I spend a lot of time on ESPN – particularly their mobile properties… which for big media brands – really are the best available. And while I have been critical of ESPN.com’s relaunch, I respect their ability to land big advertising deals (though skeptical of the advertisers’ results).

Today’s campaign is the most in-your-face yet…

If you have somehow forgotten that Valentines Day is on the horizon – ESPN and JC Penny are certain to make sure that you won’t forget. After all, about 70% of the homepage is covered in Valentine’s promotions. The ads are nicely aligned and build on one another (a major complaint of using AdSense or other contextual networks that result in disjointed units).

I hope that ESPN is getting a very solid CPM deal here, because as a reader, this is a major turn-off. I am all for advertising – particularly on great, free content. But at a point, two things happen:

1. You get irritated, and/or
2. It takes too long to get to the content

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