While dot.coms struggle to create viable revenue streams the real winners in the Web wars in Ireland are still traditional media. This week yet another website, Buy4Now, launches its marketing drive and the £1 million (€1.27 million) spend is being spread across TV and radio. Only a tiny amount of the budget is being diverted into online advertising. Its strategy follows a pattern that has been seen in other recent dot.com launch campaigns. "We're trying to establish brand awareness," said Mr Jimmy Murphy of Cawley Nea, the agency behind the launch. "And for that we needed the mass reach we could get with TV." The campaign promoting the shopping website will continue until January.
"Also TV allows us to establish a relaxed mood which was something we felt was necessary to explain the benefits of the online shopping experience," he said. There will be an online element to the campaign but significantly it will be used for low-key promotions. Buy4Now is a clicks and mortar site in that the shops seen on screen actually exist. Indigo, Prizebuy, and Directski are virtual shops, being entirely Web based. "Because there is no actual shop or office that people can see we needed the credibility that press in particular gives us," says Mr Anthony Collins, director of Directski. "If you don't have any physical presence in the real world, traditional media are the only way to go for credibility." Mr Collins is spending less than £100,000 on media.
"Like so many other Web companies we're in a launch phase so the only way for us to achieve brand awareness is to put our budget into traditional media." In Britain it has been estimated that 76 per cent of the marketing budget of all dot.com start-ups is spent on press advertising. Mr Collins shares the growing feeling that banner advertising is looked upon with suspicion by Web surfers who feel that rather than offering them a service or information, banners are hard-sell tools.
Indigo's shop launched with a TV campaign in June, featuring managing director Mr Mark Beggs, who explained the idea of virtual shopping. Again, the site's £500,000 spend to date has been diverted predominantly into TV and press with only about 5 per cent going online. "It's about volume," says Mr Beggs. "It's simply that traditional media reach more people, quicker." The first phase of its campaign is over, but a second phase would include some online advertising even though the click-through rate from the first phase was very low - significantly lower than in direct-response press advertising. "It is possible to use banner advertising very effectively because you can target specific audiences with it," says Mr Beggs. "But traditional media give impact and talk to new users who are an important audience for us."
The Department of Health and Children's folic acid campaign sure beats those dogeared posters in doctors' surgeries. The sexy - and frank - TV ad is a joint venture between the Department and the Northern Ireland Health Promotion Unit and was devised by Belfast ad agency Genesis. It was shown in Northern Ireland some years ago and the voiceover has been changed by the Department which is spending £250,000 (€317,662) on the six-week first phase of the health awareness campaign.
The £6 million Proctor & Gamble media account has moved to MediaVest from Youngs with the transfer of business beginning this week. The business came to MediaVest as part of a European alignment within P&G. MediaVest will be responsible for TV implementation for such brands as Bold, Always and Fairy. The agencies working on individual brands will still be responsible for media planning but the media buying moves to MediaVest.
Boru continues to nip at Smirnoff. This week, Marketers of the Year Dave Phelan and Pat Rigney introduced Boru Rocks to chase marketing wonder Smirnoff Ice. Up to £1 million will be spent on the cranberry and vodka drink over the next 12 months and initially the ready-to-drink product will be available only in Dublin. No above the line advertising is scheduled as yet and the marketing push will be behind distribution.
