ENLIVEN MAY TAKE TARGET ADVERTISING TO THE NEXT LEVEL
By Sherman Fridman, Newsbytes
The continuing effort to match Internet advertising with receptive consumers marched another step forward with the announcement by ExciteAtHome that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Matchlogic, has developed a program based on "Enliven with TrueMatch" technology, that will enable advertisers to deliver rich media advertisements that are "precision-targeted" to consumer profiles. According to ExciteAtHome, most online advertisers today target their advertisements based upon the content of a given Web site. If advertisers feel that the Web site appeals primarily to teenagers, then they will consider placing teenager-targeted ads on the site. However, ExciteAtHome claims that with Matchlogic technology, advertising is being taken to the next level by overlaying contextual targeting with demographic profile targeting and providing a rich media advertisement to selected consumers.
Enliven, which is now part of ExciteAtHome, is an advertising creator as well as a tracker of online advertising performance. In an interview with Susan Bratton, vice president of marketing development for ExciteAtHome, the purpose of Truematch Charter Advertising was explained as being a way of providing advertisers with a means to gauge the effectiveness of real-time profile-based targeted ads. She confirmed the belief that advertisers will benefit because they will be able to achieve the most from their advertising production dollar. ExciteAtHome will also provide users of this new technology with learning and information obtained from the campaigns of other program participants. Bratton told Newsbytes that the TrueMatch Charter Advertising Program is unlike any other online method of advertising in that it allows advertisers to target a consumer's demographic profile based on attributes such as gender, age, income range, education level, presence of children, marital status, and time of day, and provide the consumer with a specifically targeted ad. With this new technology, two people viewing the same Web site, at the same time, could be receiving two entirely different ads on their respective screens.
As explained by ExciteAtHome, the patent-pending Enliven with TrueMatch technology utilizes MatchLogic's database of 72 million consumer profiles, to identify a set of valuable characteristics about a user. These profiles are derived from slick-stream date stored as numeric codes in "cookies," which are bits of user information automatically sent from a computer to a Web host. When an Internet user visits a Web site, MatchLogic's high-speed distributed servers are able to identify characteristics in the user's profile. Enliven's ad servers then receive this information and utilize logic based on the objectives of the advertiser to assemble in real time the appropriate text and images, and then delivers an ad best suited to that user's profile.
For example, an automobile manufacturer could run an "Enliven with TrueMatch" campaign using gender, age and presence of children as the target demographics. A 35-year old woman with children could receive a version of the ad featuring a minivan and messaging suited to her profile. A man in the same age group with children could receive a version of the ad featuring a sporty four-door vehicle and text appropriate for his interest. To participate in the TrueMatch Charter Advertising Program, advertisers will pay ExciteAtHome a fee of $150,000, according to Bratton. That's in addition to any ancillary costs, such as the cost of producing the advertisements themselves. ExciteAtHome is on the Web at http://www.home.net/.