I2i Unveils Plans for $20 million Ad Campaign

Industry to Industry (i2i), a business-to-business company that provides classified, auctions and exchanges for a variety of industries, on Tuesday revealed plans for a $20 million global advertising campaign.

The print campaign, whose tagline is, “Trade with Industrial Strength,” will begin toward the end of February and run throughout the year in business and financial publications, as well as in Internet, chemical, energy and retail trade journals.

“Despite all of the hype about business-to-business e-commerce, large and small businesses alike find themselves facing significant barriers to entering the new Internet economy, not the least of which is the ‘one-size-fits-all’ mentality of most b-to-b exchange providers,” says Aimee Levine, senior vice president of global marketing and communications for i2i.

The ad campaign is aimed at positioning i2i as equipped to deal with companies of all sizes, and providing classified, auctions and exchanges. The company competes with VerticalNet, Commerx, and a variety of other business-to-business players springing up in various industries. I2i, though, is especially focused on Europe, where it has a partner in German software supplier SAP AG, which owns a 30 percent stake in the company.

Frankfurt Balkind developed the creative for the campaign. MediaVest is handling global media buying for i2i.