Interep Interactive’s Winstar Interactive Media has been tapped by online travel service Expedia to rep its Web site for national ad sales. Through the deal, Winstar’s efforts will supplement Expedia.com’s own internal sales efforts and relationships.
“Expedia is one of the Internet’s most successful brands,” said Interep President Adam Guild. “It will greatly benefit from Winstar Interactive’s policy of selling each Web brand individually rather than part of a network of undifferentiated eyeballs. The travel category has always attracted a great deal of online advertising.”
itraffic, interactive marketing subsidiary of Agency.com, has been selected by Discovery Networks to develop 13 online ad campaigns. The ads will be used to promote various programs on the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet and Discovery Kids. Each campaign will draw on itraffic’s expertise with an array of dynamic ad features, including banners, skyscrapers, and eyeblaster formats that take over Web pages for a period of time.
The first campaign launched in July 2002, with online ads for Animal Planet, followed by creative promotions for new features on the Discovery Channel. The latest promotion is for the TLC show, “Trading Spaces.” Using eyeblaster, the promotion depicts a paintbrush coloring the browser, which then dissolves into a newly decorated room with an audio clip of the owner’s reaction.
Stephanie Lowet, VP of media planning and partnerships for Discovery, said, “For our current promotions, we want continually innovative ads to turn online browsers into television viewers, and itraffic is the partner to help us do that.”
Web marketer White Horse has completed a Web site redesign for mid-Atlantic real estate conglomerate Long & Foster Companies. White Horse’s engagement included interactive consulting, creative and information design, and Web development services. To reach a diverse audience, White Horse said it created a flexible design template that can be adapted to accommodate a variety of content types, including multiple language support, and to facilitate site maintenance and updates.
Interactive marketing firm Click 3xi has hired Richard Von Feldt as director of new business development. Von Feldt, who formerly held a similar post with the creative strategist firm Isocurve, will head Click 3xi’s sales and marketing efforts, seeking to expand its relations with existing clients, acquire new business and open new markets to its services. A division of Click 3x, Click 3xi provides interactive design and marketing services to media companies, advertising agencies and corporations.
“We are a new company with a seasoned team and our sales effort needs someone who can clearly articulate all of the value we bring to this market,” Creative Director Franco Fiore said. “We chose Richard because of his broad experience in the interactive market, his skills in client relations and his ability to think strategically.”
Sun Microsystems has retained JWT & Tonic as its ad agency of record, providing all creative services. Additionally, interactive media strategy and buying will be handled by San Francisco-based Beyond Interteractive. For the past two years, JWT & Tonic has fulfilled the lead advertising role for Sun. It was formed when i-shop Tonic 360 partnered with traditional marketer J. Walter Thompson to form an agency with interactive capabilities and a foundation in traditional brand building. From 1998 to 2000, Tonic 360 handled digital marketing for Sun.
RichFX, an interactive developer that leverages its clients’ visual assets, has hired Paul Cimino as chief operating officer and head of professional services. Cimino was most recently executive director of New York operations for FullTilt Solutions, a Web software company. Before that, he was the chairman of Snickelways Interactive, a leading e-commerce solutions provider he co-founded in 1995.
Cimino said, “RichFX’s Internet merchandising experts understand that utilitarian Web sites are inadequate for successfully selling tactile or complex products that customers need to examine closely before making a purchase.”
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