I2i Unveils Plans for $20 million Ad Campaign

Industry to Industry (i2i), a
business-to-business company that provides classified, auctions and
exchanges for a variety of industries, on Tuesday revealed plans for a $20
million global advertising campaign.

The print campaign, whose tagline is, “Trade with Industrial Strength,”
will begin toward the end of February and run throughout the year in
business and financial publications, as well as in Internet, chemical,
energy and retail trade journals.

“Despite all of the hype about business-to-business e-commerce, large and
small businesses alike find themselves facing significant barriers to
entering the new Internet economy, not the least of which is the
‘one-size-fits-all’ mentality of most b-to-b exchange providers,” says
Aimee Levine, senior vice president of global marketing and communications
for i2i.

The ad campaign is aimed at positioning i2i as equipped to deal with
companies of all sizes, and providing classified, auctions and exchanges.
The company competes with VerticalNet, Commerx, and a variety of other
business-to-business players springing up in various industries. I2i,
though, is especially focused on Europe, where it has a partner in German
software supplier SAP AG,
which owns a 30 percent stake in the company.

Frankfurt Balkind developed
the creative for the campaign. MediaVest is handling global
media buying for i2i.