There’s an article in Ad Age today about English 180, an online language course that launched recently.

My first thought about English 180 is that it’s a really clever idea. Here’s a product that helps people, is easily accessible, and it’s free. It helps people because it teaches them English in simple lessons on the English 180 website and through emails. It’s free because it is advertiser supported. Not in the traditional way, with banners or Google ads, but rather they incorporate advertisers’ content into the language lessons. This seems like a good idea both because it makes the content of the lessons more relevant to the user and because it gives English 180 a stronger relationship with the advertisers. Of course, it will also make them more directly responsible to the advertisers, so for their sake let’s hope the model works.

My second thought is that these guys are great marketers in their own right. They’re in the media and marketing news almost every day lately. They’ve only been around a few months and it seems that they’re everywhere.

So good luck to English 180. If it doesn’t work, it won’t be for lack of a clever idea or from not getting the word out.

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