Band and Brown Communications is to pocket around pounds 125,000 in
new fees after winning a PR brief from web search engine designer
Inktomi without a competitive pitch.
Inktomi’s search and directory software is behind on-line ventures
including FT.com, AOL, Yahoo and Excite.
The agency is looking after Inktomi’s portal services division, and the
brief will focus on the launch of a new shopping engine.
This allows on-line shoppers to compare prices and product
specifications by keying in the name of the goods they are looking for.
In future, the service will be able to give shoppers a range of consumer
reviews as they search.
The agency’s corporate and business-to-business brief will be to promote
this service to Inktomi’s potential clients - operators who run large
portals and other shopping sites.
Chief executive Nick Brown said: ’They chose us because we are not an IT
agency and they have seen the other work we have done in building major
IT brands, especially Cisco.’
The account will be headed by David Vindel, who said he would be pushing
the message to the business and technology press, as well as focusing on
national newspapers.
Firefly Communications retains a corporate and trade brief with Inktomi,
which has also used Keene Communications on a project basis.
Inktomi, which launched in the US in 1996, has a market capitalisation
of dollars 5 billion. Its chief technology officer, Paul Gauthier, who
is 21st in Fortune magazine’s list of the ’40 wealthiest Americans under
40’ is worth dollars 418 million.
Band and Brown’s other new-media clients include online auction house
QXL.com, on-line travel service ebookers and Magex, NatWest’s e-commerce
service.
