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| CBS's iWon Portal Play: Will Bribery Pay? |
| By Stefani Eads
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| October 06, 1999
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The TV network will depend on cash giveaways to build traffic. Is this a real Net strategy -- or just a holding action?
Let's get something straight: Just about the last thing the world needs is another Web portal. But say you wanted to start one anyway, more than three years after nearly everyone else got to the party. That's the challenge that confronted CBS Corp. at the Oct. 5 launch of iWon.com, the first Net company in which it has taken a majority stake -- for $100 million in cash and marketing.
AD ACCESS. What could make the project go -- and save the new venture plenty of money in the bargain --is the access iWon has gained to the CBS network's advertising channels. Of the $70 million CBS has said it will spend to promote the site, it'll drop $40 million over the next six months. Of that, 85% will go to TV advertising and 15% to radio. "The three most important parts of our strategy right now are to build traffic, brand, and exposure," says Daugherty. "Then we'll focus on expanding content and adding more deep integration of the [sweepstakes functionality] in content and commerce."
"[CBS's] strategy has always been cross-promotion, whether it's cross-mediated programming or advertising," adds Mark Mooradian, an analyst with New York-based Net research firm Jupiter Communications. "In the past six months, CBS has become more focused -- they seem to have honed their vision for an Internet strategy and made it more centralized."
Rohan expects CBS to announce "more cohesive site investments" and continue to use its advertising and promotional inventory as currency in exchange for minority ownership in companies. The key to CBS's Net strategy so far, he adds, has been its ability to capitalize on and expand its strengths as an offline media distributor while developing an increasingly comprehensive online content offering.
"We won't see them following in Disney's footsteps for three reasons," Rohan says. "First, CBS has a great management team in place. Second, it has a tremendous local advertising sales force that can reach national as well as regional and local markets. Third, the company is already starting to set itself apart in vertical Net markets, namely music and health."
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