Excite@Home Enters Into Major Broadband Advertising Alliance With Unilever
July 14, 1999 08:00 AM
REDWOOD CITY, Calif., July 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Excite@Home(SM) ATHM , a global media company, today announced that Unilever, one of the largest consumer goods company in the world, has signed a deal to make online advertising on the @Home(R) broadband service a substantial component of its interactive advertising and marketing strategy. The alliance represents the largest investment any consumer goods company has made to date in Excite@Home's broadband advertising programs.
Unilever is continuing to establish itself as an industry leader by pioneering new approaches that are shaping the future of effective online advertising. As one of the first companies to advertise on the @Home broadband service, Unilever has gained experience and success with broadband advertising programs. The first broadband initiative Unilever developed for Lipton in 1997 garnered significant results and exceeded expectations on all important brand communication goals and set the stage for this new initiative.
"We view broadband advertising as an important Internet marketing strategy for Unilever because it lets us present our message in a highly engaging format and connect very closely with our customers," said Tony Romeo, chairman of Unilever's North American Interactive Brand Center. "This alliance is strategic for us since Excite@Home will provide us with valuable knowledge about how consumers are using next generation media, such as broadband Internet services, to evaluate and purchase consumer goods."
Unilever has aligned itself with Excite@Home to gain a deeper understanding of the behavior of wired consumers, and to create highly interactive broadband advertising models to develop deep relationships with customers to better understand their attitudes toward Unilever brands.
"Unilever's business is providing everyday solutions for everyday needs," said David Stern, vice president of interactive marketing. "Excite@Home's broadband capabilities provide cutting edge communication tools to dialogue with our target consumers about the benefits of our beauty, food and health products and learn even more about their needs."
Excite@Home will provide program management, creative consultation, ad targeting, ad tracking and measurement of brand perception and purchase intent to Unilever. The alliance gives Unilever and its interactive advertising agencies access to Excite@Home's experienced advertising programs teams at @Home, Enliven, MatchLogic and Excite. Additionally, Unilever and Excite@Home will collaborate in the design and implementation of third party or independent tracking and awareness studies that measure the effects of broadband advertising.
"Unilever is already re-investing in an idea that most advertisers are just now discovering -- that broadband and rich media advertising works," said Susan Bratton, vice president, Market Development of Excite@Home. "When Excite@Home's rich media targeting and media distribution capabilities are combined with Unilever's breadth of brands and next generation thinking, the two companies can apply various concepts and build a base of knowledge to help Unilever maximize brand value online."
Last month, Unilever Nederland B.V. announced it will run comprehensive online advertising campaigns on the @Home Nederland(SM) broadband service, the leading high-speed cable Internet service in the Netherlands.
About Unilever
Unilever is one of the world's largest consumer products companies with sales close to $50 billion. It produces and markets a wide range of foods, home and personal care products. Unilever operates in 88 countries around the globe and employs 267,000 people.
In the United States, Unilever sales exceeded $8 billion in 1998. It employs 21,000 people and has 66 offices and manufacturing sites in 23 states. Two of Unilever's 12 global Business Groups are headquartered in the United States. Some of their major products are: Foods - North America: Lipton teas, soups, recipe products and side dishes; Wish-Bone salad dressings; Lawry's seasonings and specialty sauces; Imperial, Promise, Country Crock, "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!", Brummel & Brown spreads and sprays; Ragu' pasta and pizza sauces; Five Brothers premium pasta sauces; Klondike, Popsicle and Breyers ice cream products, and Gorton's frozen seafood products. Unilever Home and Personal Care - North America: Wisk, "all" and Surf laundry detergents; Snuggle and Final Touch fabric softeners; Sunlight dish detergents; Lever 2000, Caress, Dove and Shield bar soaps; Pond's and Vaseline skin care products; Q-tips cotton swabs and cotton balls; Mentadent, Aim, Close-up and Pepsodent oral care products; Degree, Suave and Brut deodorant/toiletry products; Finesse, Salon Selectives, Suave, ThermaSilk, Aqua Net and Rave hair care products; and Calvin Klein and Elizabeth Arden cosmetic and fragrance products.
About Excite@Home
Excite@Home is a global media company based in Redwood City, Calif. Through the company's narrowband portal, Excite(R) (www.excite.com), and broadband services, @Home(R) and @Work(R), the company uniquely offers consumers content and interactive services across both narrowband and broadband, and advertisers highly targeted marketing solutions across all platforms of delivery. Leveraging the high-speed, always-on attributes of cable, Excite@Home empowers unique multimedia applications that go beyond current Web experiences. The company will combine the Excite brand -- one of the best known names on the Internet with 70 percent recognition among Web users -- with the @Home(R) broadband service's broad distribution, a worldwide footprint of 65 million cable homes, to deliver on its vision of "All Band, All Device, All the Time."
NOTE: @Home, Excite, Enliven, the E logo and the @ logo are registered trademarks, and Excite@Home and Matchlogic are trademarks of At Home Corporation and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other brands and product names are trademarks of their respective owners.
This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Exchange Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the safe harbors created by those sections. These forward-looking statements include statements related to: the extent to which Excite@Home will provide Unilever with knowledge about how consumers use broadband Internet services to evaluate and purchase consumer goods; the ability of Unilever to gain a deeper understanding of consumer behavior through rich media advertising; and Unilever's ability to develop relationships with customers so that they can better understand consumer attitudes toward Unilever brands. Actual results may differ materially due to a number of factors, including: the technological, operational, and financial challenges of developing an integrated advertising campaign that subscribers find useful and compelling; the degree of customer and industry acceptance and support for the campaign; and the companies' ability to manage the campaign. The matters discussed in this press release also involve risks and uncertainties described from time to time in Excite@Home's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular, see the risk factors described in Excite@Home's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 1999. Excite@Home assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.
SOURCE Excite@Home
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