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Women's portal iVillage UK is to overhaul its site and launch a

dieting programme, with £1 million worth of marketing activity, in

association with major backer Tesco.

The £50 million portal which was originally set up as a joint

venture between supermarket chain Tesco and US women's site

iVillage.com, is to undergo a full rebrand on 14 January, in a move that

will radically change the way advertisers appear on the site.

The move has been in development for the last six months. Phil Rooke,

chief executive at iVillage UK, said the revamp - which includes a full

rebranding of its logo - aims to improve navigation on the site. Part of

the revamp will see all ads on the site's home page replaced with

content in a bid to drive more users into the site.

"It's a brave move," said Rooke. "It's up to us to convince advertisers

that they're better off deeper in the site. But we've found people

respond to ads once they've been around some pages on the site."

Rooke could not reveal the cost of the revamp for iVillage UK

(www.ivillage.co.uk), but said that the project represented "hundreds of

hours of work".

He added that the revamp will also pave the way for the introduction of

new revenue-generating services. As well as introducing screened

advertorial sections, Rooke said plans are afoot to introduce

subscription services by March 2002.

Although 97 per cent of iVillage's current revenues come from

advertising, Rooke said that he hoped the new initiatives would see 20

per cent of the web site's money come from other revenue streams. It is

understood that iVillage's US site currently gains 60 per cent of its

revenue from advertisers.

A new reverse-billed SMS text alert service will be introduced this week

as part of this year's new dieting programme Shape Up Challenge

2002.

The second programme in as many years, the Shape Up Challenge will see

the new iVillage brand appear on millions of Tesco's own-brand

healthy-eating products as part of a £1m in-store promotion. Last

year's programme saw over 24,000 women take part, but iVillage hopes

that over 40, 000 users will sign up for this year's scheme.