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Technology Stocks : Modem Media . Poppe Tyson (Nasdaq: MMPT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: puborectalis who wrote (754)	6/21/1999 4:34:00 PM
From: puborectalis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 821

ADS ARE IN THE NEWS ....MMPT included:Ad Companies See Internet as Biggest Opportunity, Risk Since Television By Daniel Tilles Ad Companies See Opportunities, Risks From Internet: Ad Focus London, June 21 (Bloomberg) -- Bob Schmetterer has been traveling the world explaining why the Internet represents the biggest challenge to advertising companies since the arrival of commercial television in the U.S. 50 years ago. This time though, the challenge comes from not just rivals within the industry but from outside entrepreneurs as well. ''There are lots of good ideas coming from two guys and a dog in a garage selling directly to clients,'' said Rex Briggs, executive vice president of Millward Brown Interactive, a unit of WPP Group Plc. ''The risk is that the client will likely ask the two guys to come back.'' When Schmetterer, chief executive of Euro RSCG Worldwide, speaks at this week's advertising conference in Cannes, it will be the industry's latest call for new products to handle Internet marketing. At stake is a slice of the global online advertising market, forecast to reach $5.5 billion this year and surpass $7 billion by 2002, according to Simba Information Inc. As U.S. TV was nurtured in the early 1950s by companies such as Procter & Gamble Co. and Hallmark Cards Inc., which supplied networks with programming in exchange for exclusive advertising rights, consumer marketers had a large say in how the medium evolved. Opportunity to Exploit The Internet, however, has mostly developed independently, leaving the marketing and advertising industries scrambling to find ways to exploit its commercial possibilities. Although online spending will remain for some years yet a tiny percentage of total worldwide communications expenditure -- estimated at $950 billion by WPP Group Plc -- advertising companies can't afford to miss out on the revenue opportunity. ''We are in the midst of a communication revolution that represents for advertising the single biggest challenge for understanding commerce and communication,'' Euro RSCG Worldwide's Schmetterer said in an interview. Euro RSCG is the world's fifth- largest ad company. Confronting an era in which clients are prepared to turn to ''two guys and a dog'' for advice on how to reach online consumers, advertising companies are either developing in-house expertise or acquiring stakes in multimedia concerns -- such as WPP's interest in Internet grocer Peapod. Under Schmetterer, named chairman and chief executive in April 1997 by parent Havas Advertising SA, the company created Euro RSCG inter.Action, a multimedia unit used to help win contracts to develop and manage European Web sites and create interactive advertising. Clients include Intel Corp., the world's biggest computer chipmaker. WPP Acquisitions For its part, WPP, the world's third-biggest advertising and communications holding company and owner of J. Walter Thompson and Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, has been both strengthening existing operations as well as investing in those with different Internet-related specialties. Beyond Peapod, WPP has acquired stakes in companies including new media advertising company and Web site developer Syzygy and Millward Brown, a research firm that also helps companies do business through electronic commerce. WPP had Internet-related revenue in 1998 of about $60 million on sales, known as billings, of $120 million, WPP said in February. Advertising companies are fighting for their clients' online revenue not just against small entrepreneurs but also against firms like Andersen Consulting, Millward Brown's Briggs said. ''Consultants, which have access to top management for their business strategy work, have decided they know something about branding too,'' he said. ''When you have so much change brought about by the Internet, companies are rethinking brand strategy and consultants are going after this.'' Briggs also warned of the threat from companies that manage the reams of advertising-related information -- such as demographic data -- generated by the Internet. MatchLogic Inc., a unit of Excite At Home Corp., is for example starting to tout its ability of how best to exploit the mass of digital marketing information, Briggs said. ''The smart advertising agencies are strengthening their operations on both sides,'' he said, pointing to companies such as WPP's Ogilvy & Mather as an example. ''They have at least 100 people just in New York today for Web development, systems and data-base integration,'' Briggs said. ''These people didn't exist five years ago.'' ©1999 Bloomberg L.P. All rights reserved. Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and Trademarks.