[Note:  Emphasis in email thread added by me]

-----Original Message-----

From: Keith Teare

Subject: IBM Call Report

Hi All

This is a call report on our meeting at IBM on

Wednesday.

Attendance:

IBM: Marianne Caponnetto (VP WorldWide Media); John T

Lane (Director Digital Media) Todd Martin (Privacy

expert)

RealNames: Keith Teare; Lou Mohn; Joe Furrier

The meeting was at the Armonk HQ. It was due to run

11am-12 noon but ran 1 hour longer, through to 1pm.

Joe Furrier had done a presentation. The goal was to

get IBM to give worldwide buy-in to our product, and

to integrate it into all offline marketing materials.

Marianne started the meeting by stating that her goal

was to understand how she could use internet keywords

to improve the ROI of her worldwide TV, Radio, Print

and Outdoor spend. Also how she could measure that ROI

improvement.  She wanted to be strategic, not tactical.

We began the presentation (Joe will forward this to

you all). Within a short space of time Marianne

interrupted and wanted to know how Internet Keywords

fits into the whole direction of Internet Naming.

Here we outlined two key points:

1. The DNS world, under the control of ICANN, is

planning to introduce many new gTLD's [Generic top

level domains]. .com will be joined by .web, .store,

and many others. This will further confuse internet

users. Nobody will know whether IBM is .com or some

other dot.

2. The brand, product, service, company will become

much harder to find in that world. Internet Keywords

represents a more coherent strategy for companies as

regards future naming conventions. Country and

Language namespaces, within which brands and products

can be typed into the browser in an unmodified form,

will meet the needs of users, and marketers.

Given these two possible futures Marianne was VERY

enthusiastic about the benefits of the second.

We then continued with the presentation: As she became

aware of the extent of Microsoft's browser share [80%]

she was increasingly impressed with our product. We

paused and made another significant point:

1. RealNames has 2 [and perhaps 3] years to prove that

an internet keyword system is desired by the market.

If we do so Microsoft will be unable to back off from

delivering the service to browser users. If we fail,

then Microsoft will probably discontinue support for the

service. This would be a bad thing for brands because (a)

The many dots world will survive. and (b) Microsoft will

try and squeeze cash from the browser itself - at the

expense of brands. Therefore IBM has a major strategic

reason for wanting RealNames to succeed. 

This worked incredibly well.

We proceeded with the presentation. The next

significant point was surrounding our pricing. When

asked we were very open that we are still learning

what the value of the product is. We have two pricing

models. One is very structured [service fee; per

keyword fee; resolutions], the other is very simple [%

of marketing budget, probably 1%]. This led to an

interesting discussion. Marianne clearly preferred the

% of marketing budget (in my view) as it was simple to

administer and control. She fully agreed that the

keywords enhanced the value of the marketing spend and

to that extent deserved a % of it. However she wanted to

know how we would prove the ROI improvement.

There were two part to the answer. These didn't meet

with any objections.

1. The ROI improvement is obvious and needs no

measurement by RealNames. IBM will see it in (a)

Stronger awareness (b) Loyalty from Customers (c)

Return Visitors (d) Brand strength. These are all

measurable by IBM against its own goals. The keyword

will add more or less value based on how well it is implemented.

A good execution may improve ROI 100%, a bad execution [like

the Panasonic Show Stopper ad in USA Today] might not improve it

at all.

2. RealNames will agree to be measured by whatever

IBM's marketing goals are. If the goal of a specific

campaign is response, the that is our KPI. If the goal

is awareness of IBM's ecommerce strategy then that

will be our KPI. IBM will measure this is its

traditional ways. We truly believe we will support ANY

marketing goal. The key is creative execution.

It became clear at this point that IBM are VERY

interested in convergence tracking. They raised this -

not us. We explained to them how keywords can help

measure offline effectiveness. This is KEY to them

We then moved back to the presentation. At this point

the issue of privacy came up. They were particularly

sensitive to the fact that through knowledge of the IP

number of the user (now that with DSL and Cable there

are static IP's) we will know a lot about the user

profile. They wanted to know how we were handling

privacy. We told them about the policy advisory board

and our TrustE relationship. This led to a discussion

of the PAB. They said they would like to investigate

joining (alongside Microsoft).

Overall this was a lengthy part of the discussion and

we came out of it very well.

The final part of the discussion was the rest of the

presentation - focused on our international growth.

Our ability to be used as part of IBM's international

strategy was clearly crucial to them.

The meeting wrapped up with next steps:

Marianne was very keen for a presentation of Internet

Keywords - from the highly strategic down to the

tactical - to Ogilvy & Mather [at a very high level]

including creative and IBM's account managers. This

will result in specific deal discussions. She will

also assemble some of the key brand people at IBM for

this presentation.

We also flagged IBM with a potential for partnership

in the intranet space. Keith and John Lane will liaise

on this.

Overall a very successful meeting. Great presentation

from Joe and great buy-in from IBM. We are going to do

a big deal with these guys during the next 90-120 days

(my opinion).

 - Keith

[Of course, this deal never happened.  Another total fucking shocker]