MessageMedia Rolls Out Advertising Agency Alliance Program for E-Messaging, Grey Advertising is Charter Partner
Worldwide Advertising Leader To Offer MessageMedia Services to Its Client Base Under New Agency Channel Program
BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 8, 2000-- MessageMedia Inc., a leading provider of marketing and customer relationship management services, announced today that Grey Advertising is its charter partner in its breakthrough new Agency Alliance Program, designed to significantly boost the online marketing capabilities of advertisers.
The Agency Alliance Program, launched today, expands MessageMedia's sales reach by providing access to agency client lists. Grey is the first agency partner in the alliance, which MessageMedia will begin marketing today to the advertising agency industry at large.
''Forward-thinking advertising agencies understand the power of e-mail as a marketing tool,'' said Larry Jones, president and CEO of MessageMedia. ''The Agency Alliance Program allows the agency to continue to focus on its core competencies while at the same time offering leading-edge on-line marketing programs to help clients continue to attract and keep customers. And it provides an excellent new sales channel for our services.
''We're very pleased that Grey Advertising, one of the world's leading agencies, is instituting a formal relationship with MessageMedia under the program. Their confidence and help certainly validates our alliance model.''
Under the Agency Alliance Program, MessageMedia and participating agencies will engage in joint marketing programs including agency sales force training and joint sales calls. MessageMedia will also be featured on participating agencies' websites. Ad agency partners will receive compensation in the form of commission payments when clients utilize MessageMedia services.
Grey's status as a charter member of the program casts the agency as an e-mail marketing pacesetter among top agencies by giving its clients real-time access to best-of-breed capabilities. One of the largest advertising and communications companies in the world and a leader in fast-growing Internet marketing and communications technologies, Grey offers a full spectrum of communications capabilities to its prominent client base.
In addition to outbound e-mail marketing through MessageMedia, these capabilities include traditional advertising and direct marketing, public relations, Interactive and digital marketing, healthcare marketing and media services through the Grey network's premier stand-alone specialty companies.
Edward H. Meyer, CEO and president of Grey Advertising, said, ''E-mail marketing represents an increasingly powerful channel for today's advertisers to connect with the growing number of customers using the Internet -- both consumers and business-to-business clients. From what we see, no one today understands the skillful use of outbound e-mail better than MessageMedia.
''Our partnership represents the fastest and most effective way for Grey to expand our companies' specialized e-mail marketing capabilities within the wide spectrum of services we offer clients.''
About Grey Advertising
Grey Advertising Inc. (Nasdaq:GREY), with $7.8 billion in billings and operations in 90 countries, ranks as one of the world's largest advertising and communications agencies. Grey also operates branded independent subsidiaries, representing about 40% of the Company's revenues and including some of its fastest growing companies, in healthcare and Hispanic communications, direct marketing, media buying and planning, public relations, co-marketing, entertainment marketing, design and promotion, business-to-business multimedia, directory advertising and interactive advertising. Its leading clients include Procter & Gamble, Mars, SmithKline Beecham, Seagram and Oracle. Grey has recently emerged as a pacesetter in attracting e-commerce clients for integrated communications, winning over $150 million in billings from more than 10 dot-com companies in 1999. The agency's website is grey.com.
About MessageMedia, Inc.
MessageMedia is the leading provider of e-mail-based customer relationship management and direct marketing services. The Company offers a comprehensive suite of outsource messaging services for information delivery, e-commerce services, permission-based direct marketing, ongoing customer communications and real-time customer feedback solutions using industry standard Internet protocols. MessageMedia's customer portfolio includes clients from the financial services, publishing, direct marketing, retailing, software and electronic commerce industries. Clients include Cisco, E*TRADE, AOL, Apple, Yahoo!, Microsoft, GeoCities, Intuit, CMP Media, Barclays Bank, EDS, CNBC, Universal Studios and Bertelsmann.
Investors in MessageMedia include SOFTBANK and its affiliates, which constitute the world's largest investors in the Internet and Pequot Capital Management, a Connecticut-based research-intensive investment firm.
''Safe Harbor'' Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. With the exception of the historical information contained in this release, the matters described herein contain forward-looking statements that involve risk and uncertainties. These risk factors include, but are not limited to, the integration of a new senior management team, MessageMedia's limited operating history, the integration of recent acquisitions, risks associated with pending and future acquisitions, the anticipated fluctuations in operating results, the uncertain acceptance of new services being offered, and undeveloped and rapidly changing market and other factors detailed in MessageMedia's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1998 and its most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. All companies and product names are trademarks of their respective owners. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. MessageMedia undertakes no obligation to release publicly the result of any revisions to these forward-looking statements that may be made to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.
MessageMedia Inc. 6060 Spine Road, Boulder, Colo. 80301 Phone: 303/440-7550; Fax: 303/440-0303; messagemedia.com
MessageMedia, Inc.
Tom Ferrell, 303/440-7550
mailto:tferrell@messagemedia.com
or
Shandwick International
Jim Fanucchi, 650/596-5880
mailto:jfanucchi@shandwick.com
|
