Execs & Accounts for April 21, 2004

Volvo Cars of North America launched a campaign on iVillage, including an exclusive one-year sponsorship of a new online safety center on the site.

Volvo’s campaign, designed to generate awareness and “viral interest,” includes full screen arrival ads, a sweepstakes to win a two-year XC90 lease, and co-branded media across the iVillage Network and the new “Safety Central” area, a content resource with information on home and family safety. In addition, polls on Safety Central will provide feedback to Volvo on the auto marketplace.

“Safety Central on iVillage allows us to extend our passion for safety to a wider audience, allowing us to demonstrate how safety fits into the day-to-day lives of women,” said Phil Bienert, manager of CRM & e-business for Volvo.

Interep and Advertising.com entered a marketing partnership to provide integrated online and radio-based campaign solutions to marketers. Interep represents over 2,000 radio stations across the country.

“Through this type of integrated radio/Internet campaign, we can optimize results by altering format, site, daypart — even day of the week — while providing advertisers with documented ROI data,” said Marc Guild, Interep’s marketing division president. “Radio’s ability to drive consumers to a website and build awareness is the perfect match to the Internet’s ability to deliver highly targeted, addressable messages and complete the sale.”

Korean IM service BuddyBuddy tapped Real Media Korea, a subsidiary of 24/7 Real Media, for ad serving. The company will use Open AdStream Local to deliver ads to its 5.5 million unique monthly users. 24/7’s platform will enable BuddyBuddy to target users by gender, age, occupation, wireless carrier or geographical region.

“Open AdStream makes it possible for us to deliver more exciting ads that are more relevant to our users,” said Jae Hun Lee, BuddyBuddy’s development manager.

Interactive agency Optiem launched a site for its client Johnny Applestix. The Web presence features the history and story behind the new, Cleveland-based snack food. “We chose Optiem not only for their technical expertise, but because they really got the essence of our brand,” said Johnny Applestix founder Tony Dellamano.