super Bowl activities, including Ybor City in Tampa to downtown St. Petersburg and the beaches. St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay are separated by a bridge.

Consumers can access the site at http://m.tampabay.com or by visiting http://tampabay.com/mobile.

Crisp Wireless will not only power the mobile site but also offer mobile ad serving, campaign management and creative services.

The Crisp Wireless Publisher Network includes more than 200 mobile Web sites such as Time Mobile, The Huffington Post, Perez Hilton, A&E Television Networks, USA Today, Discovery Communications, Paramount Pictures and NBC Sports.

One of the key differentiators between this assignment and the others was the launch.

"Something that we thought was really interesting was that they're launching around an event," Mr. Javid said.

That was perfect for Budweiser.

The mobile site's Budweiser landing page goes fully live Feb. 1 when Super Bowl XLIII is played in Tampa Bay. The Pittsburgh Steelers will take on the Arizona Cardinals for the NFL championship.

"What we've seen is that local properties are well-positioned to take advantage of events like these and both Crisp and St. Petersburg Times have created feeds that are specific to the channel and only available on the mobile phone," Mr. Javid said.

Advertisers on the TampaBay.com mobile site will be able to target readers through banners on specific sections such as entertainment or sports, along with run-of-site sponsorships.

The site will also let advertisers run ads inserted into SMS news alerts to opted-in readers.

"If you create a positive experience, you're going to attract repeat visitors long after these events are over," Mr. Javid said.