AltaVista, Musicland Forge Co-Marketing Alliance

CMGI‘s (CMGI) AltaVista portal and retailer Musicland Stores Corp. (MLG) Thursday struck a co-marketing deal that leverages AltaVista’s online brand equity and Musicland’s 1,345 stores.

Musicland will become a premier provider on Altavista Shopping.com, where it will offer nearly one million products in the music, movies, books, and game software departments. Musicland’s main e-commerce site, SamGoody.com, will also receive banners on the AltaVista home page and other placements within the AltaVista network.

All of Musicland’s e-commerce sites will appear in the Hot Deals area of AltaVista Shopping.com’s home page and merchant results pages in certain departments. The companies will also create a co-branded start page and microportal for Musicland customers.

Musicland scratches AltaVista’s back by offering its free Internet access to visitors to its e-commerce sites and retail stores. Musicland will also promote the AltaVista brand in a variety of in-store promotions.

“Our alliance with AltaVista is an important element in Musicland’s strategy to synergize ‘clicks-and bricks’ and expand our business,” said Gil Wachsman, vice chairman of Musicland.

“AltaVista recognizes Musicland’s unique ability to access 300 million store visitors to fuel AltaVista’s expanding user base, and we are very pleased to be working with this Internet enterprise.”