Text Cees Steijger ~ Photography Wim Sonius

Digital Media ready for huge breakthrough

Every brand desperately needs measurable results

In recent years, the online dealer channel has grown into one of the most effective sales tools. Alta Creative Marketing Communications Digital Media is an innovative marketing tool that enables brands to send their content and campaigns straight to their online dealer channels and reach hundreds of thousands of people (B-to-B and B-to-C) . This marketing approach, based on TIE Content Syndication (CS) technology is about make a huge breakthrough
P8 ~ 2/2010 ~ TIE

CONTENT SYNDICATION

e spoke to an enthusiastic Wilco van Schaik, a partner and business director at Alta, and client services director Annelouk Kriele. We met up with them at their inspiring office in the Cartesius business park in Utrecht. The atmosphere in this former power station is both industrial and creative, and this is reflected in the sort of company that now occupies the building: architects, inventors, musicians, developers and marketing people all come together here. Alta is a famous name in the Dutch communication world, with roots that stretch back to 1921, making it the oldest advertising agency in the Netherlands. Smart SyStemS Weve taken the lead again with our Digital Media concept, says Wilco van Schaik. The advent of the Internet meant that we had to respond to the demand for keeping brands online dealer channels up-todate with the latest collections, offers and campaigns. This swiftly led to talks with TIE Kinetix and, in 2008, to a licence enabling us to launch our Channel Media product. You should actually view Channel Media as a new medium, alongside such things as advertisements, folders or radio commercials, explains Wilco. Its a medium that allows you to communicate at three distinct levels. This can be purely at

product level (as used for Topform, for example) or at information level (ideal for government use). So it offers very many opportunities and youre right there where the consumer or B-to-B end-user is looking. You cant get more specific than that. Were the only communication agency in Europe to specialise in this and the only one to translate TIEs unique technology into brand communication. It seemed to be a gap in the market. Altas unique approach (applying the technology to communication/content) caught on, especially with clients in durable consumer products such as the furniture industry, which was the first to adopt. But in fact the entire retail trade can use it. Every brand desperately needs measurable results from its campaigns, and we can provide them, says Wilco. Because we approach online marketing from a communication angle, we are in a position to exploit the opportunities that exist between the brand and the dealers much more effectively. Wilco is proud to point out that with Channel Media, Alta is able to at least double the number of online contacts with potential purchasers who are looking to see what the market has to offer. With our approach, we have a qualitatively better reach than can be

Were the only communication agency in Europe to specialise in TIEs unique Content Syndication Platform.

obtained with a Google campaign, adds Annelouk Kriele. She mentions the Dutch furniture brand Topform as an example. In 2008, Topform became one of the first brands in the Netherlands to start using Channel Media for its collections and campaigns. Now three-quarters of Topforms dealers use it and online reach has more than doubled in one year. We have achieved an extra qualitative reach 1 on 1 of 100,000 more potential customers than the year before. This is a vast improvement on the total results that you could have obtained with old-fashioned banners or an advertisement because that would obviously not be a qualitative reach and not 1 on 1 and not at dealer level, says Annelouk. Dynamic It is expected that by 2012, 80% of customer contacts will be online. The retailer who is able to fulfil the wishes of these consumers will see them in the shops. Whereas previously this would have been too expensive and time-consuming for the dealers, Channel Media makes it possible to keep the dealer channels constantly up-to-date and also to activate them. Channel Media is dynamic. We can make a marketing campaign for 4,000 websites even in different countries in one minute. And if a competitor appears with an offering tomorrow, we can respond to that with a single push on the button, concludes Wilco.
TIE ~ 2/2010 ~ P9