Innovative Podcasting Sponsorship

I've written about searching for effective business models for podcasting before (see previous post) and it's an important issue for anyone who wants to try actually making a living doing puppetry on the web. The latest episode of Ask A Ninja came out today and is an innovative example of direct sponsorship - which I think is the best business model for podcasting - that current and aspiring puppeteer/podcasters may want to take notes on.

The way the sponsorship works is simple. The Ninja spends his latest episode defining various Ninja-related words and at the end of it does a quick plug, telling the audience that the episode has been sponsored by Ask.com and telling them to go to Ask.com and search for a specific Ninja-related term. When viewers search for this word on Ask.com (you'll have to watch the episode to find out what it is) at the top of the search results is a link to a special bonus video featuring the Ninja.

This is a brilliant example of direct sponsorship because the promotion has viewers actually use the sponsor's product and immediately rewards them for their effort with a short video. It's simple, it's honest and a win-win for everybody. The Ask A Ninja guys gets sponsorship, Ask.com gets new people trying their search engine and fans of the show get a short bonus video.

Wouldn't it be nice if all advertising and promotion worked like this?

Update: NewTeeVee reports that Ask A Ninja is using Castfire to dynamically insert the Ask.com clips.