Name of client companies:
Lagardere Active and Hachette Filipacchi Medias (ELLEgirl Magazine)

Client's problem:
Lagardere Active and Hachette Filipacchi Medias (HFM) were preparing to launch the ELLEgirl brand. Prior to HFM's magazine launch, Lagardere Active activated ELLEgirl.com. Yet ELLEgirl was searching for new ways to reach its core audience -- teenage girls.

Solution:
An Interactive Agent powered by ActiveBuddy technology -- the ELLEgirlBuddy

How it works:
ELLEgirl, because of its teen female readership, identified IM as a high priority channel for promotion for the new magazine and Web site. Since IM is well entrenched in the target demographic, ELLEgirl chose to do more than advertise in IM and elected to extend the brand into IM with an interactive agent.

ELLEgirlBuddy sports the persona of a 16 year old girl. She has two missions: 1) deliver content from both ELLEgirl magazine and ELLEgirl.com including beauty and fashion information; and 2) to engage users in ways that are important to the target demographic.

In the content-delivery department, ELLEgirlBuddy's main screen (reached when a user first IM's the agent) offers choices on subjects like beauty, fashion, horoscopes, movies/entertainment and games, quizzes and contests. It can also hook teenage girls up to a page that offers subscriptions to the magazine.

ELLEgirlBuddy also builds its brand through IM chat between the bot and a teen girl. Here's a sample of a chat between a user and the bot:

FrtnChris: what are you doing
ELLEgirlBuddy: listening to tunes, IMing with my friends, polishing my nails...
FrtnChris: I'm bored!
ELLEgirlBuddy: well then do something fun!
FrtnChris: like what?
ELLEgirlBuddy: i dunno... listen to music, go for a walk, learn something new, read a book, be creative!

anyway...

FrtnChris: where are you from
ELLEgirlBuddy: i live in lovely san francisco! :-)
FrtnChris: how old are you
ELLEgirlBuddy: i'm 16! :-)
FrtnChris: how tall are you
ELLEgirlBuddy: well, i don't have a pic 2 send you... :-\ but here's what i look like: average height (5'6"), thin, long straight red hair (i usually wear it up), some freckles, green eyes.

yeah. anyway...

Results:
ELLEgirlBuddy launched on AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) network February 19, 2002. Officials at both companies say the interactive agent made a real impact on ELLEgirl's readership and the Web site's viewership. Within the first month, traffic to the ELLEgirl Website increased 83%. Within six weeks, meantime, subscriptions to the magazine increased significantly.

ActiveBuddy reports that the target market of female teens like the agent as well. Some of the e-mails and comments ActiveBuddy has received include: "ELLEgirlBuddy is awesome as well! I love her beauty and fashion tips!" And, "I really like the different agents and what they talk about. ELLEgirlBuddy is my fav."

Statistically speaking, between launch and the end of May:

• Over 50 million messages to ELLEgirlBuddy
• almost 1 million unique visitors to the Web site, 58% of whom are repeat visitors
• Almost 4 million sessions averaging over 7 minutes to the Web site

Just as important, advertising partners sponsoring the interactive agent received from 10% to 13% click-through rates.

Bob Woods is the managing editor of InstantMessagingPlanet.