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December 2006 - Strategy Magazine
What next

Pimp my e: Software co touts its viral Trojan horse potential

by Annette Bourdeau
page 28

IncrediMail, a Tel Aviv-based company whose software allows e-mail users from any provider to pimp out their messages with graphic backgrounds, unusual fonts and even sounds, boasts around 350 million e-mails through its system each month, in nine different languages from 100 countries. Since IncrediMail launched in 1999, the application has been downloaded about 70 million times.

This year the company has started to focus on exploring ad opps, and hired Javier Salom as director, business development, to work out of its New York City office. Salom was formerly VP international strategic marketing at Miramax Films, and sees the film industry as a likely category. "I know there's a very clear value to [film] marketers," Salom says, adding that he's currently in talks with studios about creating film-themed IncrediMail packages, including branded backgrounds, e-mail notifications and wallpaper.

IncrediMail partnered with Yahoo! Personals to promote the company's dating service, and Salom adds that other categories well-suited to offer branded packages are travel (by adding a link to a travel site at the bottom of a scenic beach background, for example), sports teams, music and gaming.

"It has to look cool," says Jeff Holzmann, IncrediMail's EVP. "The average user probably isn't going to take an ad and make it their background."

In June, IncrediMail launched a new spyware-free screensaver and background app called Magentic, which it promoted through its network. It was downloaded over one million times within a few months of launching. "This is for a product nobody had ever heard of, so you can just imagine what the potential is for brands people know," says Salom.

www.incredimail.com.

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