- Wired Digital has retained San Francisco-based advertising agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to develop a multi-million-dollar brand-building campaign for the company's acclaimed Web search engine HotBot.
The agency is understood to have won the business without a competitive pitch. HotBot, located at www.hotbot.com, is currently one of the highest trafficked sites on the Web, with a claimed 7.5 million unique users per month.
The campaign, which is due to break in October, is designed to expand HotBot's reach beyond its core audience of Web-savvy professionals and introduce the service to a broader consumer base.
In June Goodby, Silverstein & Partners won the Grand Prix for best advertising in the world at the 1998 Cannes Festival for its Nike Skateboarding campaign.
Jeff Goodby, co-chairman of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, said: "We are extremely pleased to be working with an industry pioneer such as Wired Digital. HotBot is a hidden jewel amongst search engines. It's the search engine of choice for serious Web searchers, but has yet to be promoted broadly to the general Web audience. We look forward to introducing HotBot's compelling attributes to a new generation of users."
Over the past year, Wired Digital has experienced exceptionally strong traffic and revenue growth. Pageview traffic to all Wired Digital sites, including HotBot, HotWired ( www.hotwired.com ), Webmonkey (www.webmonkey.com ), Wired News ( www.wired.com ), and Suck (www.suck.com ), have increased 92 percent since the second quarter of 1997.
The network of sites now attracts more than 9.5 million unique users each month. Wired Digital revenues have increased 113 percent in the first quarter of 1998 versus the same quarter last year.
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