Marketing Group Tries Bake-Your-Own Ads; Purpose Gets Historical
Since leaving myOC.com in the fall, Paul Thiel has been busy with another online venture,selling technology that turns pictures from restaurants and other places into digital mementos.
PictureMark Inc., a 2-year-old company in Costa Mesa with nine employees, licenses digital cameras and software that allows entrepreneurs and business operators to take photos of people at eateries, sporting events, or tourist spots and make them available via e-mail. PictureMark charges its clients a licensing fee of $26,500, with a $12,000 renewal fee, as well as 5 cents per transaction.
Licensees can photograph fans or customers at events, upload the images and then deliver them via e-mail to customers. A restaurant or other operation also can include a promotional message, said Thiel, who is chief operating officer and president of the company.
To view photos, people must opt into a company’s mailing list. Their e-mail addresses are added to a database organized by PictureMark’s e-mail management system, Thiel said.
The technology was tested last year for a six-month period at Rainforest Caf & #233; and Mighty Ducks hockey games. Current licensees include Citadel Communications Corp. and General Mills Inc.’s Wheaties and Yoplait divisions. PictureMark also reached an agreement last week for a $150,000 contract with Sony Corp.
Thiel said he also wants to target marketing agencies that will use the system as part of their arsenal of tools for multiple clients’ campaigns. The company offers a $9,500 system, with limited capabilities, to licensees using it on a smaller scale.
“The technology is done and it’s well tested,” Thiel said. “The only problem we have is funding. We’re not an Internet company. But the company smells like one because we use e-mail, and (venture capital firms) are running away from the Internet.”
PictureMark founders already have kicked in $800,000 in funding, but the company must raise another $800,000 in the next 11 months to get to profitability, Thiel said.
It recently redesigned its revenue model to focus on licensing fees. Previously, PictureMark contracted with venues and supplied photographers free of charge. But since interactive advertising,its primary revenue channel,has “tanked,” Thiel said the company had to switch.
Thiel left myOC a few months ago after spending one year as chief executive of the Freedom Communications Inc. site. Prior to that, he was vice president of marketing at Freedom’s Orange County Register.
Ads Your Way
Two-year-old The Marketing Group, a Garden Grove-based ad agency, has an answer for clients who want to save money: ADZexpress, a new do-it-yourself division.
The 12-person ad shop launched the division in December to give small to large companies the chance to create their own advertising materials, including brochures, press releases and newsletters, for fees ranging from $499 to $1,300, depending on the work, said Nancy Kent, creative at the Marketing Group.
Clients supply their own marketing ideas and copy and then choose from several pre-made ad and brochure templates, which include photos and fonts. The ad or brochure is then sent to the art department at ADZexpress, where professionals finish them off and get them to clients within 48 hours.
“Our goal is to do it in 24 hours but we don’t want to bite off more than we can chew,” Kent said.
If clients want additional marketing help, they can turn to the Marketing Department, which offers advertising services, added Kent.
“This is no way replaces the ad agencies. We don’t want them to be mad at us,” said Ofelia Dilley, in charge of accounts at the Marketing Group.
Instead, ADZexpress was created to help clients who want additional help, quick turnarounds and some savings, she added.
Clients of the Marketing Group, which counts $1.5 million in annual capitalized billings, include California Cryobank Inc., a Los Angeles sperm bank, and Pep Threads dancewear company in Orange.
Local History
Capistrano Beach-based Purpose Media, an Internet marketer for local companies, is producing a new show called “The Gold Coast,” which airs on Cox Communications Inc.’s Channel 31 on Tuesdays at 6 p.m. Singer/songwriter and publisher Christina Duane, who owns Purpose Media, developed the series, focusing on history and events in OC. The company plans to debut a new community guide, www.OrangeCounty.net, this month.
Bits and pieces:
Tustin-based Trinity Golf, a maker of golf clubs, apparel and accessories, recently named Huntington Beach-based Western Editorial public relations as its agency of record. This is the first time the year-old company has given its marketing account, estimated at about $200,000, to an outside agency. Script To Screen, a multimedia production company in Santa Ana, also has produced Trinity Golf infomercials, which are airing Speaking of Script To Screen, the company recently completed an infomercial for Snore Fix, a natural throat spray that helps prevent snoring, and Dremel, a precision-tool manufacturer. Both infomercials were rolled out nationally.
