Making a foray into online advertising, @Home Corp.
Friday acquired advertising provider Narrative Communications Corp.
for $89 million.
@Home will acquire all outstanding shares and assume all outstanding
options and warrants of Waltham, Mass-based Narrative in exchange for
between 1.34 million and 1.55 million shares of @Home common stock.
Narrative will become the Enliven Business Unit of @Home Network. The deal
is expected to be finalized later this month or early January 1999.
Narratives management, employees and offices will remain largely
unchanged, the company said in a statement.
Narrative’s Enliven rich media advertising technology provides one-stop
access to tools which create, deliver, measure, and manage
interactive multimedia Web ad campaigns. Enliven’s services
include ad production consulting, campaign hosting, site acceptance
management, consolidated campaign reporting and measurement and
technical support services.
Narrative said more than 50 advertising agencies have used Enliven to create
campaigns on 300 Web sites. Clients include General Motors, Hewlett Packard,
IBM, Procter and Gamble, and Sprint.
The union will enable advertisers to launch large-scale, highly
interactive, rich media advertising campaigns through a variety of Internet
distribution platforms, such as standard dial-up, high speed (T1, ISDN),
@Home broadband PC, and TV set-top connections.
Through the distribution network advertisers can employ Enliven’s
capabilities to produce interactive video, audio and animated ads to a
broader Internet audience. Other service will include e-commerce
transactions, print marketing collateral on-demand, submit lead generation
information and execute database queries within the ad.
“The merger of our business with Narratives is about growth of @Home
Network, growth of rich media advertising solutions for our customers,
and growth of the Internet advertising market,” said Charles Moldow,
vice president, @Media sales and marketing for @Home Network.
“Not only do we become a one-stop-shop for interactive Web advertising
campaigns across the continuum of Internet connections, well also have the
ability to build more interactive multimedia effects into @Homes online
publishing and advertising content,” Moldow said.
“With the resources of
@Home behind us, we aim to establish Enliven as the clear standard for
advertising across PC, TV set-top, and consumer devices connected to the
Internet,” said Hilmi Ozguc, co-founder and CEO of Narrative.
