General Electric Co.’s National Broadcasting Co unit is launching a promotional campaign for its 19%-owned Snap! Internet service, in an effort to challenge Yahoo and The Walt Disney Co.’s Infoseek service, according to published reports.
The interactive edition of The Wall Street Journal reported, without naming sources, that ads created by U.K. agency Saatchi & Saatchi Plc will appear for free during blocks of time NBC uses to promote its own shows and properties.
The Snap! promotion is “the first big salvo in what I think is going to become a very large marketing war pitting some fairly large media companies” against one another, Halsey Minor, CEO of Snap!’s majority owner, company CNET Inc., was quoted as saying. Spending on the campaign was not disclosed.