Unicast, KMGI Studios Forge Co-Marketing Pact

Online advertising competitors Unicast and KMGI Studios on Tuesday joined the same team, agreeing to promote one another's rich media products to their respective clients.

Under the terms of the deal, KMGI will promote, sell and create Unicast's SUPERSTITIAL ad units to its advertisers and their agencies. In turn, Unicast will promote KMGI and its Webmercials and WebPresentations products, as a preferred reseller and developer of SUPERSTITIALs.

Both companies have specialized in creating rich media near-full-screen Internet advertisements.

"KMGI and Unicast share the same goal of furthering TV-quality content on the Web," said Alexandre Konanykhine, KMGI's chief executive officer. "Consequently, we determined that cooperation would yield far greater rewards than competition."

Konanykhine also said the two companies found their services are complementary, with Unicast providing the delivery mechanism and KMGI providing the content.

"By working together," he said, "we can help online advertising achieve the optimistic estimates presented by so many analysts."

Unicast will operate and control the serving of all SUPERSTITIAL campaigns created by KMGI. The two companies also plan to support one another through marketing and sales initiatives, which will include promoting one another on corporate Web sites and printed collateral. KMGI's sales force will be trained on the SUPERSTITIAL format, and the two companies will share market research.

In a separate announcement yesterday, Unicast said the 24/7 Media advertising network had agreed to serve SUPERSTITIALs across its partner sites. All sites within the 24/7 Media network have been technically enabled to begin accepting, running and reselling SUPERSTITIAL campaigns. Unicast's reporting systems are scheduled to be fully integrated with 24/7 Media's ad-serving platform, 24/7 Connect, in September.