Work.com Debuts Campaign, Launches B2B Ad Network

Business content site Work.com this week announced two major initiatives designed to boost pageviews on its newly launched site, and to attract advertising revenue.

Tuesday, The Redwood City, Calif.-based company revealed details of its multi-million dollar print, radio and online campaign in support of its August launch.

Spokespeople said the “Rise Up and Prosper” campaign, designed by agency of record marchFirst, is expected to build awareness and boost traffic to the site by highlighting Work.com’s benefits and features.

The ads will also spotlight the strengths of its parent companies — business news service Dow Jones and Internet broadband carrier Excite@Home.

The print campaign, which launches with full-page ads in The Wall Street Journal, include creative themes like: “End the Repetitiveness, Find New Ways to be Successful” and “With Work.com, You Can Crush Your Competition — Crush Them Like a Paper Cup!”

Similarly themed radio spots also break Tuesday in the San Francisco and New York markets.

Company spokespeople said most of the media spending will go to online buys, however, and the effort includes direct e-mail and banner ads on more than 100 general interest, news and business sites.

Spending was not disclosed.

“Work.com is launching what we think will become a powerful and all-encompassing business resource,” said senior vice president of marketing Tom Baker. “We think this bold campaign represents our mission of empowering business professionals to find new ways to use the Web to conduct business more successfully.”

The ads will run throughout the remainder of the year.

Work.com’s own ad campaign is the second of two recent advertising-related announcements for the startup. Monday, the company announced that it is getting into the business-to-business advertising network space.

Through a deal which calls for Excite @Home’s online marketing unit MatchLogic to serve ads, Work.com hopes to entice publishers to join the network in a revenue-sharing arrangement. Work.com will sell the space, and said it already has a dedicated staff in place to handle network sales and development.

Thus far, BizTravel, Freeworks, Salary.com and Pipe9 have signed on as publishers.

Work.com said that ultimately, its network will enable advertisers to reach a business audience across a wide range of leading Web sites, as it works to become a full-service, one-stop destination for online businesspeople.

“The B2B marketing and advertising services are a natural extension of the value we bring to the business community,” said Work.com chairman and chief executive officer Don Hutchison.

Specific financial details of the network were not disclosed. A spokesperson said the company foresees most of its revenue coming from advertising on the main sites, but that ad network revenue will be “significant.”

A spokesperson from Work.com declined to discuss the network’s advertisers in detail, but said a MasterCard campaign will begin running across the network this week.

Work.com’s B2B ad network puts it in competition with some very big names in the online ad industry. CMGI ad serving and technology company Engage has a high-profile B2B network of about 225 publishers. B2BWorks has more than 500 sites in its network.

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