Is “Sponsored Content” the next iteration of display media?

As I read the front page of Wired.com this morning, I noticed something that caught my attention. Within the right rail below the fold, I found this “sponsored content” box.

Interesting…clearly paid for as it’s called out as “Sponsored Content” but there is no outward brand attribution (aside from the product shot itself). It’s programed more like an editorial feature than an ad placement.

The destination takes you to a richly branded Samsung LED TV promotion that engages users to “tell us what you would like to see from future TVs” using Reddit voting to bubble the best responses to the top.

The concepts of content as advertising and conversational marketing are “all the rage”.

This experience certainly provides a richer context to the product and brand as the future of TV and leading the industry in innovation. But only those people that navigate to the end destination are exposed to that message.

Given that the promotional “sponsored content” space isn’t free (no matter how the media plan was structured), did Samsung extract greater marketing return for their dollar by sacrificing scale of message to a targeted audience for a richer, deeper experience with a smaller segment of that same audience?