GeoCities Launches Brand Identity Campaign

Web community GeoCities launched its
first major integrated communications program featuring a new brand
identity, designed both as a corporate mark and for use in animated
Internet applications.

The campaign was developed in conjunction with Young & Rubicam Inc. and
includes print and interactive executions. GeoCities will supplement the
launch with a radio campaign targeted at key consumer audiences and at the
financial community. Spending was not disclosed.

Thomas R. Evans, president and CEO of GeoCities, said: “Our company is just
over 4 years old and is a grassroots phenomenon. We have experienced
exponential growth and have become a top-five Internet presence without the
benefit of any appreciable advertising or marketing. It’s clearly time to
step up and articulate what our brand is all about — nearly 3 million
consumers have found and joined GeoCities.

“Our new icon and forthcoming campaign embrace and articulate the spirit of
GeoCities. We are convinced this effort will increase our visitor traffic,
member growth and reach.”

Bruce Nelson, vice chairman of Young &
Rubicam, said GeoCities’ new brand identity clearly communicates the
company’s consumer focus.

It’s far more than a logo or just the result of a corporate design process.
We actually brought the resources of all of the marketing disciplines to
bear on this project, which will make the new identity work across media7″

The Y&R companies involved in the launch include Wunderman Cato Johnson, the
relationship marketing firm responsible for the print and radio campaigns;
Landor, which developed the corporate identity; and Brand Dialogue, which did
the animation and interactive executions which will bring the new identity to
life on the Web.

The new brand identity engages consumers with a playful character created
from the letter “g” and positioned above a new GeoCities corporate logotype.
While there is one primary “g” character, Landor has designed a number of
iterations or “riffs” of the “g” character – each conveying distinctive moods.

The campaign will kick off with teaser print ads in leading business
publications, building over a three-day period. Subsequent ads feature the
“g” character and brief factual headlines that convey the scope of
GeoCities and its growth (such as “Every day, more people visit here than
New York, Paris and London combined.”) The print work breaks Dec. 1 in
The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, TIME and
U.S.
News & World Report. The radio portion of the campaign will run in major
markets.

Animated samples of the new GeoCities logo and digital sound files of the
GeoCities radio ads are available her
e.