The following scenario comes courtesy of Ted Leonsis, CEO of Redgate Communications Corp., a high-tech agency based in Vero Beach, Fla.:
Mrs. Smith of Anytown, USA, a new mother in the year 1995, receives in the mail a personalized, interactive, multimedia CD-ROM disk, containing a compilation of thousands of pages from 50 leading catalogers.
Mrs. Smith happens to be in the market for a new stroller. So she inserts the CD-ROM into her personal computer. On screen, she accesses information on the type of product she's interested in. Mrs. Smith is offered the option of watching a stroller expert, in full-motion video, tell her all about stroller construction and safety. Or she can go right to the product offerings to compare features and pricing. When she's ready to place an order, she can do so via CD-ROM modem or telephone.
Just another sample of high-tech pie in the sky? No way, Mr. Leonsis says. This summer, a test version of just such a product is being evaluated by focus groups around the country. Mr. Leonsis and three unnamed partners then hope for a fall mailing to 5,000 prospects to test response. By year's end, he expects to unmask his partners and participating catalogers, and roll out the nation's first interactive consumer catalog buyers club nationally.
Futurists have long said that CD-ROM catalogs will change the way direct marketers do business -- at least with the 4 million prospects whose personal computers are equipped with CD-ROM drives, a number industry analysts expect to surpass 10 million by 1995.
And today's CD-ROM technology is a relatively inexpensive method of storing, producing and mailing a wealth of information.
Improvements in technology have shrunk the cost of creating a single CD-ROM application, according to Dataware Technologies of Cambridge, Mass., a CD-ROM software supplier. What cost, on average, between $ 50,000 and $ 100,000 five years ago can be done for under $ 30,000 today.
CD-ROM also has attractive PC user demographics, notes J.G. Sandom, CEO and creative director of Einstein & Sandom, a New York agency that focuses on interactive advertising media: median household income of $ 65,000 and a high proportion of executives and professionals.
With this in mind, it's not surprising that a recent survey of catalog and magazine publishing and production executives showed that 34% of those not already producing CD-ROMs expect to do so within the next two years.
The reasons are simple, according to Mr. Leonsis. "It's the only medium right now that can blend video, music and voice with basic marketing data."
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