CREATION - Delivering rich media on email marketing

The recent launch of Media Genesis by Dr SK Fung - the former general manager of TVB International and founder of CNBC Asia - is to help customers deliver personalised, permission-based email marketing services in Asian languages by deploying technology from software provider Xchange. With an estimated 500 million email boxes anticipated worldwide by the end of this year, The Body Shop and Time Inc Asia are among Media Genesis' first clients in Hong Kong. The marketing product, backed by Internet consultancy firm Icon Medialab, implements rich media email, featuring technology from Radical Communication, which allows companies to incorporate audio, video and animation into email. While the service can help clients acquire new customers, Dr Fung stressed companies must initially utilise their own mailing lists. "We don't own and we don't sell email lists, so we are truly independent and there is no conflict of interest ... We are as comfortable working with Coca-Cola as we are working with Pepsi at the same time," Dr Fung said. Further, Dr Fung said, unlike unsolicited Spam, the service allows customers to choose if they wish to continue receiving the information or would prefer to unsubscribe. Media Genesis offers customers a full service, which includes analysis segmentation; data hosting; capturing of new data; client segmentation; campaign planning, and tracking and reporting analysis. Alternatively, clients with a smaller budget can register at Media Genesis' website and implement the self-service ASP (application service provider) option, which allows users to access the company's software and back-end infrastructure to run their own email campaign. Each email could cost from about US$0.20 to US$2, depending on whether it was in plain text or video. Once potential customers receive the email, they have the option to forward the message to three other people. While Media Genesis can track the sent message, it lacks the right to include the new addresses to its database without prior permission. Dr Fung added the service was not limited to dotcom companies and would be as effective for traditional bricks-and-mortar businesses. According to figures released by Media Genesis, 74 per cent of Asia-Pacific Internet users have email boxes. That figure is expected to increase to more than 90 per cent by 2004.

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