PhRMA blogs on blogs

PhRMA’s new blogad functions as an ad-as-blog by linking to supporting arguments by Rudy Guiliani and www.Powerlineblog.com Check Technorati or Blogpulse and you’ll discover that PhRMA’s position has a number of vehement blog supporters. As with focus groups, smart advertisers can pre-screen their messages against what bloggers are already saying about their issue.

Update: via Jarvis, I just found this great article in today’s WSJ about exactly this blog-watching by corporations

Now, a growing number of marketers are using new technology to analyze blogs and other “consumer-generated media” — a category that includes chat groups, message boards and electronic forums — to hear what is being said online about new products, old ad campaigns and aging brands. Purveyors of the new methodology and their clients say blog-watching can be cheaper, faster and less biased than such staples of consumer research as focus groups and surveys. …

Blog-monitoring services typically charge big companies $30,000 to $100,000 a year. They say their technology goes beyond basic tools, such as keyword searches or counting links from one Web site to another, both features available at no charge from online services such as Technorati.com and Yahoo’s Buzz Index.