TradeDoubler’s Digital Business
Incubation Scheme, The Zoo Project, announces its first winners
Winners to benefit from more than £1m worth of business resources, including office space and hands-on mentoring
Pan-European online marketing
company TradeDoubler is delighted to
announce the first six winners of its Zoo
Project business incubator scheme.
All six start-ups are based in the UK and were chosen by a panel of “Dragons” –
marketing and business experts from some of the UK’s top companies, including
Tesco, British Gas and BT.
The Zoo Project was launched last December by TradeDoubler to foster grass
roots growth and help drive innovation in an industry that drove more than £5bn
in e-commerce revenue in 2011. [Source: Econsultancy / A4u UK Affiliate Census
2011, sponsored by Commission Junction and Argos, October 2011]
The Project will eventually offer 20 affiliate marketing start-ups a “home” in
the Zoo for one year. They will benefit from more than £1m worth of business
resources, including rent- and rates-free office space at TradeDoubler’s UK
headquarters in Victoria, London; access to TradeDoubler technology; hands-on
mentoring from affiliate marketing experts; access to major brand advertisers
and partners; and networking opportunities with other companies and
entrepreneurs.
The first six winners are: Stylenest, a luxury online magazine for “yummy
mummies”; Boomah, a cash rewards site which allows members to donate money to
their favourite club, charity or cause as they shop; As Seen on the TV, a site
which links consumers with products they’ve seen on the telly; PicYeah, which
is developing a sponsored photo platform to enable consumers to collect rewards
via sponsored photo frames; Hot Drops, is a brand new online personalised
content platform that delivers relevant content to 18 – 34 year olds on a daily
basis, based around their interests and lifestyle; and finally, AWESEM – based
in London and Germany – is an online marketing company, specialising in
optimising sites so that they can be better detected by search engines and
creating WordPress themes and plugins for bloggers and websites.
These first half-dozen – announced at an event in London last week – were
chosen after a Dragon’s Den-style pitch process which lasted a month. The panel
of “dragons” including Tim Jessop, marketing manager for online advertising at
Tesco; Steve Wilson, head of online for British Gas Business; Rob Wilson,
market unit leader for the North West, at TradeDoubler; strategic advisor and
digital agency mentor Mary Keane-Dawson; Paul Bongers, head of paid search at
BT/clickbuyclick; and Matthew Wood, founder of the A4U affiliate marketing
forums.
“The quality of entries was extremely high, and whittling them down to a top
six was a difficult task,” said Rob Wilson TradeDoubler’s Market Unit Leader
North West
“But we have a worthy first tranche of winners and we’re looking
forward immensely to helping them set off on the road to success. We believe
the difficult economic climate brings unique opportunities for affiliates as
consumers search for better deals online. In the longer term, we see the kind
of performance-based marketing practiced by affiliates becoming as important as
TV or press advertising – even more so. Combine this with good old British
entrepreneurial spirit, and the fact that online advertising in the UK is
forecast to grow by over 10% this year, and we think that this hugely dynamic
business sector will give the UK economy a real shot in the arm.”
For more information, please contact:
Marie Dalton
Project Manager
TradeDoubler
0207 798 6470