The New York-based Internet media heavyweight said it has strengthened a number of its marketing and advertising pacts with partners Kinko's, Continental Airlines and P&O Princess Cruises. The partners are working with AOL Time Warner to promote their products and services through a slew of print and television outlets including AOL, CompuServe, Netscape.com, AOL Digital City and CNN.
The move comes at a pivotal time, as the slowing market for online advertising has most Internet companies scrambling to bolster ad revenue.
Internet bellwether Yahoo on Wednesday shocked Wall Street with news that its first-quarter revenue will fall short of expectations and that chief executive Tim Koogle is stepping aside.
Yahoo blamed the revenue shortfall on the weakening economy and cutbacks in marketing spending among its customers. In addition, the company said that the transition of its ad revenue base--from a reliance on pure Internet companies to a stream that includes more traditional businesses--was not as quick as it had hoped.
Meanwhile, AOL Time Warner has been busy tightening its ad relationships with traditional businesses.
Under AOL Time Warner's new agreement with Kinko's, the two companies intend to create joint marketing initiatives aimed at driving brand awareness and sales. Kinko's said it is expanding the ads of its products and services across AOL's Net properties and Time Warner's media brands. AOL Time Warner will continue to be promoted in Kinko's stores and on its Web site.
Continental Airlines, which currently gets promoted via AOL's travel site, has broadened its alliance to include promotions through the company's other Internet properties and wireless initiatives and through travel-related inserts in Time's On Magazine. Princess Cruises plans to launch a new ad campaign across CNN TV properties and promote its services via several AOL travel brands. The ad campaign is slated to launch on CNN and CNN Headline News this spring.
Separately, AOL, AOL Time Warner's Internet subsidiary, said that worldwide membership of its flagship service topped 28 million. The company also said that AOL members using the service are averaging nearly 70 minutes a day on the Web, an increase from 63 minutes a year ago.
The company cited the success of the latest version of its Net service, AOL 6.0, as well as recent investments to improve network and customer support as primary drivers for new members.
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