24/7 Real Media Inc. this week debuted its first multichannel marketing effort in nearly a year, and the first since the merger of 24/7 Media and Real Media in October. The campaign, which features online, e-mail, print and direct mail, focuses on results it has obtained for clients.
The print effort, running in trade publications such as AdWeek, Crain's B2B Marketing, DM News and iMarketing News, features the “Black Book of Solutions” theme begun in a previous campaign. The tag line of the current print ads states: “Hundreds of companies have added us to their little black books … shouldn't you?”
24/7 Real Media also is using banner ads, mainly on Internet.com-owned Web sites, branded e-mail and direct mailings via the U.S. Postal Service and FedEx.
“We're seeing cross-selling among our divisions, with Web publishers who use Open AdStream leveraging our Website Results and 24/7 Mail customers using our network to augment their campaigns to precisely target Web users,” said David Moore, 24/7 Real Media's chairman/CEO. “The Black Book of Solutions is a useful metaphor, and it's also ringing true to our customers who want a one-stop shop for all their digital marketing needs.”
The media buy for each of 24/7 Real Media's divisions varies, with campaigns including testimonials from Open AdStream customers who saved more than $1 million in ad serving costs since switching from other technologies; proof of ROI for recent 24/7 Mail campaigns that have generated response rates of 30 percent or more; and success stories from the company's iPromotions division. The iPromotions campaign includes media buys in the same publications as the other campaigns and adds travel and tourism publications.
“A lot of people don't know about our offerings now [since the merger with Real Media],” said Mark Naples, 24/7 Real Media's vice president of marketing. “A new corporate identity has to be forged. Everything we're doing will have a direct mail and online component.”
He said the company plans to send direct mail in various forms every two weeks during the summer. It also plans to promote its Open AdStream ad serving technology monthly using direct mail.
“We're trying to make it all as complementary as possible,” Naples said. “All of it will be empirical. It's a big change for us. We'll explain what we've done for clients.”
Moore said 24/7 Real Media has been keeping a low profile the past year as it worked through its restructuring and the merger with Real Media. Then known as 24/7 Media Inc., the company in October 2001 acquired rival ad network Real Media for $1.9 million in stock.
“We have been deliberately quiet for a long time as we completed restructuring,” Moore said. “Now that that is completed, we are going to communicate to all parts of the marketplace on a regular basis going forward.”
Naples also said that 24/7 Real Media, in addition to using its own e-mail database for the campaign, will buy lists. The company also plans to buy surround session ads on specific Web sites. Surround session ads, which were introduced late last year, let advertisers target readers for the duration of their visit to a Web site. The New York Times Online was among the first to use such ads.
“We're being very targeted,” Naples said. “We're being very corporate and product specific. We're accentuating the fact that the ownership of our clients' data stays with the client.”
