EarthLink Launches Ad Campaign
EarthLink Network, the nation’s second-largest Internet service provider today will escalate its battle with market leader America Online by launching its first national advertising campaign.
Incorporating television, radio and billboards, the campaign created by the Los Angeles-based BBDO West advertising agency is designed to build the Pasadena-based ISP’s customer base as well as build consumer awareness. “We’re a very well-known brand in California, but unaided awareness outside of the state is much lower,” said Brinton Young, EarthLink’s senior vice president of marketing. “What we’re trying to do is fairly simple--portray ourselves as a high-quality alternative for direct Internet access.”
In keeping with the bulk of “dot-com” and Internet advertising, EarthLink’s three television spots rely on edgy humor--dancing hamsters, a karaoke singer and an ersatz Titanic--to draw attention. The spots that will air during network and cable programming include a tag line that reads “It’s your Internet. We just connect you to it.”
The ad campaign marks an important turning point for EarthLink, which will have 2.8 million customers when a merger with Atlanta-based MindSpring Enterprises is completed in the next few weeks. EarthLink, which has relied on word-of-mouth, banner ads and lower-cost marketing to build brand awareness, remains a distant second to AOL, which has 18 million subscribers, or nearly half of the Internet population.
While AOL spent just over $30 million on print and television advertising during the first three quarters of 1999, the company spends an estimated $500 million annually on marketing--including the constant flood of direct-mail packets delivered to potential customers.
Despite AOL’s massive lead, industry observers describe EarthLink’s advertising campaign as timely. “The EarthLink / MindSpring combination is the first ISP outfit with a clue,” said Dana Blankenhorn, a columnist with Boardwatch, a Golden, Colo.-based publication that tracks ISPs. “And, they’ve got the economies of scale to challenge AOL.”
EarthLink didn’t disclose the cost of the current ads, but Young set the “annualized cost” of the campaign at about $50 million. When EarthLink and MindSpring agreed to merge last year, company executives talked of eventually pouring more than $300 million into the new company’s annual advertising and marketing budget.
But even with this new advertising push, “There’s no way that EarthLink is going to overcome AOL in AOL’s arena,” said Rob Norcross, vice president in the telecommunications practice of Mercer Management Consulting in Washington. “It’s got too much of a lead. But EarthLink can tell people that it’s got faster links, that it’s easier to use, that it’s a different kind of company.”
