What do Barack Obama's campaign, McDonald's and Anheuser-Busch have in common? Each will be a sponsor of some of NBC's 3,600 hours of coverage of the Olympic Games in Beijing in August.

Obama's campaign chipped in for advertisements to the tune of $5 million after requesting information about buying smaller packages, Advertising Age reports today. The candidate's ads will run on network and cable television as NBC's coverage extends to CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Oxygen and Telemundo.

It's an ambitious plan, and it breaks recent advertising trends. While most presidential campaigns stick with local advertising in key swing states, Obama's buys on network television will run as many times in Wyoming and the District of Columbia as they will in Ohio and Pennsylvania. They are the first network ads since Bob Dole ran a single spot across the nation in 1996.

AdAge also reports the campaign is still looking into the possibility of ad buys on cable channels like MTV and BET, flexing their financial muscle in previously untested ways.