The long-expected dissolution of Bell and MSN’s partnership at industry-leading portal Sympatico.MSN.ca finally happened today with Bell launching Sympatico.ca, and MSN (i.e. Microsoft) debuting MSN.ca.
When Sympatico.MSN.ca launched in 2004, it was a merger of Canada’s top two portals. It went on to dominate as a unique Canadian property logging approximately 18.5 million unique views per month, according to comScore.
But while today’s split is amicable with both parties signing a three-year deal to share traffic and Microsoft’s new Bing search technology, it leaves the number one spot vacant with two large brands in direct competition for visitors.
To help differentiate their brands, each company has hired new creative agencies; the work they’re doing shows a major split in tactics, with MSN targeting the consumer market and Bell focusing on business-to-business.
New Agencies
Microsoft has partnered with Taxi to create its national brand campaign. Managed by Taxi Montreal, it centres on the four-colour butterfly logo universally identified with MSN’s portals.
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The full ad blitz (TV, radio, out-of-home, online) recreates the butterfly logo with channel-specific images. To market MSN’s music channel, for example, guitars and speakers make up the wings and body. For celebrity news, it’s champagne bottles and flash bulbs.
Each butterfly is matched with copy or narration that drives home the concept of talking. One outdoor ad showing a butterfly made of beach towels and sandals reads “Talk vacations.”
“The consumer [insight] we came to is that people want to be part of the conversation,” said Yves Blain, vice-president and general manager at Taxi Montreal. “[MSN] feeds you with social currency”–information relevant to whatever societies and communities users choose to be a part of.
Bell, on the other hand, is forgoing a large-scale consumer campaign until later this year, allowing MSN to dominate the launch period. Gary Anderson, Bell’s vice-president in charge of Sympatico, sees no need to tell his audience that Sympatico is now a stand-alone brand. While every MSN ad steers viewers to MSN.ca, promoting the Sympatico brand name is a secondary objective for Anderson, with the focus for now on the various branded channels within the Sympatico portal.
“[Consumers] can’t grasp what a portal is,” Anderson said. “They can grasp [individual brands such as] Fashionism,” Sympatico’s fashion channel, which it has been marketing as a stand-alone product since it appeared on top of its traffic reports.
The old portal had several such branded channels for music, entertainment and tech, and Bell keeps all of them.
Sympatico has revamped its logo, however, tapping Vancouver’s Rethink for the task. Rethink will also do some smaller scale consumer-facing communications at launch, bringing it into Bell’s stable of creative agencies–joining Leo Burnett, Zulu Alpha Kilo, LG2, Jam and Cossette–which handle marketing across Bell’s phone, Internet and cable properties.
While those agencies are on-hold for the mass market assignment, Bell is putting its efforts into trade communications.
“For us, not much has really changed,” said Anderson. “We’ve been operating this portal for the last five years… Pretty much everything will be the exact same. Over time we’ll evolve to something different,” but at launch the company is adopting a philosophy of minimal change.
Microsoft has a trade campaign too, led by Wunderman, but it seems on a much smaller scale than Taxi’s national assignment. MSN executives are courting ad agencies and marketers directly with direct mail, and via a redesigned Advertising.Microsoft.com, as well as industry events with none other than CEO Steve Ballmer.
Portal Content
The new logo and brand name on Sympatico’s front page are the only visual tweaks to a format visitors have gotten to know over the last five years. The site will keep its two ads running down the right side of the screen, with the lower of the two reserved for Bell products and services.
MSN’s portal also has the same feel as its defunct joint venture, but will have only one ad where Bell will be running two.
Bell has also forged a new content partnership with Reader’s Digest in an attempt to bring new eyeballs to its ads. Best Health, an offshoot Reader’s Digest publication, will populate a Best Health channel with health and wellness material. Bell itself will generate content for three more new channels–InMovies.ca, YourMoney.ca and a new-car focused automotive channel. A revamped used-car channel is expected as well with a new content partner announcement expected shortly.
Not coincidentally, automotive and financial are listed by the Interactive Advertising Bureau of Canada as the top two industries in online advertising, with 13% and 11% of the total spend, respectively.
As far as new partnerships go, MSN has announced deals with CBC, MSNBC and the BBC to populate its news and video feeds. Its roster of channels covers topics similar to Sympatico’s, though without the brand names it has created over the last five years with Bell.
This Ain’t Your Parents’ Internet
The companies’ split is indicative of how quickly the online space has changed for advertisers. When the joint venture launched in 2004, Canada’s online advertising was a market of just over $350 million. MSN’s business model at that time steered them towards partnerships with telecoms such as Bell to generate revenues from their customers by offering subscribers premium-level services for things like e-mail.
By 2009 that model has given way to free services supported by advertising, in step with industry as a whole. The ads themselves have changed a great deal as well, a fact not missed by either company. Both plan to use new proprietary video players in their ad inventories.
Canadian ad sales for the joint portal were handled primarily by Bell, although Microsoft took the reigns on global campaigns, such as Chanel No. 5’s global relaunch in May, leveraging its international sales team.
Without its local partner, however, Microsoft has had to hire 40 ad sales staff (and 20 content creators). Bell, on the other hand, has made no significant staffing changes to its sales staff.
Placing Bets
Despite a split of an audience some 18 million strong, both companies are predicting minimal disruption to traffic (and the resultant revenues).
“We don’t think the ‘Sympatico effect’ will be all that material to our business,” predicted Owen Sagness, vice-president and general manager, consumer and online for Microsoft Canada. “There may be some movement in terms of the reach numbers and unique views. We think we’ll recover from any change relatively quickly,” resulting in about 13 million unique monthly views at launch.
Anderson believes much the same, and there is no reason to think consumers won’t frequent both portals if the content is good.
But will advertisers? Bell’s campaigns are carrying over from the jointly run portal, and given the relationships its staff has with those national marketers, Bell will probably carry the lion’s share of them going forward. International campaigns, however, will probably find at home at MSN.ca.
Whether both sites can earn sustainable revenues may take another five years to determine, but the growth of online advertising suggests the brands will be competing for many years yet.
