weather.com and Hallmark Flowers Demonstrate Strong Connection Between Online Advertising and Product Sales

Business Wire, Feb 19, 2003

Business Editors

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 19, 2003

Advertising Effectiveness Study Results Show Recent Campaign

Exceeded Sales Goal by More Than Two-Hundred Percent

weather.com, the most popular source of online weather information and the Web site of The Weather Channel(R), demonstrates the powerful impact of online advertising.

Analysis of Hallmark Flowers' recent campaign on the site reflected the platform's success when sales goals were exceed by 227 percent. The Hallmark Flowers study also showed significant increases in brand awareness, advertising awareness and purchase intent.

Hallmark Flowers' first campaign on weather.com ran throughout the month of December. For the entire month, Hallmark prominently featured a 300x250 ad in the site's Home & Garden section. Additionally, on December 19th, the company sponsored weather.com's homepage, which reaches an average of 14 million unique users per month.

The associated study had two objectives: quantify the branding impact of the campaign and determine if frequent exposure to the advertising had an effect on branding metrics. The study surveyed almost 2000 weather.com visitors.

Study Highlights:

-- Hallmark Flowers' sales expectations doubled as a result of weather.com campaign.

-- The Hallmark Flowers campaign significantly increased all branding metrics among respondents exposed to the advertising.

-- The campaign exceeded the Dynamic Logic MarketNorms Q3/02 for each branding metric measured.

-- Frequent exposure to the campaign played a significant role in Advertising Awareness and Purchase Consideration for the flower provider.

Results:

Metric                   Lift(1) (via weather.com    Dynamic Logic
                                  ads)                MarketNorms

Advertising Awareness            38%                      30%
Unaided Brand Awareness          33%                      16%
Aided Brand Awareness            13%                       5%
Purchase Consideration           13%                       3%

The study also showed that after viewing the campaign, Hallmark Flowers received a seventy-five percent lift among consumers who thought their company is the "most reliable in delivering on time." Additionally, those exposed to their ads are now fifty percent more likely to visit Hallmark's Web site. It is also interesting to note that this campaign was most successful at lifting purchase intent among men, adults 18-24 and people who earn more than $100,000 a year.

"We were pleased with the results but not surprised," said Paul Iaffaldano, chief revenue officer for weather.com. "We understand, as do our advertising clients, that associating your brand with a brand as respected and popular as The Weather Channel will produce very positive results. These studies are an important tool to show our first-time advertisers, like Hallmark Flowers, the tremendous value that they receive when they partner with weather.com."

"We were impressed with the immediate and outstanding impact the campaign had on our sales, said Lori Graham, Internet marketing manager for Hallmark Flowers. "The impressions that we received really had an impact on consumers and, more specifically, on the demographics that are most valuable to us. Not only does weather.com have tremendous reach as a Top 20 Web site, but it also reaches an audience that is extremely desirable to advertisers."

Hallmark Flowers has renewed its deal with weather.com and will advertise on the site throughout February.

(1)Note: Lift refers to relative difference between control and exposed responses.

About weather.com

weather.com, the Web site of The Weather Channel(R) (TWC), is the world's leading source of weather on the Web. weather.com delivers the most comprehensive weather information found on the Internet. The site helps users plan for everyday life by providing current conditions and forecasts for 80,000 locations worldwide and provides relevant content to help users plan for everyday life. Averaging 350 million page views and 14 million unique users per month, weather.com reaches an extended network of users through multiple geographies, platforms and strategic partnerships. Consistently, weather.com is ranked the most popular source of online weather information and ranks among the Top 20 of all Web domains according to Nielsen//NetRatings. weather.com is also the leading provider of broadband and wireless weather products via high-speed Internet services, cell phones, pagers, Palm Pilots, and other personal digital assistants. Partnerships include America Online, Yahoo!, Excite Networks, MSNBC.com, USAToday.com, AT&T WorldNet, ABCNews.com, Digital City, Road Runner, Verizon Wireless, Cingular, AT&T Wireless, Sprint, Nextel, AvantGo and Palm Computing. The Weather Channel continues to expand its international reach online with the launch of language-specific sites for the United Kingdom (weather.co.uk), Germany (wetter123.com), France (meteo123.com), Latin America (weather.com/espanol) and Brazil (canaldotempo.com).