Yahoo! Revs Up Rich Media Marketing Machine

Streaming media might not be best for delivering feature-length films just yet, but it may justhelp you buy puppy chow. Or so thinks Purina (makers of puppy chow) and Yahoo!, whonow offer a suite of online tools for marketing departments.

Yahoo!’s broadcast services division announced this week a package of tools designed formarketing departments to assist in production services, promotion and distribution, and Webdesigns that include streaming media and interactive elements.

According to Jim Lewandowski, vice president of Yahoo! Business and Enterprise Services,streaming media is in high demand by marketers. "We spent several months interviewingFortune 1000 companies about enterprise applications of streaming media, and we foundmarketing to be the highest priority," said Lewandowski, in an interview at Streaming MediaWest. Yahoo! points to a recent Jupiter Media Metrix report that predicts spending forstreaming marketing events and product launches will approach $500 million by 2004.

The first announced client of the new marketing tools was pet food manufacturer Purina. Inthe dog section of Purina’s Web site, users can click to a companion page (PurinaTV) thatincludes streamed footage a recent dog show, as well as information about pet products andlinks to further resources. The user interface is similar to that of Yahoo!’s popularFinanceVision.

Yahoo! also announced Travelocity as a client to help the travel Web site develop broadcastcenters featuring rich media applications. The centers are expected to launch later thissummer.

As for the level of Yahoo!’s involvement in providing marketing services, "Yahoo! will doeverything," said Lewandowski. "We help in filming, production and consulting. Inaddition, we hope to leverage our 192 million unique visitors for the greatest, most targetedreach of marketing campaigns."

Such services don’t come cheap, though. Pricing could run up into the hundreds ofthousands of dollars, depending on the size and scope of the marketing campaign, saidLewandowski.