Ad Campaigns — Ananova Spends, First-e Cancels

[London, ENGLAND] Neatly demonstrating the mixed attitudes
to advertising in Europe, news and information service
Ananova Ltd announced a major campaign for 2001 while
Internet bank First-e has canceled its forthcoming
campaign, according to reports Wednesday.

Ananova, which replaced the PA NewsCentre on the Internet
in April this year, was purchased by mobile operator
Orange for around US $140 million in July. Now it intends
to make a major bid for the attention of mobile users in an
advertising and promotional campaign organized by
communications agency Michaelides and Bednash.

Vivienne Adshead, commercial director of Ananova,
said that M&B was chosen because of its proven
track record in defining brand values, brand positioning,
and communicating key messages to the consumer.

“Ananova is already seen as a brand leader in real-time
news and information delivery; we now want to build a
consumer brand that people will interact with on a daily
basis across every platform,” said Adshead.

Adshead added that the communication task would be two-fold —
to position Ananova as a mass market product while at the
same time offering to meet individual needs through a
personalized alerting service.

By contrast, Ireland-based First-e appears to have lost faith
in the power of advertising to communicate its message. It was
reported in the Financial Times as being no longer able to
justify the costs of its proposed campaign owing to
increased competition in the online banking sector.

First-e’s U.K. Manager Richard Thackray told the FT that
the cost of customer acquisition had risen to £250
(US $360) per customer. At same time, Internet banks
are offering substantially higher interest rates to
attract business.

With one loss and one gain, the advertising industry —
a major beneficiary of the Internet revolution — appears
to break even on today’s news.