23.01.02
motoreasy first to take advantage of beeb.com's new advertising options
www.beeb.com
beeb Ventures Ltd, a joint venture between BBC Worldwide and THLi, has launched a new promotional option on shopping portal beeb.com, and signed its first customer - motoring service company motoreasy.
The new option provides advertisers with the opportunity to sponsor the site's shopping categories. motoreasy is sponsoring beeb.com's motoring shopping channel, which incorporates the Top Gear shopping guide.
The deal means motoreasy, which provides the UK's first all-in-one vehicle healthcare scheme for the private motorist including servicing, warranty repairs, MOT and breakdown cover, takes ownership of every page of beeb.com's motoring channel and Top Gear. Branded promotional panels on each web page point users to a motoreasy branded mictrosite, designed and built by beeb Ventures' in-house team, promoting motoreasy's services.
In addition to a profile on each motoring page of beeb.com, motoreasy will be featured on all weekly promotional e-mails sent to registered users of the Top Gear site.
Sales and marketing director for motoreasy, John Highfield, said: "As one of the country's newest and most innovative products in the automotive industry it is only appropriate that motoreasy should pioneer such a sponsorship with beeb.com motoring and the Top Gear shopping guide. The link perfectly illustrates motoreasy's use of new media and highlights the company as a leading player providing a new approach for today's drivers."
About beeb.com's sponsorship option
For the first time, sponsorship options are available across the beeb.com shopping portal. The initiative means advertisers can call upon beeb Ventures' design and editorial expertise to co-brand product focused channels on the site. A sponsorship deal puts the client's brand across every page within one of beeb.com's shopping sections, which include Music, Books and Film; Electronics and Phones; Home and Garden; and Fashion, Health and Beauty. In addition, the site includes event-based sections, such as the current New Year Bargains shopping channel, which can also be sponsored.
By sponsoring one of the shopping channels on beeb.com, one of the top ten retail web sites in the UK (MMXI November 2001), clients can see their brand across the functionality of the section - which includes the category search boxes, price comparison tools, and customer e-mail sign up.
In addition, the weekly promotional consumer e-mails sent by beeb.com can also carry the client's branding.
The new sponsorship options on beeb.com follow the development of successful online advertorial features, which have proved popular with a wide range of advertisers such as Merryl Lynch, BT, Ford, Renault, Standard Life and KLM. These client-branded microsites can be accessed from beeb.com's inspiration and advice to online shoppers, in a similar way to how an advertorial feature might work in BBC Worldwide magazines.
Each microsite provides an opportunity for advertisers to inform visitors to beeb.com about its products and services, offering users valuable content, such as streamed video, a promotional competition, or online game. In this way, the advertising can provide a great incentive to users, and can deliver an effective data-capture element above and beyond the brand awareness exercise of other advertising models.
Sponsorship and advertorial features are part of a range of advertising options available on beeb.com - the site has been designed to cater for a variety of advertising types, from banners, buttons and skyscraper adverts to DHTML campaigns, interstitials and pop-ups. In addition, beeb.com continues to add further to the wide range of e-commerce partners featured across the site.
beeb.com's sponsorship and advertorial feature options are managed by a dedicated sales team, headed by Advertorial and Sponsorship Manager, Nick Brown.
As well as integrating new advertising options across beeb.com, beeb Ventures is also managing online advertorials on behalf of Reuters' personal finance web site (www.reuters.co.uk). This arrangement is part of the full service beeb Ventures' online sales team provides to clients like Reuters.
Matt Teeman, beeb Ventures Ltd's Sales Director, said: "We're providing a rich opportunity for advertisers looking to get more from an online campaign. By sponsoring an entire user journey through one of beeb.com's product-focused channels, advertisers are getting the maximum brand value from a creative treatment. And when combined with our advertorial feature option, it provides a golden opportunity to explain a product's benefits in depth, and capture valuable user data at the same time."
About beeb.com and BBC Worldwide
BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the BBC, generates income to support the UK licence fee by marketing programme-related products and services around the world. It is self-funding and exists to provide supplementary funding for the BBC's public services. In 2000/01, BBC Worldwide provided cash flow to the BBC of £96 million. Its ambition is to quadruple cash flow to the BBC during the current Charter period. BBC Worldwide is financially separate from the rest of the BBC and receives no public funding.
beeb.com is wholly owned by beeb ventures limited, a subsidiary company of BBC Worldwide and TH Li, Global Internet Managers, LP. It was previously developed in collaboration with ICL, the IT services company.
Launched in 1997, beeb.com has grown traffic, revenue and content rapidly, as the Internet becomes a mainstream consumer medium. This growth, together with further commercial agreements with advertisers and portal websites are establishing beeb.com as a site guiding people's online purchases.
beeb.com features a number of Shopping Guides including TopGear, Gardeners' World, Top of the Pops, Holiday and Good Homes. Additionally, it features webzines based on BBC Worldwide magazine brands such as Radio Times and allabouteve.co.uk.
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