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It is certainly not a new advertising method, but a different sort of advertising has been brought to the attention of some people lately. Themed sponsorship is when the very theme of a website is sold or taken over by an advertiser. This can sometimes be a very cool idea and sometimes not be accepted by viewers of the website in question, especially if the website is a tight knit online forum.

Here is an example of a recent theme sponsorship change at an online forum:

Original theme that was in use for quite some time:

and here is how it was changed once an advertiser paid for theme sponsorship:

Now, that is quite a difference and you can understand that as effective as the change was in getting the new sponsor noticed, it may have also ruffled the feathers of some of the members of the community. It did create quite a discussion between those that liked the theme change and those that didn’t. It is hard to tell, unless you are the sponsor itself, how effective such a marketing campaign can be, though it definitely gets the sponsor’s name out in a way that it can’t help but be noticed.