Butterfly in the foliage
Contact Ads Facts and NZZ are breaking new, interactive and also profitable ground in the most personal of all classified ad markets.
In the most personal of all classified ad markets, Facts and NZZ are breaking new, interactive and profitable ground.When the first plants sprout and people's hormones go crazy, the media's search for a partner also produces fresh, colorful blossoms. One of these was enclosed with the Tamedia news magazine on March 20, i.e. one day before the beginning of spring. Facts' first singles guide gathered 300 lonely hearts on 40 uniformly designed pages, which one (and woman) could first select at leisure on paper and then contact via e-mail or SMS.The idea to extend the "Guide" line extension, which had previously been limited to bar and restaurant guides, to the domain of contact brokering did not come from Tamedia's offline division. "We wanted to finally use synergies and launch an innovation that is fun and also profitable," says Claudia Wyss, project manager at Tamedia's "Date'n'flirt" platform PartnerWinner.ch. As a third party in the novel communication alliance, Swisscom Mobile also marks its visual presence free of charge in the singles booklet, whose print run of 150,000 copies is not yet out of print. (Repeat orders via PartnerWinner or Swisscom are possible, but make little sense due to the short half-life of personal ads).
According to Facts product manager Claudia Gillardon, the full page price of 10,000 Swiss francs was charged for each of the other six full-page ads. That's why the first singles guide, modeled on the monthly Amica supplement "Zum Verlieben," "at least covered its costs. In the fall, the synergetic ménage à trois is to go into series production with a successor for the cuddly season - and thus soon secure Tamedia a new source of income.
Success as a seal of quality
At the NZZ, which has so far been reluctant to engage in "emotional business," the activation of this cyclically resistant category segment was carried out by a highly reputable provider, as befits its status. However, the marketing director of NZZ-Online, Kurt Busslinger, was ultimately convinced by the performance record of Parship, an agency with scientific pretensions (see box): Thanks to the cooperation with the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, the Internet branch has been in the black since the beginning of 2003. "In January, the revenue from our first and most profitable media partner to date exceeded 100,000 euros for the first time," says Parship co-founder Lars Langusch. He therefore describes Die Zeit, whose Holtzbrinck-internal yes vote just over two years ago started it all, as a "role model" and door opener for the steadily growing number of publishers who have placed the Parship link on the homepages of their prestigious titles.
One key to the surprise success of electronic "match making" - according to Busslinger, almost 10,000 users registered via nzz.ch alone in the first quarter of 2003 - is undoubtedly its cross-media promotion. Parship is benefiting from the slump in the industry in that the demand for unsuspicious "filler material" is particularly high these days. Thus, one or two full-page references to the new platform appear weekly in the NZZ Ticket. And at its launch, even the usually buttoned-up main paper loosened its shirt collar and asked "Nasenbär gesucht?" ("Nose bear wanted?") with unusual relish.
Facts and NZZ (Online) secure a piece of the lucrative classifieds pie for Herzen in Flammen.
Market leader of the "match makers "With its current 3,400,000 registered members, Parship is, according to its own information, the largest German-language online dating agency based in Hamburg. The Internet dating service was founded in mid-2000 by Holtzbrinck Networxs AG, the venture capital company of Holtzbrinck Verlag (Handelsblatt, Die Zeit, Wirtschaftswoche, Der Tagesspiegel and others). Today, this still holds just under
87 percent of the company, which has been profitable since 2002; the rest is shared by the founders and the current 22 employees. The current cooperation list includes 30 media partners and ranges from the search engine altavista.de to all Holtzbrinck products and Spiegel Online. In Austria, too, Parship is already represented on five newspaper sites. Of the Swiss publishers, only the NZZ has so far worked with the Hamburg agency. However, negotiations are underway with search.ch and Bluewin. Also at the top of the wish list is
Weltwoche. When asked, Uli Rubner, head of Weltwoche's publishing house, expressed interest, but "not until the beginning of 2004 at the earliest, when we have reorganized our entire classified business. (oc)
Oliver Classen
According to Facts product manager Claudia Gillardon, the full page price of 10,000 Swiss francs was charged for each of the other six full-page ads. That's why the first singles guide, modeled on the monthly Amica supplement "Zum Verlieben," "at least covered its costs. In the fall, the synergetic ménage à trois is to go into series production with a successor for the cuddly season - and thus soon secure Tamedia a new source of income.
Success as a seal of quality
At the NZZ, which has so far been reluctant to engage in "emotional business," the activation of this cyclically resistant category segment was carried out by a highly reputable provider, as befits its status. However, the marketing director of NZZ-Online, Kurt Busslinger, was ultimately convinced by the performance record of Parship, an agency with scientific pretensions (see box): Thanks to the cooperation with the weekly newspaper Die Zeit, the Internet branch has been in the black since the beginning of 2003. "In January, the revenue from our first and most profitable media partner to date exceeded 100,000 euros for the first time," says Parship co-founder Lars Langusch. He therefore describes Die Zeit, whose Holtzbrinck-internal yes vote just over two years ago started it all, as a "role model" and door opener for the steadily growing number of publishers who have placed the Parship link on the homepages of their prestigious titles.
One key to the surprise success of electronic "match making" - according to Busslinger, almost 10,000 users registered via nzz.ch alone in the first quarter of 2003 - is undoubtedly its cross-media promotion. Parship is benefiting from the slump in the industry in that the demand for unsuspicious "filler material" is particularly high these days. Thus, one or two full-page references to the new platform appear weekly in the NZZ Ticket. And at its launch, even the usually buttoned-up main paper loosened its shirt collar and asked "Nasenbär gesucht?" ("Nose bear wanted?") with unusual relish.
Facts and NZZ (Online) secure a piece of the lucrative classifieds pie for Herzen in Flammen.
Market leader of the "match makers "With its current 3,400,000 registered members, Parship is, according to its own information, the largest German-language online dating agency based in Hamburg. The Internet dating service was founded in mid-2000 by Holtzbrinck Networxs AG, the venture capital company of Holtzbrinck Verlag (Handelsblatt, Die Zeit, Wirtschaftswoche, Der Tagesspiegel and others). Today, this still holds just under
87 percent of the company, which has been profitable since 2002; the rest is shared by the founders and the current 22 employees. The current cooperation list includes 30 media partners and ranges from the search engine altavista.de to all Holtzbrinck products and Spiegel Online. In Austria, too, Parship is already represented on five newspaper sites. Of the Swiss publishers, only the NZZ has so far worked with the Hamburg agency. However, negotiations are underway with search.ch and Bluewin. Also at the top of the wish list is
Weltwoche. When asked, Uli Rubner, head of Weltwoche's publishing house, expressed interest, but "not until the beginning of 2004 at the earliest, when we have reorganized our entire classified business. (oc)
Oliver Classen
