Sun shines online

The Sun, Britain's highest circulation newspaper, has signed another deal with a major Hollywood studio to promote new film releases on its web site, Sun Online.

Buena Vista International is the latest studio to partner with the site to promote 'Bringing Down the House', a new comedy starring Steve Martin.

The strategy of co-marketing film releases has significantly increased traffic to the Sun's site and attracted a younger audience with a more equal gender balance than the newspaper version, which has a predominantly male readership of around 77 per cent.

Sun Online's promotions editor, Danny Rogers, told dotJournalism: "We get branding on all their media releases and association with massive films - they get access to our audience."

The Sun's web site address appears on film posters, which boosts traffic to the site. Visits to official film sites continues to increase as a consequence of the deals.

Previous promotions with 20th Century Fox, UIP and Icon have helped increase site traffic by 200 per cent since September 2001. Sun Online has around 2.4 million unique users every month, compared with daily print sales of between 3.6 and 3.7 million.

Another 15 film releases are planned for promotion on the site this year including 'Basic', which will feature Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta.

"If you imagine all the big releases this year, we'll have them," said Mr Rogers.

See also: http://www.thesun.co.uk

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