The giants are stepping up their marketing
MSN, Yahoo & Co. wollen ihre Plattformen auch in der Schweiz stärker als bisher vermarkten
MSN, Yahoo & Co. want to market their platforms more strongly in Switzerland than beforeBy Clemens Hörler Hotmail, GMX or Yahoo are among the most used websites in Switzerland. Nevertheless, they have not been used too intensively as platforms for Swiss online advertising so far. However, many global Internet giants have now started to market their sites in Switzerland more intensively.
On international dotcom sites, too, advertising banners can be used to target Internet users in a specific country or a clearly defined region. This is made possible by an automated analysis of the data left behind by visitors to a website, for example the IP number they used to dial into the Internet. Other websites operate geotargeting on the basis of user profiles that consumers have created themselves and which also provide information about their place of residence. This is the case with Hotmail, for example.
A survey of Swiss marketers shows that geotargeting is also an issue in Switzerland. However, in terms of traffic, international websites have so far been rather neglected in Switzerland. This is despite the fact that Yahoo, Hotmail and Altavista are among the most frequently used websites.
According to MA Comis 2000, MSN Hotmail has a narrow user base of 258,000 in German-speaking Switzerland. MSN Switzerland has 480000 active users from all over Switzerland. Yahoo also has an impressive user community: Philippe Guillanton, Director of Operations at Yahoo Europe, estimates the number of Yahoo users in Switzerland at 400000 to 700000 people based on log file evaluations.
There are two reasons why only a gentle Swiss advertising breeze has been blowing on these sites so far.
Some of the big sites have not been marketed with full force yet. In addition, many Swiss companies preferred to place their banner ads on Swiss sites.
"Until recently, many advertisers were not even aware that geotargeting was possible. They simply thought that a Swiss product also had to be advertised on a Swiss website," explains Gianni Abner, who is responsible for Internet media planning at B, G, Media "Internet" in Zurich.
Urs Wolfensberger, Managing Director of Real Media Switzerland, which has also marketed Yahoo up to now, also believes that it would probably be easier to market Yahoo.ch than Yahoo.com or Yahoo.de in Switzerland.
And Peter Strassmann, Managing Director of ActiveAgent Switzerland, notes: "Many advertising customers also tend to use products online that they already know from the offline world." The best examples of this are the websites of media companies, which have already proven to be reliable advertising partners in the print sector.
The market research institute Forrester Research has shown for Germany that some media sites are not even among the top 50 in terms of page impressions, but are in the top 10 in terms of advertising revenues.
According to Abner, however, there is now a discernible trend toward the international platforms: "Many customers are realizing that you also have to develop a lot of advertising pressure in a short time for certain campaigns on the Internet. Based on the traffic figures, not very many Swiss sites come into question for this."
Increasing pressure from global players on Swiss websites
It's not just advertisers who are increasingly discovering the global Internet platforms, they are also discovering Switzerland. U.S. players in particular, who had pounced on the U.K., Germany and France when they entered the European market, also want to plow smaller markets more intensively in the future: Microsoft, for example, wants to boost marketing of the MSN offering, which also includes Hotmail, according to Roger Moser, Business Manager of MSN Switzerland.
Unlike most other international players, MSN launched a Swiss platform (www.msn.ch) as early as 1998. For marketing, MSN counts on Real Media, Active Agent and Ad Pepper, but also on its own sales staff.
Altavista also wants to launch its own Swiss website before the end of the year. Then, in addition to the international marketing partner DoubleClick, Swiss marketers will also get a chance. Without its own Swiss website for the time being, Yahoo wants to push marketing in Switzerland and is establishing a branch office in Zurich for this purpose, which will start operations at the end of the year. According to Wolfensberger, Real Media will also continue to market Yahoo in Switzerland.
The intensified marketing efforts of the global Internet giants in Switzerland, but also the growing awareness among advertisers that it is also possible to target Swiss consumers on websites of global players, will probably intensify the competition for online advertising francs.
As a result, the main sufferers could be medium-sized websites that neither enable precise targeting nor can keep up with the very big portals in terms of traffic. This primarily affects so-called horizontal platforms of the 2nd tier.
On international dotcom sites, too, advertising banners can be used to target Internet users in a specific country or a clearly defined region. This is made possible by an automated analysis of the data left behind by visitors to a website, for example the IP number they used to dial into the Internet. Other websites operate geotargeting on the basis of user profiles that consumers have created themselves and which also provide information about their place of residence. This is the case with Hotmail, for example.
A survey of Swiss marketers shows that geotargeting is also an issue in Switzerland. However, in terms of traffic, international websites have so far been rather neglected in Switzerland. This is despite the fact that Yahoo, Hotmail and Altavista are among the most frequently used websites.
According to MA Comis 2000, MSN Hotmail has a narrow user base of 258,000 in German-speaking Switzerland. MSN Switzerland has 480000 active users from all over Switzerland. Yahoo also has an impressive user community: Philippe Guillanton, Director of Operations at Yahoo Europe, estimates the number of Yahoo users in Switzerland at 400000 to 700000 people based on log file evaluations.
There are two reasons why only a gentle Swiss advertising breeze has been blowing on these sites so far.
Some of the big sites have not been marketed with full force yet. In addition, many Swiss companies preferred to place their banner ads on Swiss sites.
"Until recently, many advertisers were not even aware that geotargeting was possible. They simply thought that a Swiss product also had to be advertised on a Swiss website," explains Gianni Abner, who is responsible for Internet media planning at B, G, Media "Internet" in Zurich.
Urs Wolfensberger, Managing Director of Real Media Switzerland, which has also marketed Yahoo up to now, also believes that it would probably be easier to market Yahoo.ch than Yahoo.com or Yahoo.de in Switzerland.
And Peter Strassmann, Managing Director of ActiveAgent Switzerland, notes: "Many advertising customers also tend to use products online that they already know from the offline world." The best examples of this are the websites of media companies, which have already proven to be reliable advertising partners in the print sector.
The market research institute Forrester Research has shown for Germany that some media sites are not even among the top 50 in terms of page impressions, but are in the top 10 in terms of advertising revenues.
According to Abner, however, there is now a discernible trend toward the international platforms: "Many customers are realizing that you also have to develop a lot of advertising pressure in a short time for certain campaigns on the Internet. Based on the traffic figures, not very many Swiss sites come into question for this."
Increasing pressure from global players on Swiss websites
It's not just advertisers who are increasingly discovering the global Internet platforms, they are also discovering Switzerland. U.S. players in particular, who had pounced on the U.K., Germany and France when they entered the European market, also want to plow smaller markets more intensively in the future: Microsoft, for example, wants to boost marketing of the MSN offering, which also includes Hotmail, according to Roger Moser, Business Manager of MSN Switzerland.
Unlike most other international players, MSN launched a Swiss platform (www.msn.ch) as early as 1998. For marketing, MSN counts on Real Media, Active Agent and Ad Pepper, but also on its own sales staff.
Altavista also wants to launch its own Swiss website before the end of the year. Then, in addition to the international marketing partner DoubleClick, Swiss marketers will also get a chance. Without its own Swiss website for the time being, Yahoo wants to push marketing in Switzerland and is establishing a branch office in Zurich for this purpose, which will start operations at the end of the year. According to Wolfensberger, Real Media will also continue to market Yahoo in Switzerland.
The intensified marketing efforts of the global Internet giants in Switzerland, but also the growing awareness among advertisers that it is also possible to target Swiss consumers on websites of global players, will probably intensify the competition for online advertising francs.
As a result, the main sufferers could be medium-sized websites that neither enable precise targeting nor can keep up with the very big portals in terms of traffic. This primarily affects so-called horizontal platforms of the 2nd tier.
