Skype Launches New Advertising Opportunity for the World’s Premier Brands

LUXEMBOURG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Skype today announced the launch of advertising in Skype software, which will appear in the “Home” tab of Skype for Windows starting this week. This move represents the first time that advertising will appear in Skype, giving brands a unique opportunity to be part of the Skype experience, which has enabled millions of people around the world to do things together when they’re apart through voice and video calling, instant messaging, conferencing, and more.

“We’re excited to be partnering with Meebo, Ad2One, and Ströer Interactive. They give us great sales teams, reach and meaningful advertiser relationships, right from day one”

Skype has partnered with leading companies: Meebo in the U.S., Ad2One in the U.K., and Ströer Interactive in Germany to sell advertising for Skype in each of their respective markets.

With 145 million average monthly connected users for the fourth quarter of 2010 and 29 million concurrent users at peak times, Skype’s reach and engaged user base makes it an attractive platform for brands to market their products. The first advertisers to sign up with Skype include: Groupon, Nokia, Universal Pictures, and Visa.

“We’re really pleased by the initial response among advertisers. We believe advertising on Skype helps fill a creative gap by giving brands a platform that has broad reach and global engagement, while also supporting large-format, rich and interactive ads,” said Doug Bewsher, Chief Marketing Office for Skype.

Skype “Home” provides a sponsored large masthead space at 650 x 170 pixels expandable to 650 x 340 pixels for advertisers to display ads that can include audio or video. Since the ads are on Skype, advertisers can add a Click & Call button in the ad as another call to action. In addition, it allows people to share the ad to their Facebook or Twitter accounts, and with one-click, ads can also be closed with the “Close Ad” button.

“The user experience on Skype is always job number one. So, we’ve spent a lot of time working through the best way to show advertising in the Skype environment. We believe our daily sponsorship ad from one brand per day is valuable for premier advertisers, but doesn’t detract from the experience for our users,” said Bewsher. “We are just taking our first steps in this space and we expect to test and learn a lot as we move forward.”

"Driving international usage of Visa cards is a key priority for Visa and users of Skype are more likely to travel and transact internationally than the general population,” said Alex Craddock, Head of USA Marketing at Visa Inc. “To be the first to work with both Meebo and Skype in a highly engaged environment is a great opportunity for us."

"Many people log into Skype as part of their daily routine, just like they check Groupon," said Rob Solomon, president and COO of Groupon. "We look forward to leveraging Skype's new display advertising to connect Groupon to an even larger captive audience."

“Skype is known for great value with its low-cost calls to mobiles and landline phones, and free Skype-to-Skype voice and video calls. We believe that advertising, done in the right way, will help us continue to add more value into the Skype experience as a whole,” said Bewsher.

Skype’s advertising sales partners in the U.S., UK, and Germany will help present advertisers with the opportunity to market on Skype.

“We’re excited to be partnering with Meebo, Ad2One, and Ströer Interactive. They give us great sales teams, reach and meaningful advertiser relationships, right from day one,” said Andy Sims, director of advertising for Skype. “All three partners are leaders in their space, have deep relationships with top advertisers and agencies in their markets, and have experience selling high-impact brand advertising.”

For more advertiser information, go to www.skype.com/go/advertise.

About Skype

Skype is a communications platform provider whose purpose is to break down barriers to communication. With an Internet-connected device, families, friends and colleagues can get together for free with messaging, voice and video. At low cost, they can also call landlines or mobiles virtually anywhere in the world. Skype has recently introduced group video, allowing groups of more than two people to do things together whenever they're apart. Skype was founded in 2003 and is based in Luxembourg. Skype can be downloaded onto computers, mobile phones and other connected devices for free at www.skype.com.

You can get news and updates from Skype on its blog: blogs.skype.com Twitter: twitter.com/skype or Facebook: www.facebook.com/skype.

Access to a broadband Internet connection is required. Skype is not a replacement for your traditional telephone service and cannot be used for emergency calling.

Skype, associated trademarks and logos and the "S" symbol are trademarks of Skype Limited.