FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
THE SOFTBANK NETWORK MORE THAN DOUBLES IN SIZE, SIGNS 38 NATIONAL
ADVERTISERS AND LAUNCHES FIRST PROMOTION IN FIRST 90 DAYS OF OPERATION
The SOFTBANK Network Exceeds 100 Million Monthly Impressions, Signs
Leading-Brand Advertisers Including AT&T, Disney, Fisher/Price,
Microsoft, Sprint and Toshiba
3Com Runs First Sponsorship Campaign to Leverage Network's Hosting and
Reporting Technology
NEW YORK -- January 12, 1998 -- SOFTBANK Interactive Marketing
(www.simweb.com), a world leader in interactive marketing solutions,
announced today that The SOFTBANK Network nearly doubled in size, signed
38 national advertisers and launched its first promotion within its
first 90 days of operation.
Attracting 28 new, quality Web sites as affiliates, The SOFTBANK Network
increased the number of available impressions by more than 135 percent
in its first 90 days of operation. In addition, 38 national advertisers
signed contracts on The SOFTBANK Network during this period, including
leading and diverse brands such as AT&T, American Stock Exchange,
Disney, Dow Jones, Fuji, First USA, Fischer/Price, GTE, Microsoft,
Schwab, Sprint and Toshiba. Also announced today, 3Com has completed the
first promotion that leverages The SOFTBANK Network's back-end hosting
and reporting technology.
"We are extremely pleased by the market's strong response to the Network
and are happy to announce that The SOFTBANK Network exceeded our most
bullish 1997 growth projections," said Caroline Vanderlip, CEO, SOFTBANK
Interactive Marketing. "We clearly recognize that the Network's success
is built on our commitment to deliver quality, simplicity, service and
especially results."
The SOFTBANK Network is a proprietary ad network comprised of
high-quality content Web sites, delivering cost-effective advertising
impressions through ten content portfolios. To ensure maximum return on
ad dollar investment, the Network provides advertisers with
state-of-the-art ad serving, targeting, performance optimization and
reporting. This technology has also been incorporated by the company's
Internet Strategies Group to deliver effective, online marketing
campaigns to meet the demands of advertisers.
New Network Sites and Portfolios
The SOFTBANK Network was launched on September 15, with 28 Web sites and
45 million impressions available. Presently, The SOFTBANK Network has
more than 106 million available impressions from 53 sites. The strong
interest expressed by Web sites seeking to join the Network and the
demands of Web advertisers has led SOFTBANK Interactive Marketing to
create three new portfolios: Business, Directory and Health.
The following new sites recently joined the network:
€Airfare.com
€Ancestry
€Bigfoot Yellow Pages
€The Bravo Film and Arts Network
€Briefing.com
€College Insider
€CompareNet
€Entertainment News Daily
€EventCal
€Filez
€Harmony Central
€IQ Net
€Independent Film Channel
€Infoseek IndustryWatch
€INVESTools
€MedicineNet
€Mental Health Net
€Metacrawler
€The Mining Company
€The Mountain Zone
€Multex
€PC Webopaedia
€RxList
€Stayhealthy.com
€StockSite
€System Optimization
€The Wellness Interactive Network
€Your Health Daily
Network Supports 3Com Promotion
In a promotion designed for 3Com to promote its 56k x2 modem, the
Internet Strategies Group developed and implemented a campaign than ran
across four Web sites: HotMail, Mapquest, Netscape and TV Guide. This
campaign leveraged new services available through The SOFTBANK Network's
back-end hosting and reporting capabilities. These services are now
being used to fulfill programs designed by the company's Internet
Strategies Group.
3Com offered the chance to enter weekly drawings for 56K modems to
entice users to click on their banner ads. Users were then directed to a
jump page where they could complete a registration form. In addition, a
user could use the promotion's ISP- and dealer-locator service to find
the name of a 3Com dealer in their geographic area. As a result of the
promotion, 3Com generated a pre-qualified database of leads, as well as
garner key user information, including demographics, location and
hardware preferences such as type of modem and connection speed.
About SOFTBANK Interactive Marketing
SOFTBANK Interactive Marketing, Inc. (www.simweb.com) is a market leader
in interactive media sales, providing both media clients and advertisers
with results-oriented interactive marketing solutions. The company is
the largest single source of Web impressions in the world and represents
many of the Web's most prestigious sites. The Foundation Buy and the
SOFTBANK Network are complementary products that offer a broad range of
benefits, including brand affinity with leading sites, strong editorial
context, reach, frequency and one-to-one marketing. In support of these
products, the Internet Strategies Group develops and implements turn-key
Internet marketing solutions, such as sponsorships, sweepstakes,
promotions and custom programming.
Headquartered in New York City, SOFTBANK Interactive Marketing maintains
offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, London, Los Angeles and San
Francisco. SOFTBANK Interactive Marketing is a subsidiary of ZULU-tek,
Inc. (www.echomedia.com), the only vertically integrated Internet
company with in-house technical development and support for Internet,
CD-ROM, digital advertising and e-commerce applications, as well as a
Web-based automobile industry tracking system. |
