Long before Google Inc. spent $3 billion to acquire New York City-based DoubleClick Inc., Norwalk-based Modem Media Inc. blazed a major trail in online advertising via the banner ad.
Now a Modem Media veteran is returning to set up shop in Fairfield County with his text messaging startup ”“ and perhaps reinvigorating the county”™s interactive-media roots.
ShopText Inc. is relocating from New York City to Norwalk, after receiving $1 million in venture capital funding from Connecticut Innovations Inc.
ShopTextӪs system allows consumers to request marketing information or make purchases by typing keywords into mobile devices that are published in ads. Customers include Procter & Gamble Co., General Mills and Cond̩ Nast.
Company founder Steve Roberts previously was chief financial officer of Modem Media, managing the Norwalk company”™s 1999 initial public offering of stock before it was acquired in 2004 by Boston-based Digitas for $200 million. Before that, he spent seven years with several divisions of Hartford-based United Technologies Corp., including Otis Elevator Co., Carrier Corp. and Pratt & Whitney.
After Digitas was itself acquired last year by Paris-based Publicis Worldwide, Modem Media was renamed Publicis Modem and its headquarters officially moved from Norwalk to San Francisco.
In a sense, it was the end of an era. After its 1987 launch by Douglas Ahlers and G.M. O”™Connell, Modem Media would grow to 1,200 employees, recording $61 million in revenue in 2003 on the eve of the Digitas acquisition. Today, Ahlers is employed as a sage on the topic of social media at Harvard University”™s Kennedy School of Government.
“Modem was the pioneer in standardizing the (Web) banner as an ad unit and distributing applications ”¦ into other people”™s Web sites and banner ads,” Roberts said. “It was enough to get me to leave (UTC).”
In decamping from Manhattan, the startup is abandoning the Madison Avenue and “Silicon Alley” talent base that spawned success stories like DoubleClick, an ad-server company acquired last year by Google. A large number of the 700 members of the Mobile Marketing Association are likewise based in New York City; ShopText is among a few based in Fairfield County.
Roberts hopes to concoct a similar success story in South Norwalk, itself boasting a trendy enclave of creative talent, and says he is undaunted by the implosion of the credit markets that is far more severe than the pop of the high-tech bubble at the start of the decade.
“We funded this I think on what may have been the worst day in U.S. financial history,” Roberts said. “I guess the way we approach this (is) that if you demonstrate results and you get a great client list, which we have ”¦ then I think you have opportunities to attract capital.”
Part of that investor appeal lies in the company”™s ability to connect advertisers to consumers. The company has registered an incredible 80-percent click-through rate on promotions requested on mobile devices, Roberts said ”“ online banner ads typically register less than 1 percent.
“What we are really driving right now is a new reason for brands to run ads,” Roberts said. “As all ad budgets are coming under pressure, we are helping drive more yield out of those ads.”
Even as ShopText puts out its shingle in Norwalk, organizers have scheduled an Oct. 28 conference on emerging digital media firms in Fairfield County, with keynote speaker Joseph Jaffe, a noted local writer on the topic. Sponsoring organizations include the Connecticut Venture Group and the Connecticut Digital Media Business Network, which formed last April.
The hope is that the conference will serve as a springboard to seed additional interactive media companies locally, according to CVG spokesman Bernie Lynch.
