MALMOE, Sweden — Bonnier, Sweden’s largest publishing house, moved deeper into the Net this year, launching a video and music club for children and a Web site for videos and DVD at www.filmix.com.
Bonnier now has nine video and music clubs in the four Nordic countries — Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland — with 650,000 members. About 10 percent to 15 percent of club sales are handled on the Web.
“We decided to start filmix because you can’t reach everybody interested in videos through the club concept,” said Marie Bratani-Olsson, who runs Bonnier’s Scandinavian Home Entertainment division here.
The site was launched in April as a marketplace for videos, but it also contains entertainment news, reviews, trailers of upcoming videos and “things that happen behind the scenes in the movies.”
A VIP club was added that provides extended coverage in exchange for a commitment to buy a limited amount of videos and other offerings.
“Once you buy your limit, you get better offers and bigger prizes in the contests we run. In the fall, we plan to open a chat room where people can talk about film themes and videos.”
Despite its short life, the site, while not one of the biggest in Sweden, has done well. “We have a lot of satisfied customers, and the venture looks very promising,” Bratani-Olsson said.
She plans a campaign in the fall to get ready for the holiday sales at the end of the year. The site is being promoted heavily across the media landscape in Sweden.
“We use TV, radio, direct response ads, coupons, mailings and even billboards on our delivery trucks.” Individual films are featured in these campaigns.
“Next month, we are going to do a joint campaign with Egmont, the company that is distributing the new James Bond movie, ‘The World is Not Enough,'” she said.
The clubs — which have been around for seven to 27 years — are promoted by “traditional direct marketing methods” that include a club magazine sent to members.
