Fashion pundits Susannah Constantine and Trinny Woodall have handed
Motive Communications the planning/buying brief for the launch of their
women-only web portal Ready2.com.
The pair - who write The Daily Telegraph’s ’Ready to Wear’ page and host
a fashion spot on This Morning with Richard and Judy - are also poised
to appoint a sales and marketing director and are in talks with both
24/7 and DoubleClick about selling online advertising.
Ready2.com, which launches in February 2000, will offer ’honest advice’
on high street fashion as well as tackling health and lifestyle issues
such as weddings, divorce and bringing up children. They are hoping to
attract between 300,000-400,000 users in the first 12 months.
Bartle Bogle Hegarty has been hired to create an on-site teaser
campaign, which will become more targeted as the launch approaches.
Motive has a pounds 2 million spend for the first quarter of 2000. Media
manager Jayne Potter and planner/buyer Neil Wirasinha will focus on
posters, women’s magazines, radio and will look at TV if Constantine and
Woodall receive further funding in April. The two journalists have just
received a pounds 5 million cash injection from the venture capital
firms Altas and JH Whitney.
Constantine and Woodall have seen major online sales houses 24/7 and
DoubleClick. But Woodall said they would prefer to keep sales in-house:
’Nobody sells you as well as yourself.’
They are talking to two candidates for the job of sales and marketing
director - one Woodall described as a ’big buzz’ in the industry.
She added that the Ready2 sites will contain more sponsorship than ads,
provided the sponsors are not too closely linked to the site’s subject
matter.
