Microsoft beat out YouTube and Yahoo! for an ad deal with Discovery Communications, Inc. to promote the upcoming 5th season of “The Deadliest Catch”. Microsoft came up with a package of ideas it has never tried before. Ads will take over the MSN.com and MSN mobile homepages and 90 percent of ad space on MSNBC and Fox Sports sites. Microsoft will run sweepstakes in video-games like ‘Shaun White Snowboarding’ and send text- message reminders to phones to watch or record the show.

To promote the premiere of “Deadliest Catch” tomorrow night, Discovery will take over MSN.com, MSNBC and Fox Sports, the first time those sites have devoted so much space to a single advertiser. A mobile-phone contest will give away points that can be used to purchase video-games and movies from Microsoft’s Xbox online service.

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