IMKTG REPORT February 11 2002

OPPORTUNITIES, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2002

Good afternoon execs,

sorry this week's newsletter is late.
originally, i was going to start off with
a light opening about how Timbaland,
a genius in hiphop, seems to be in just
about every music video these days,
however, after reading a story on news
.com, it hit home so much, i wanted to
explore it here. imagine having your
dream job, earning a $100K a year one
day, just to get laid off 8 months later,
not because you sucked, but because
the economy did. then, you look and
look for another dignifying and exciting
job everywhere, just to get turned down
because you're overqualified or not the
"right fit", so you end up mowing lawns
for 2 years. since many of you who
read this newsletter are entrepreneurs,
you may find this situation silly and
exagerrated. why doesn't this person
just start their own company or something
like that? but one hard lesson i've learned
is that not everyone can do what we do
(like working 70 hrs/wk like it was only 35)
and no matter how much talent and ex-
perience one has, they require the security
and stability that comes from working in
a big corporation (that we can live without.)
well, you may know that unemployment
is at around 6% right now, but you
probably haven't heard any of the
stories out there of people having to
foam lattes and shelve shampoo at
some retailer just to pay rent and buy
food for their kids. this Enron scandal
may seem like some big soap opera,
full of enough juicy gossip to cause
FX Networks to make a movie out it,
however, to the people that are not
young enough to easily find new jobs
& have also lost their entire savings
and can no longer support their families,
it is real life. i know, i know, survival
of the fittest, and life's not fair, get over
it... i would gladly accept the reality of
being laid off from my dream job, but
only if i had some early enough warning
to prepare how i'll manage. over 700,000
last year riding the internet wave had no
warning. this is not a call to arms to help
more people, just a reminder to never
forget how fortunate we are to be able
to help ourselves and those that work
for us. well, anyway, now that that's
off my chest, last week, there were
more surveys than a mo-fo. i tried
to cover as many as i could for you. enjoy.
and in case you were wondering,
here's that article that motivated this
opener: http://news.com.com/2100-1017-832553.html

CONTENTS:
1. LATINO: Hispanic Internet Usage research
2. SUPERBOWL: doesn't pay off for advertisers
3. ADSALES: more surveys; lawsuits; nytimes
4. BRANDEQUITY: PayPal vs. Citigroup
5. BRANDNEWS: decontructing brands; relaunching brands
6. COMMUNITY: Enron communities
7. LICENSING: does it work online?
8. THEWEEK: news gets funnier every week
9. CLOSE: the original opener, in case you were wondering

::::: ::::: ::::: ::::: al berrios latino ::::: ::::: ::::: :::::

1. LATINO: "The [Roslow Hispanic Internet
Usage] Study, conducted last quarter, found
that Hispanic/Latino Internet users are spend-
ing 55 percent of their time online using the
Web in Spanish, versus 45 percent in English.
That figure represents a marked changed from
just six months earlier, when Hispanics/Latinos
-- about half of whom are bilingual -- were
viewing Spanish-language sites only 30 percent
of the time."

BOTTOM LINE: there are definitely more
Spanish-language websites out there, & Census
2000-armed, many entrepreneurs are serving
this market. however, i was curious to see which
hispanics this "research group" was talking about.
their website mentions that they've been around
for 16 years, and have lots of clients. what got
my attention was that unlike other Latino-oriented
businesses, these guys never bother to mention
the various differences between different Latino
cultures (i.e. Dominican, Mexican, Puerto Rican,
Cuban, Spanish). so just who exactly did this
"research group" survey to make the conclusions
that Starmedia, YupiMSN and Yahoo en Espanol
are the fave destinations? well, their report costs
money and i'm not a reporter calling them up for
comments, so i can only give you the details
listed above from a press release. but i do know
that it's information like this that i'm always b!tch!ng
about not being accurate. i totally disagree with
these findings from my own person experience
in the marketplace. but without numbers, i won't
say much else. folks, i encourage you to do your
own research before believing every researcher
out there. and yes, paying a pro to do it is the
same as doing it yourself.

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::::: ::::: ::::: ::::: al berrios thesuperbowl ::::: ::::: ::::: :::::

2. SUPERBOWL: so big, it gets it's own heading.
so yeah, FOX did pull the largest ratings share
in it's history during the Superbowl according to
MediaWeek, but things didn't quite end up like
they would have liked. Variety says that for
such a close game, the 86.8 million viewers
FOX pulled in was kinda weak; "Merwyn
Research Finds Super Bowl Ads Failed to
Persuade... with only 31% of ads achieving
higher-than-average customer persuasion
scores"; Jupiter Media Metrix reported "only
Pepsi and mlife.com showed any noticeable
uptick in their site traffic during the Super Bowl."
"comScore finds that during the US football
Super Bowl (Sunday, 3 February 2002), internet
use in the country dropped by 23%. comScore
also mentions that online purchases fell by 24%
during the game."

BOTTOM LINE: everyone is looking to put
their two-cents in about marketing with the
SuperBowl, so why shouldn't i? don't do it.
it just ain't worth $2MM. with that kinda cash,
you could pay street teams to flood sports
bars all over the country with flyers or samples
of your product. with that kinda cash, you
could hire iMarketers to draw the percentage
that you actually want to reach of those 86MM
people for a whole year, not just 30 seconds.
mlife, the new brand effort by AT&T Wireless
drew 681K UVs to their site, mlife.com, a huge
accomplishment for a new brand appearing @
the Super Bowl, but not that big a deal when
you realize they spent $10MM prior with
teaser commercials on just about every channel
and website.

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::::: ::::: ::::: ::::: al berrios adsales ::::: ::::: ::::: :::::

3. ADSALES: who can you believe? there are
18 different reports out there that attempt to
put a number on the state of online advertising
industry. 18!!!! everyone from ad agencies to
banks to industry research groups have numbers
that are as depressing as a 24.5% drop or as
optimistic as a 37.7% increase in online ad
revenues. well, to that, i say, don't believe the
hype. the sellers are fighting for more money
from marketers, while at the same time suing
the pants off each other just to survive (so,
who isn't suing someone for patent infringe-
ment on online ad serving and delivery and
targeting. last week i mentioned search
engines getting sued, Unicast suing everybody,
and now it turns out that everyone from Double-
click to 24/7 Real Media is suing just to be able
to stay in the game.) the buyers want more
accountability online, yet don't mind paying
$2MM for 30 seconds of time? how ridiculous
is this? at least there's one bright side. remember
when NYTimes released that new surround
session ad unit, i mentioned it would be a success
(OPPORTUNITIES, MONDAY, DECEMBER
10TH, 2001)? well, it works.

BOTTOM LINE: online advertising is an
emerging market. there are folks that claim
it ain't worth your time and there are folks
that passionately believe you can't live without
it. numbers are created by leading institutions
to justify their place in the field, not to actually
be right. and with so many answers, how do
you pick the one that will be beneficial for your
business? that's why you read this newsletter.

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::::: ::::: ::::: ::::: al berrios brandequity ::::: ::::: ::::: :::::

4. BRANDEQUITY: a Gartner survey mea-
sured use and trust of the most popular services,
including PayPal, eBay's Billpoint, Yahoo's
Paydirect, and Citigroup's c2it. interestingly,
although only 1% of online bill payers use
Citibank's product, they trust it more than
Yahoo's Paydirect, and about half as much
as PayPal. PayPal was the first. their product
became popular on eBay, (yup, even more
popular than eBay's own product.) coincidentally,
PayPal is currently the focus of intense interest
as they prepare for their IPO, the first internet
company to go public this year.

BOTTOM LINE: how much do i think Citibank's
brand equity is more valuable than PayPal's actual
usage? i think that within a year or so, c2it will
either purchase PayPal or tie with PayPal as the
leading e-payment solutions, and that's only if
Citibank promotes it effectively. Citigroup
already sells PayPal insurance, becoming trusted
via Citigroup's financial resources. right now, c2it
is generating it's awareness on slip cards inside
your bills, which although a good place to be, isn't
exactly a place to associate your brand with good
vibes. in addition to better advertising, Citibank
also has to make their humongous consumer site
as easy to use as PayPal's. they have to do a
better job of communicating that it isn't just for
Citibank customers, but for everyone. one more
interesting note is that PayPal is actually paying
TRUSTe and BBBOnline for thier trust. in last
week's OPPORTUNITIES, i brought up the
point of paying seal programs like TRUSTe for
their trust. i argued that it wasn't worth it since
consumers are savvier now and spammers can
pay for trust, too.

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::::: ::::: ::::: ::::: al berrios brandnews ::::: ::::: ::::: :::::

5. BRANDNEWS: MPAA barred AOLTW
from using "Goldmember" in the name of the
next Austin Powers flick. after building up
promo sites and online communities, they
were forced to quietly take them down;
revised sites are popping up all over the
place: Cendant bought Trip.com and has
integrated it with it's other travel related
offerings, Cheaptickets.com and Avis.com.
the redesign of Trip.com seems a lot more
complex than the original layout, and owner-
ship has made it's product offerings less
appealing since it's just peddling its parent's
products. expect consumer traffic and
transactions to decrease. WSJ.com has
also redesigned to try and get more people
to subscribe to it's content online. yes, it
was one of the first and most successful to
charge for content online, with over 600K
paying members. and yes, the redesign is
so good that you're annoyed into paying
for the content. Etrade.com has also re-
launched, after their SuperBowl splash.
not only are they offering their financial
content over the air waves via radio, but
the relaunch is designed to reposition their
site from simply an online trading site to a
financial services company, with a bank,
investment advice, and trading functionality,
all rolled up into one of the most successful
online trade/financial institutions to survive
the bubble.

BOTTOM LINE: it always sucks when
you're forced to deconstruct a carefully
crafted brand. AOLTW's new strategy
of creating franchises of movie brands
seems to be headed off on a rocky start.
please note that just like AOLTW, you
can make your brand a franchise if you
pursue a careful strategy, don't overrun
the market with crap, support it with an
online brand initiative that builds community
and encourages feedback, at some point
in the future, breaks out with a decent
marketing budget carefully targeting those
same fans. CRM not acquisition.

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::::: ::::: ::::: ::::: al berrios community ::::: ::::: ::::: :::::

6. COMMUNITY: the power of the internet
never ceases to amaze me. Enron has com-
munities online, offering people job availability,
class action updates, and just a place to vent.
makes sense since Enron has so many people
all over the place.

BOTTOM LINE: just because you never
thought of it doesn't mean consumers don't
want it. these Enron communities aren't
supported by large operating budgets or
ads or ecommerce. they simply exist to
offer a sense of community to people that
screwed by Enron. doesn't phenomena
like this tell you what i've been telling you
all along - that the internet isn't about
ecommerce or advertising, it's about
interaction. and as long as you have a
strong community, interacting with each
other, and you're interacting with them back,
then you have a very powerful asset that you
can leverage for other revenue generating
opportunities.

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::::: ::::: ::::: ::::: al berrios licensing ::::: ::::: ::::: :::::

7. LICENSING: so "the Donald" is licensing
out his name to a miami hotel project for
$4MM a year. wow. can you imagine?
your name can actually increase the value
of something enough that people will pay
you for borrowing your name. and never
mind the fact that Trump was literally broke
about 10 years ago. his name means wealth
internationally. wow. but what the heck
does this mean for you? can an internet
name be licensed? can an internet brand
be licensed? this is a question that i've
been thinking about for a few months now,
without a clear resolution. until now. what
comes to mind first is the Pets.com sock
puppet or the Monster.com monster. those
are brands that can be licensed into toys. but
then i see that the Donald gets money for
slapping his name on a building.

BOTTOM LINE: dot.com licensing can occur,
but only when it has created brand equity in a
specific industry and a specific perception in the
minds of the target audience. for example, if i
were to start an auction site, and called it
hagglewithal.com, it probably would
take me years and millions of dollars to build
it to the same stature as someone like eBay.
so why not license eBay's name and call it
eBayhaggle.com? the licensing fee would be
definitely a lot less expensive than the dollars
eBay has spent building itself up and i get the
same result, if not more, since eBay is the clear
leader in the field. as you can see, because of
eBay's established perception of the best and
biggest auction company online, it would make
their name licensable, just like Trump licensed
his name to a business his name means some-
thing in. imagine Trump Air Conditioning? it
just wouldn't sell the same, would it. licensing
is so lucrative that Disney has built close to a
third of it's revenue from it. AOLTW is jumping
in. aside from some asian deal way back
when, Trump just started, and it's already
profitable.

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::::: ::::: ::::: ::::: al berrios theweek ::::: ::::: ::::: :::::

8. THEWEEK: gets funnier every week.
L90 under SEC investigation, CFO quits
suddenly, eUniverse merger not likely,
one more online media network gone;
Dr. Hale, 75, of legendary Hale House,
was indicted with 70 counts of mis-
appropriation of funds donated to help
children of drug-addicted moms. what's
the world coming to?! Reports make
her sound like the head of the orphanage
in "Annie"; big online advertiser NextCard
shut down by gov., trading halted by SEC;
surfers flock to legal $1 VOD service in Taiwan,
movie88.com, while Hollywood has tittie-attack;
wow. researchers say our country is protected
by morons, "** HIGHER IQ MAY PROTECT
SOLDIERS FROM POST-TRAUMATIC
STRESS DISORDER"
http://sciam.rsc03.net/servlet/cc?lJpDUWEIpnHsKHPnFohmtHpsDJhtE0EXUU

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::::: ::::: ::::: ::::: al berrios close ::::: ::::: ::::: :::::

9. in case you wanted to read it, this was
going to be the original opening remarks:

is it just me or is Timbaland in every
music video these days?! it's amazing,
i turn on the TV to MTV and the new
Fabolous is on. immediately after that,
the new Petey Pablo is on, and sure
enough, he's in there. then he's in all
the Bubba Sparxxx videos to date. i
know crossovers work, but how?
and after a while, does the one artist
that appears everywhere become the
feature attraction? x-overs are supposed
to be good for a new artist's career,
since they're featured with a more
established artist. they instantly give
the new artist street credibility. but
Timbaland has taken it to a whole new
level by producing the beats, appearing
in the videos and singing. he pops up
like Dave Thomas used to in his com-
mercials. you know it ain't his video,
but it ain't the same unless he pops up.
anyway, my point: if you want to introduce
new brands, it's always a safe bet easying
it into the consumer conscious via an
already established brand. but don't
overuse your established brand. listerine
waited decades before introducing a new
product extension with pocket packs.
don't expect to see the listerine name on
too many other new brands for a while.

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::::: ::::: ::::: ::::: al berrios iMarketing ::::: ::::: ::::: :::::

Disclaimer: The recommendations, commentary and opinions published herein are based on public information sometimes referenced via hyperlinks. Any similarities or likeness to any ideas or commentary from any other sources not referenced is purely coincidental. al berrios & co. cannot control any results occurring from advice obtained from this publication nor any opinion(s) conveyed by any reader of this publication.

(c) 2001-2005. All Rights Reserved. al berrios & company, inc. Published by al berrios & co. This Report may not be reproduced or redistributed in any form without written permission from al berrios & co., subject to penalty.

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