Cars.com Takes 2006 Media Campaign Online

Online Brand Campaign Promotes Site's Ease of Use and Extensive Inventory for New, Used Vehicle Buyers

CHICAGO, May 16 -- Cars.com ramps up its 2006 media campaign with a new online brand campaign launching today across the most-visited Internet portals and popular news, sports and entertainment sites, including Yahoo!, AOL Autos, CBS Sportsline, Weather.com, Autoblog.com and Evite.com.

"With consumers now spending as much as 30 percent of their media time online, Internet marketing plays an increasingly important role in building brand awareness," said Mitch Golub, president of cars.com. "Just as we have done offline, we are making a significant investment to familiarize Web users with the cars.com brand and drive in-market automotive shoppers to our site."

"We are using a variety of high-profile placements to break-through in the online environment, including rich media ads, impactful unit sizes and premium positions," said Carolyn Crafts, vice president of marketing at cars.com. "To reach automotive intenders, we'll use a wide variety of formats such as homepage takeovers, roadblocks, behavioral targeting and targeted sponsorships at key Internet destinations."

The online brand campaign will complement existing online marketing initiatives aimed at traffic generation, including a significant search engine marketing campaign on Google and Yahoo!, as well as exclusive distribution partnerships with leading consumer destinations, Kelley Blue Book's kbb.com and MSN Autos.

Combined with cars.com's national television campaign that launched in March and the local promotional efforts of cars.com's 200 local media partners, the 2006 integrated campaign is valued at more than $100 million and will reach more than 200 million consumers. Since the launch of its new television campaign this March, cars.com has set new records for monthly unique visitors, reaching more than 8 million unique visitors in each of the months since the campaign went on air.

"It's all about reaching more high-quality, ready-to-buy customers, attracting them to cars.com, and ultimately to our advertisers," said Golub. "Our investment in marketing combined with continual site improvement is paying off and driving results for our advertisers."

About cars.com

Partnered with more than 200 leading metro newspapers, television stations and their Web sites, cars.com is the most comprehensive destination for those looking to buy or sell a new or used car. The site lists more than 1.5 million vehicles from more than 10,000 dealer customers, classified advertisers and private parties to offer consumers the best selection of new and used cars online, as well as the content, tools and advice to support their shopping experience. Recently selected by Forbes.com as a Best of the Web site for car shopping, cars.com combines powerful inventory search tools and new-car configuration with pricing information, photo galleries, buying guides, side- by-side comparison tools, original editorial content and reviews to help millions of car shoppers connect with sellers each month.

Launched in June 1998, cars.com is a division of Classified Ventures, LLC, ( http://classifiedventures.com/ ), which is owned by six leading media companies, including Belo , Gannett Co. Inc. , Knight Ridder , The McClatchy Company , Tribune Company and The Washington Post Company .