ic24 in marketing blitz

The newspaper publisher will kick off its ‘heavy weight' television campaign next Thursday with 30-second commercials on terrestrial and satellite TV. The offline campaign, created by Grey Advertising, will also include print outdoor advertising throughout April.

The posters and print ads will focus on half of a woman's face, where the pupil of her eye is replaced by the letters ‘ic' followed by the strapline, ‘Free online time from 9 to 5 every weekend'.

Jill Playle, marketing director at Trinity Mirror New Media, said the purpose of this campaign is to promote the rebranded ISP and attract new subscribers; “The purpose of the campaign is to create awareness for the ic network and try to position ourselves as a consumer champion. We aim to have just short of 1m registered users within 12 months.”

Playle said the ISP will be a strong competitor against the likes of Freeserve and World Online; “We are offering free access and free online time, which is something customers don't get with Freeserve. Our ISP offers customers the best deal in terms of pricing and taps into the wealth of content available through the group.”

Trinity Mirror New Media announced today that it has signed a deal with oil company Esso to distribute ic24 installation discs from its 1,300 service stations and 1,000 Esso dealers. This deal is similar to World Online's partnership with Shell UK, through which it distributed its software through Shell's 1,300 service stations.

Each ic24 disk will also include a free copy of ‘Route Finder - UK & Ireland', which allows drivers to plan their journey by determining the best routes. ic24 will initially distribute 700,000 disks across the UK.

Earlier this month, the publishing group announced its plans to develop the UK's leading ‘local portal' with an investment of 150m over the next three years. The aim is to develop the ic central portal plus a network of 16 regional portals across the country.

Trinity Mirror has earmarked 44m for revenue expenditure this year, which will include promoting and marketing the brand, paying for technology and additional staff.

In addition to the ic24 site central portal, the Group's existing new media assets include national websites, such as the Mirror site, and a series of regional sites, based on the Group's local newspapers' content. Trinity Mirror claims these sites generate over 40m page impressions each month, with the most visited including the ic24 portal, Sporting Life and the Racing Post.