Unicast, KMGI Studios Forge Co-Marketing Pact

Online advertising competitors Unicast
and KMGI Studios on Tuesday joined the same
team, agreeing to promote one another’s rich media products to their
respective clients.

Under the terms of the deal, KMGI will promote, sell and create Unicast’s
SUPERSTITIAL ad units to its advertisers and their agencies. In turn,
Unicast will promote KMGI and its Webmercials and WebPresentations products,
as a preferred reseller and developer of SUPERSTITIALs.

Both companies have specialized in creating rich media near-full-screen
Internet advertisements.

“KMGI and Unicast share the same goal of furthering TV-quality content on
the Web,” said Alexandre Konanykhine, KMGI’s chief executive officer.
“Consequently, we determined that cooperation would yield far greater
rewards than competition.”

Konanykhine also said the two companies found their services are
complementary, with Unicast providing the delivery mechanism and KMGI
providing the content.

“By working together,” he said, “we can help online advertising achieve the
optimistic estimates presented by so many analysts.”

Unicast will operate and control the serving of all SUPERSTITIAL campaigns
created by KMGI. The two companies also plan to support one another through
marketing and sales initiatives, which will include promoting one another on
corporate Web sites and printed collateral. KMGI’s sales force will be
trained on the SUPERSTITIAL format, and the two companies will share market
research.

In a separate announcement yesterday, Unicast said the 24/7 Media
advertising network had agreed to serve SUPERSTITIALs across its partner
sites. All sites within the 24/7 Media network have been technically enabled
to begin accepting, running and reselling SUPERSTITIAL campaigns. Unicast’s
reporting systems are scheduled to be fully integrated with 24/7 Media’s
ad-serving platform, 24/7 Connect, in September.