Monday, April 23, 2007
Chicago White Sox Tap Performance Communications Group for Banner Ads
For information contact:
Clarus Communications
Mara Conklin, 847.816.9411
mconklin@teamclarus.com
Linda Muskin, 847.432.7300
lmuskin@teamclarus.com
Chicago White Sox Tap Performance Communications Group for Banner Ads
CHICAGO, (April 23, 2007) – The Chicago White Sox, building off of the success of a World Series championship, consecutive 90-win seasons and more than 2.9 million fans visiting U.S. Cellular Field in 2006, has tapped Performance Communications Group (PCG) to deliver a series of banner ads aimed at further building fan excitement for the new season and maintaining high game attendance.
The banner ad campaign consists of three themes, each with several creative messages and three unit sizes, for more than 40 individual banners. All ads were rich media in format and some were video banners with exciting Sox video footage. According to Scott Madlener, executive vice president, interactive strategies at PCG, "it was important to create several different ads because the core demographic is narrowly defined, which allows us to test which banners perform best. PCG's ISAT Ad Network also is tracking the best sequence of ads."
The banners are running locally on ChicagoTribune.com, ChicagoSunTimes.com, ESPN.com and other sites.
“As more and more White Sox fans turn to the Internet for team and baseball news, we thought it was a natural next step to extend our message online through banner advertising,” said Amy Kress, White Sox director of mass communications. “Our advertising brings the White Sox brand to that rapidly growing group of fans who consume team information on the Internet.”
Creative for the ads was provided by the White Sox creative firm, Two by Four, creator of the award-winning White Sox “Grinderball Rules” advertising campaign in 2005 and 2006, along with this season’s popular “Back to the Grind” campaign in 2007.
The banner ads are powered by PCG’s patent-pending ISAT solution, which integrates multimedia, security, portability and advertisers’ eBusiness processes into one online user experience. The ISAT platform radically improves the user experience by breaking down barriers to taking action via the Internet.
ISAT guarantees the delivery of live and recorded audio, video and animation assets directly integrated with their associated content. ISAT provides a two-way conduit that supports broadcasting, allowing the administrator to send information directly to the viewer without having to wait for the viewer to request it. ISAT supports such diverse environments as standard Web sites, e-mail, and embedding within the desktop and within wireless Pocket PCs. All ISAT sites are secured with SSL encryption, even if the HTML page that they reside on is not secured. ISAT performs all these functions while using up to 80 percent less bandwidth. Importantly, ISAT sites are accessible to virtually 100 percent of all users.
###
About PCG
Performance Communications Group (PCG) brings together technology, strategies and services to support a broad range of online advertising and sales efforts. PCG’s Internet Secured Application Technology (ISAT) is an evolution in online advertising that radically improves the relevance and usefulness of banners for businesses and consumers. Companies such as Whirlpool Corporation and Sysco Corporation have improved their communications and driven meaningful ROI utilizing PCG solutions and strategies. PCG is based in Chicago. Additional information can be found at http://www.epcg.net.
Clarus Communications
Mara Conklin, 847.816.9411
mconklin@teamclarus.com
Linda Muskin, 847.432.7300
lmuskin@teamclarus.com
Chicago White Sox Tap Performance Communications Group for Banner Ads
CHICAGO, (April 23, 2007) – The Chicago White Sox, building off of the success of a World Series championship, consecutive 90-win seasons and more than 2.9 million fans visiting U.S. Cellular Field in 2006, has tapped Performance Communications Group (PCG) to deliver a series of banner ads aimed at further building fan excitement for the new season and maintaining high game attendance.
The banner ad campaign consists of three themes, each with several creative messages and three unit sizes, for more than 40 individual banners. All ads were rich media in format and some were video banners with exciting Sox video footage. According to Scott Madlener, executive vice president, interactive strategies at PCG, "it was important to create several different ads because the core demographic is narrowly defined, which allows us to test which banners perform best. PCG's ISAT Ad Network also is tracking the best sequence of ads."
The banners are running locally on ChicagoTribune.com, ChicagoSunTimes.com, ESPN.com and other sites.
“As more and more White Sox fans turn to the Internet for team and baseball news, we thought it was a natural next step to extend our message online through banner advertising,” said Amy Kress, White Sox director of mass communications. “Our advertising brings the White Sox brand to that rapidly growing group of fans who consume team information on the Internet.”
Creative for the ads was provided by the White Sox creative firm, Two by Four, creator of the award-winning White Sox “Grinderball Rules” advertising campaign in 2005 and 2006, along with this season’s popular “Back to the Grind” campaign in 2007.
The banner ads are powered by PCG’s patent-pending ISAT solution, which integrates multimedia, security, portability and advertisers’ eBusiness processes into one online user experience. The ISAT platform radically improves the user experience by breaking down barriers to taking action via the Internet.
ISAT guarantees the delivery of live and recorded audio, video and animation assets directly integrated with their associated content. ISAT provides a two-way conduit that supports broadcasting, allowing the administrator to send information directly to the viewer without having to wait for the viewer to request it. ISAT supports such diverse environments as standard Web sites, e-mail, and embedding within the desktop and within wireless Pocket PCs. All ISAT sites are secured with SSL encryption, even if the HTML page that they reside on is not secured. ISAT performs all these functions while using up to 80 percent less bandwidth. Importantly, ISAT sites are accessible to virtually 100 percent of all users.
###
About PCG
Performance Communications Group (PCG) brings together technology, strategies and services to support a broad range of online advertising and sales efforts. PCG’s Internet Secured Application Technology (ISAT) is an evolution in online advertising that radically improves the relevance and usefulness of banners for businesses and consumers. Companies such as Whirlpool Corporation and Sysco Corporation have improved their communications and driven meaningful ROI utilizing PCG solutions and strategies. PCG is based in Chicago. Additional information can be found at http://www.epcg.net.
Labels: advertising 2.0, banners, online advertising, rich media
Friday, April 20, 2007
Is your Corporate Intranet out of date
As seen in eCommerce Times: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/OS02KkJZ7P4HTB/Is-Your-Corporate-Intranet-Out-of-Date.xhtml
By Jack M. Germain
TechNewsWorld
Part of the ECT News Network
04/20/07 4:00 AM PT
Companies big and small have to consider their needs and goals for creating and maintaining what is essentially a private Web site for workers. Much like developing a Web site for marketing purposes, intranets can be installed with a one-size-fits-all application, an industry-specific turnkey intranet application or delivered as a hosted offering similar to tradition ASP products.
Corporate intranets are becoming big business , both for the designers who put them together and companies that use them to empower their employees to participate in two-way discussions about corporate dealings. However, not all companies are eager to implement the new technologies that are redesigning the options available in traditional intranets.
The latest and greatest corporate intranets sport the hottest Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis, blogging, podcasting and social networking. Companies big and small have to consider their needs and goals for creating and maintaining what is essentially a private Web site for workers, say intranet designers.
"Corporate intranets are definitely becoming a trend. Some departments within a company are going off on their own with intranet content. But generally, portal applications are becoming too complicated, and many companies want something simpler," Dave Hersh, CEO of Jive Software, told TechNewsWorld. His company developed Clearspace, an integrated intranet application.
Part of the corporate decision making process means discerning the type of intranet structure to offer and who will maintain it. Much like developing a Web site for marketing purposes, intranets can be installed with a one-size-fits-all application, an industry-specific turnkey intranet application, or delivered as a hosted offering similar to tradition ASP (application service provider) products.
Still, there can be some hesitancy from management and workers alike, Hersh noted. To ease them into the process, managers can pick and choose the types of features they want their staff to use so that it isn't a matter of having something forced on participants.
Design Wish List
One new design feature built into Jive Software's Clearspace application is the ability to integrate the intranet with existing enterprise networks. Jive Software's research about features customers most want in their intranets show a range of design goals, noted Hersh.
"We conducted an exhaustive research survey with 25 of our largest users to see what they wanted. They were stuck between too much and too little. They wanted features and tools all under one umbrella but not weighed down," he explained.
Some intranet products have a focus on wikis, he said. Another trend he has observed is a rush for companies to support what workers were asking for. Clearly, the most flexible intranets are those designed with Web 2.0 functionality in mind.
That concept is the winning formula behind Performance Communications Group's Internet Secured Application Technology intranet design. Called ISAT, it incorporates an integration of multimedia for live or prerecorded content, security measures and portability. It runs as either a hosted Web application or on a corporate server .
New Internal Horizons
Corporate executives looking at intranets for purely sales-oriented goals had better think again. The goal of an intranet is to empower communication within a corporation.
"The whole thing behind the new intranet is expanding collaboration by opening it up to the entire company. There is no longer a competitive advantage to not doing this," cautioned Jive's Hersh.
The original idea for an intranet was to share knowledge in closed departments. People are now realizing a larger need to spread information within the company, he said. Technology today has made it easier for corporate executives to do this.
"We are now seeing a power shift in companies over how information is used. Historically, people in organizations couldn't share ideas. Now, blogging within a company creates followers and inter-reactions," Hersh explained.
One sign that encouraging workers to creatively vent is a change in e-mail volumes. CIOs are finding that e-mail is not being abused now that employees can use an intranet, according to Hersh. "Knowledge isn't locked in in-boxes."
'Micro Site' That Intranet?
For a nontraditional view of what a modern intranet can do for a company, look at the Sysco Foods operation that Performance Communications Group designed. The food service company has 80 business units, each with different products and promotions. This resulted in a flood of product-driven e-mails for the 10,000 sales associates. Too many e-mails to handle caused workers to ignore many of them, company officials said.
To streamline the process, Sysco worked with Performance Communications Group and its ISAT technology to produce a secure intranet micro site capable of running multimedia presentations with less than 80 percent of the bandwidth of HTML. Dubbed the Sysco Blue Cube Project, the ISAT-based intranet provides over 100 pages of documents, audio, video and other content each week, according to Scott Madlener, executive vice president of Performance Communications Group.
Sysco also uses the Blue Cube micro site to delivery policy and contest information to the sales associates in addition to product updates. The intranet's structure provides for compartmentalized content accessible by only targeted audiences within the company and selected external partners and customers. The entire intranet content is managed by a single Sysco Food's worker, eliminating the need for an involved IT staff.
It is structured so that a beverage sales associate can view only information relevant to him and ignore frozen food or ready-to-serve data. Since the information is both secure and portable, company workers use it directly from their laptops during sales presentations.
"We built the registration page for Sysco's intranet so the log-in page teases information to qualified registered users," explained Madlener.
Intranet Jive
For One Economy, the design of Jive Software's Clearspace intranet redefined how the 60 workers in 10 offices viewed their company. One Economy is a multinational nonprofit organization that brings broadband to the homes of low-income people and provides a multilingual Web portal called The Beehive.
"We've been using it for two months, and it has already taken pretty good hold," said David Saunier, vice president of the media division for One Economy.
"A number of key staff people started using it right away, starting with our CIO, who set up his audio blog."
When One Economy first launched its intranet, the corporate office filled with the CIO's audio. Whenever Saunier walked down the corridors, he heard his CIO's voice echoing from all the computers as the workers listened to the updates.
This is the company's first experience with a corporate-style intranet. Previously, the firm used a shared-file server that was not available to all of its regional offices.
"So it has been very good for us to have a repository for things. This intranet gives access to internal communications company wide," he said. "We are seeing increased use and better internal communication efficiency, especially related to shared documents in our corporate repository. [We are] efinitely seeing a communications boost on a number of levels. We are also seeing more collaboration than ever before."
A La Carte Design
Nicco Mele, founder and president of Internet consulting firm EchoDitto, prefers an eclectic approach to designing an intranet. Rather than use a dedicated intranet program, he prefers to use off-the-shelf, free products to provide the features he needs.
For instance, he uses external and internal blogs sites and a public del.icio.us RSS feed to distribute company comments at del.icio.us/echoditto. He also uses a wiki on his company's Web site. The Web page itself ties together all of the various parts, giving everybody access to some content and strictly restricting other content to internal registrants only.
"Different projects need different tools. We have a collection of Web 2.0 tools," Mele said.
For instance, he uses a Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) spreadsheet as a sales leads management tool posted online with internal access only.
"We are a bootstrap company with not a lot of cash. So key is low cost, easy-to-use tools. I don't want a large application," said Mele. "The standard dilemma of today's technology is balancing one dedicated application against smaller components that do what you want them to do."
By Jack M. Germain
TechNewsWorld
Part of the ECT News Network
04/20/07 4:00 AM PT
Companies big and small have to consider their needs and goals for creating and maintaining what is essentially a private Web site for workers. Much like developing a Web site for marketing purposes, intranets can be installed with a one-size-fits-all application, an industry-specific turnkey intranet application or delivered as a hosted offering similar to tradition ASP products.
Corporate intranets are becoming big business , both for the designers who put them together and companies that use them to empower their employees to participate in two-way discussions about corporate dealings. However, not all companies are eager to implement the new technologies that are redesigning the options available in traditional intranets.
The latest and greatest corporate intranets sport the hottest Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis, blogging, podcasting and social networking. Companies big and small have to consider their needs and goals for creating and maintaining what is essentially a private Web site for workers, say intranet designers.
"Corporate intranets are definitely becoming a trend. Some departments within a company are going off on their own with intranet content. But generally, portal applications are becoming too complicated, and many companies want something simpler," Dave Hersh, CEO of Jive Software, told TechNewsWorld. His company developed Clearspace, an integrated intranet application.
Part of the corporate decision making process means discerning the type of intranet structure to offer and who will maintain it. Much like developing a Web site for marketing purposes, intranets can be installed with a one-size-fits-all application, an industry-specific turnkey intranet application, or delivered as a hosted offering similar to tradition ASP (application service provider) products.
Still, there can be some hesitancy from management and workers alike, Hersh noted. To ease them into the process, managers can pick and choose the types of features they want their staff to use so that it isn't a matter of having something forced on participants.
Design Wish List
One new design feature built into Jive Software's Clearspace application is the ability to integrate the intranet with existing enterprise networks. Jive Software's research about features customers most want in their intranets show a range of design goals, noted Hersh.
"We conducted an exhaustive research survey with 25 of our largest users to see what they wanted. They were stuck between too much and too little. They wanted features and tools all under one umbrella but not weighed down," he explained.
Some intranet products have a focus on wikis, he said. Another trend he has observed is a rush for companies to support what workers were asking for. Clearly, the most flexible intranets are those designed with Web 2.0 functionality in mind.
That concept is the winning formula behind Performance Communications Group's Internet Secured Application Technology intranet design. Called ISAT, it incorporates an integration of multimedia for live or prerecorded content, security measures and portability. It runs as either a hosted Web application or on a corporate server .
New Internal Horizons
Corporate executives looking at intranets for purely sales-oriented goals had better think again. The goal of an intranet is to empower communication within a corporation.
"The whole thing behind the new intranet is expanding collaboration by opening it up to the entire company. There is no longer a competitive advantage to not doing this," cautioned Jive's Hersh.
The original idea for an intranet was to share knowledge in closed departments. People are now realizing a larger need to spread information within the company, he said. Technology today has made it easier for corporate executives to do this.
"We are now seeing a power shift in companies over how information is used. Historically, people in organizations couldn't share ideas. Now, blogging within a company creates followers and inter-reactions," Hersh explained.
One sign that encouraging workers to creatively vent is a change in e-mail volumes. CIOs are finding that e-mail is not being abused now that employees can use an intranet, according to Hersh. "Knowledge isn't locked in in-boxes."
'Micro Site' That Intranet?
For a nontraditional view of what a modern intranet can do for a company, look at the Sysco Foods operation that Performance Communications Group designed. The food service company has 80 business units, each with different products and promotions. This resulted in a flood of product-driven e-mails for the 10,000 sales associates. Too many e-mails to handle caused workers to ignore many of them, company officials said.
To streamline the process, Sysco worked with Performance Communications Group and its ISAT technology to produce a secure intranet micro site capable of running multimedia presentations with less than 80 percent of the bandwidth of HTML. Dubbed the Sysco Blue Cube Project, the ISAT-based intranet provides over 100 pages of documents, audio, video and other content each week, according to Scott Madlener, executive vice president of Performance Communications Group.
Sysco also uses the Blue Cube micro site to delivery policy and contest information to the sales associates in addition to product updates. The intranet's structure provides for compartmentalized content accessible by only targeted audiences within the company and selected external partners and customers. The entire intranet content is managed by a single Sysco Food's worker, eliminating the need for an involved IT staff.
It is structured so that a beverage sales associate can view only information relevant to him and ignore frozen food or ready-to-serve data. Since the information is both secure and portable, company workers use it directly from their laptops during sales presentations.
"We built the registration page for Sysco's intranet so the log-in page teases information to qualified registered users," explained Madlener.
Intranet Jive
For One Economy, the design of Jive Software's Clearspace intranet redefined how the 60 workers in 10 offices viewed their company. One Economy is a multinational nonprofit organization that brings broadband to the homes of low-income people and provides a multilingual Web portal called The Beehive.
"We've been using it for two months, and it has already taken pretty good hold," said David Saunier, vice president of the media division for One Economy.
"A number of key staff people started using it right away, starting with our CIO, who set up his audio blog."
When One Economy first launched its intranet, the corporate office filled with the CIO's audio. Whenever Saunier walked down the corridors, he heard his CIO's voice echoing from all the computers as the workers listened to the updates.
This is the company's first experience with a corporate-style intranet. Previously, the firm used a shared-file server that was not available to all of its regional offices.
"So it has been very good for us to have a repository for things. This intranet gives access to internal communications company wide," he said. "We are seeing increased use and better internal communication efficiency, especially related to shared documents in our corporate repository. [We are] efinitely seeing a communications boost on a number of levels. We are also seeing more collaboration than ever before."
A La Carte Design
Nicco Mele, founder and president of Internet consulting firm EchoDitto, prefers an eclectic approach to designing an intranet. Rather than use a dedicated intranet program, he prefers to use off-the-shelf, free products to provide the features he needs.
For instance, he uses external and internal blogs sites and a public del.icio.us RSS feed to distribute company comments at del.icio.us/echoditto. He also uses a wiki on his company's Web site. The Web page itself ties together all of the various parts, giving everybody access to some content and strictly restricting other content to internal registrants only.
"Different projects need different tools. We have a collection of Web 2.0 tools," Mele said.
For instance, he uses a Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) spreadsheet as a sales leads management tool posted online with internal access only.
"We are a bootstrap company with not a lot of cash. So key is low cost, easy-to-use tools. I don't want a large application," said Mele. "The standard dilemma of today's technology is balancing one dedicated application against smaller components that do what you want them to do."
