The already interminable movie trailer experience just got 15 seconds longer.
Last weekend, Hollywood Online Inc. launched its largest in-theater marketing blitz to date with an animated trailer touting the movie-related Internet site. The spot will play on more than 15,000 screens before every movie showing over a 10-week period, timed to coincide with the holiday-season movie blitz.
Participating movie chains include AMC, United Artists and Cineplex Odeon.
“We want to get people better familiar with our brand name and to get our (Web address) out there more,” said Stuart Halperin, Hollywood Online’s co-founder and executive vice president. “We’re hoping this trailer will really pop our traffic up.”
The Santa Monica-based company, which features movie listings, reviews and celebrity interviews, already draws around 21 million page views per month double the traffic from the beginning of the year. Hollywood Online’s first trailer, which ran in July, pushed its traffic up by more than 30 percent.
“That was a major jump for us, and we think we can get at least that kind of response this time around,” Halperin said.
Hollywood Online has been growing steadily throughout the year. It recently inked a deal with USA Today to provide movie news and information for the paper’s Web site. The company currently has similar deals with the Baltimore Sun, the Houston Chronicle, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times.
The Internet company also plans to sell advance movie tickets online in 1999, which will heighten its rivalry with Movie Phone (also currently advertised in theater trailers).
Strategically located at the intersection of the entertainment and Internet industries, the Marina del Rey-based telecom company Sonoma Systems raised a $13.7 million round of venture capital last week. The investment was made by a team that includes GE Equity Group and Walden International Investment Group.
With Sonoma having now raised $22.7 million in venture capital, the 2-year-old company has garnered 5 percent of all venture capital funding injected into the greater L.A. area in 1998.
“The fact that we raised this much investment in this tough market shows just how solid our product is,” said Sonoma’s Vice President John Mazzaferro.
The product which Sonoma designs, manufacturers and markets is designed to cost-effectively boost broadband capacity by as much as 40-fold the data equivalent of turning a garden hose into a fireman’s hose.
Sonoma’s current clients include post-production houses and entertainment-industry-oriented Internet service providers, such as Marina del Rey’s SoftAware Inc.
According to Mazzaferro, telecom companies including Pacific Bell have also expressed interest in Sonoma’s product.
Sonoma intends to both double its revenues and issue an initial public offering by the end of next year.
The parent company of uBid Inc., a recent member of the meteoric Internet IPO club, has announced that it will distribute the remaining 80 percent of uBid’s shares to its own shareholders. With the online auction subsidiary suddenly reaping $25 million in IPO proceeds and a high market cap, Torrance-based Creative Computers Inc. plans to distribute the remaining uBid shares in mid-1999 through a tax-free spin-off.
Sara Fisher can be reached via email at [email protected].
