LONDON (Brand Republic) - Guardian Unlimited, the online business of Guardian Newspapers, has revealed a new brand strategy, further new site launches and a £6m marketing push for 2001.
Guardian Unlimited, which was launched two years ago, will remain as the core brand but in February the main web address for the network will change from guardianunlimited.co.uk to guardian.co.uk.
The change re-emphasises the Guardian brand. For example, Film Unlimited becomes Guardian Unlimited Film and its website address becomes guardian.co.uk/film.
In February, the company will launch a new travel site, guardian.co.uk/travel, and a politics site, guardian.co.uk/politics, in time for the general election. These will be followed later in the year by a sports site, guardian.co.uk/sport.
The newspaper group worked with brand consultancy Wolff Olins, to devise the rebranding. Wolff Olins has designed a new logo that is smaller and simpler so that it appears more clearly on Wap phones and PDA screens.
Simon Waldman, head of Guardian Unlimited, said the new structure will be clearer, more cohesive, more scalable and easier to market. He denied that the change in web address would cause confusion to users. 鈥淲e will be making a huge effort to ensure our users know about this. And the old address will still work,鈥 he said.
The £6m campaign, to be created by the recently appointed BMP DDB and its interactive arm Tribal DDB, represents a significant rise in marketing spend. It is understood that about £4m-£5m will be spent on traditional advertising and the rest will be split between advertising in The Guardian newspaper itself and online activity.
www.guardian.co.uk