America Online Inc. Wednesday expanded its relationship with AmericanGreetings.com by signing a $100 million, five-and-a-half-year marketing agreement.
The deal makes AmericanGreetings.com the exclusive provider of greetings
products within the AOL network which consists of AOL.com, ICQ, Digital City, Netscape Netcenter and CompuServe.
AmericanGreetings.com’s products will also be offered on AOL International
services, including Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, Germany and
France.
AmericanGreetings.com will guarantee payments totaling at least $100 million
to America Online as well as provide AOL with additional promotional
considerations, including customized and exclusive content for the co-branded
sites.
The original deal, inked in 1997, was a three-year, multi-million-dollar
marketing alliance that covered the AOL service only.
Under the expanded alliance, the companies will operate co-branded sites for
each property, to be launched over the next several months.
AmericanGreetings.com said it will provide AOL members and visitors to AOL’s
Web brands with a line of free greetings products and a newly enhanced
subscription service. AOL will have the exclusive right to sell advertising
and sponsorships on the co-branded sites for the first three years. The
companies will share advertising and transaction revenue from these
co-branded sites.
AOL said it intends to feature AmericanGreetings.com products in e-mail,
instant messaging, You’ve Got Pictures, Love@AOL, People Connection and
elsewhere.
AmericanGreetings.com offers thousands of online greetings, entertainment
items and popular licensed properties such as Dilbert, Betty Boop and the
World Wrestling Federation.. The upcoming subscription service will also
allow users to create and print projects directly off the Web.
“We understand the value of reaching AOL’s community of 46 million U.S. users
and others internationally, and believe that the products and services we’ve
developed will bring online greetings and personal creativity to an exciting
new level,” said John Klipfell, president and CEO of AmericanGreetings.com.
AmericanGreetings.com is a unit of American Greetings, the world’s largest publicly-held creator, manufacturer and distributor of greeting cards.