Deja News Names Organic Media as Interactive AOR

Online discussion site Deja News named Organic Media, New York, as its interactive agency of record and assigned it the task of a repositioning.

Organic, which competed with three agencies for the account, will create a “mid seven-figure” online campaign, Deborah Newman, vice president-marketing at Deja News, told Advertising Age.

Organic will also handle Deja News’ online media placement, previously handled by Beyond Interactive in Mich.

Beyond reportedly participated in the review as did two other, undisclosed agencies. Newman, who joined Deja News in December from Music Boulevard is charged with broadening the site’s appeal beyond the high-tech male user, the majority of its audience to date, and “expand that to a general user,” Ad Age said.

Deja News claims 4 million unique users a month. Newman said she wanted to consolidate media placement with creative, which had been handled with an Austin-based free-lancer.

Hala Makowska, vice president-managing director at Organic, was quoted as saying that new ads are set to break in early May won’t just be “buying banners and buttons, but coming up with custom units,” such as ads or sponsorships that contain Deja News content, or ads placed near search results. Other, traditional agencies will conduct an offline campaign.