Beeb.com Campaigning To Attract Reluctant Middle England Net Shoppers

BBC Worldwide is to launch a marketing campaign to promote its shopping portal, beeb.com to the ‘middle England’ market. A total of £7 million is being spent on the cross-media campaign, which is based around a prime-time TV commercial, the first showing of which will be at 6.30pm on 18 September. The TV advertising will be backed by print adverts, appearing throughout autumn in national newspapers and BBC Worldwide magazines, a radio campaign, promotions, offers and competitions.

Promotional material is based around the concept of the classic Ladybird How it Works children’s books, and is aimed at attracting new and non-internet users to shop online. “The dot.com marketplace has traditionally advertised using slick and gimmicky hooks to get people interested. However, we feel that people who are not habitual internet users can be alienated by this approach,” says Julian Turner, chief executive of beeb ventures limited.

He continues, “We have designed a campaign that is funny and inspirational, but is also familiar and reassuring. It has a clear message and encourages people to see shopping on the internet as something as natural as shopping in the high street.”

The Ladybird book the campaign is based on is set to be produced in real life and sold through the beeb.com site and in WHSmith. A beeb.com bus, which acts as a mobile internet cafe, will also be touring the country to give consumers free internet shopping lessons.

‘Aunty’ may be offering to hold the hand of novice net shoppers, but no-one seems quite sure how much it is needed. Research on the public’s confidence in shopping online varies, with some surveys suggesting that online brands are seen as less trustworthy than high street brands which have been brought online (see E-Brands Must Work Harder Than High Street Brands To Gain Trust Online), others saying that confidence in this new way of shopping is growing (see UK Internet Users Giving Online Shopping More Credit) and (see Online Shoppers’ Confidence At All-Time High, Says Survey), and others claiming we would rather play games than buy things on the internet (see We’d Rather Play Games Than Shop On The Net, Says Report).

BBC Worldwide: 020 8576 2000