Glaser Announces New Partnerships

As a seasoned keynote speaker, Rob Glaser sure can pack in a lot of information. At an address for Streaming Media East 2001, RealNetworks’ CEO deftly blazed through a presentation of the company’s latest offerings, demonstrating the RealOne media player and music service, enterprise applications and announcing new partnerships including one with computer manufacturer Compaq.

In the Compaq deal, RealOne will be the default media player on all shipments of Compaq Presario PCs. Compaq will also offer to existing customers and new PC buyers promotions to sign up to the RealOne subscription and music services. But the companies said current shipments of Presario PCs will include RealPlayer 8 and Real Jukebox. RealOne is still in beta, with the final form not expected to be completed until the first half of 2002.

Glaser also announced that RealNetworks has entered into new partnerships with brand name advertisers Intel, Absolut, and Acura, but did not go into detail about the nature of the pacts.

With RealOne and Real’s version of the online music service MusicNet being announced last week, Glaser walked show attendees through the current version of the three-paned player and its various features. He showed clips of ABC News and played a song from fellow Seattleites, the Foo Fighters.

Seemingly responding to criticism about limited music inventory and bugs in the RealOne software, Glaser commented that the player and service are still in a transition period. "No, we don’t have the celestial jukebox just yet, but we do have 40% of North American recording artists and 75,000 tracks," said Glaser. "For ten bucks a month, just try it and cancel if you want. No big deal."

In the second keynote address, James McDowell, vice president of marketing for BMW, took the floor to showcase the luxury car manufacturer’s much ballyhooed online "advertainment" campaign at BMWFilms.com. Enlisting the help of big name film directors, such as Ang Lee and Guy Ritchie, the marketing campaign featured five short films at the Web site. Leveraging offline advertising vehicles such as television and print ads, the campaign created a substantial buzz, widespread media coverage, and generated tremendous traffic to its site.

While McDowell couldn’t supply direct numbers for return on investment, he did say the project was "hugely successful and far exceeded our expectations." Some two million people who went to the site provided information to BMW, said McDowell.

In a sign of unprecedented commitment to rich media advertising, McDowell said the project took two years to develop and was BMW’s major marketing activity for more than two quarters.