America Online and Circuit City Wednesday announced an
agreement whereby the ISP giant will feature the electronics chain in its shopping areas, and Circuit City will promote AOL
in its stores.
Circuit City will promote AOL’s products and services in its 615 outlets
nationwide. The company will also add AOL to its print and TV campaigns, as
well as in other promotional and marketing efforts. Circuit City says it’s
the nation’s 11th largest brand advertiser.
In return, AOL will help Circuit City to increase its Internet presence,
giving it anchor tenant slots in shopping destinations across the AOL
service, AOL.COM, CompuServe and Netscape. The company says the AOL and
CompuServe services have more than 21 million members.
“We are pleased to join forces with Circuit City and its long tradition of
bringing the best electronic technology, equipment and customer service
into consumers’ homes,” says Bob Pittman, America Online’s president and
COO.
“By combining the strengths of our two great consumer brands, we will
make AOL’s interactive services even more convenient and easy for people to
take full advantage of AOL’s industry-leading interactive services.”
The deal brings together two companies which are both targeting newcomers
to computers and the Internet.
Both hope to benefit from the association of
the two powerful consumer brands, and Circuit City hopes to outfit
potential AOL members with all of the equipment computers, DSL technology,
satellite, and wireless devices they’ll need to access the service.