Carat Fusion has created an exclusive advertising buyout of Slate.com's standard interactive ad units on behalf of Hyundai in order to get in front of Slate's audience of educated decision-makers and online shoppers. Yesterday, Hyundai was featured in a special homepage site treatment on Slate.com and also took over all standard ad units for 24 hours as part of the online media buy, reports MediaBuyerPlanner. The exposure included a dissolving homepage treatment - and a brand presence on all big box, skyscraper, and leaderboard ad units.

The buy also included targeted positions on Newsweek.com which, like Slate.com, is part of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. The creative elements used in the advertising units and home page takeover execution were designed by Click Here.

Some 64 percent of Slate's visitors are college graduates, 44 percent have an annual household income of $75,000 or more, 96 percent have shopped online and 40 percent hold a professional or managerial position.

This creative media buy comes on the heels of an eMarketer study estimating that automakers will nearly double their online ad spending over the next two years. The study projects online ad spending in the auto category to rise to $2.7 billion in 2007, up from $1.4 billion last year.