• by Ken Liebeskind , August 6, 2002

Cards imprinted with pin numbers are providing advertisers with a new way to link customers to the Web to take advantage of special promotions.

New York-based Download Card has developed a technology that uses simple ATM-size cards printed with promotional messages on one side and pin numbers on the other that can be typed into designated websites to open pages with special offers.

CEO Gary Adelman, who got his start in the music business, says the company started with record labels that distributed DownloadCards in retail stores. One client, Atlantic Records, used the cards to promote Tori Amos' Strange Little Girls album. Cardholders were able to enter the pin number on the Tori Amos website to download music unavailable on the CD. Atlantic Records used DownloadCards similarly to promote the soundtrack from the Harry Potter movie, offering movie related prizes.

More recently, Marie Claire, a Hearst publication, has decided to use DownloadCards to enhance its advertiser offerings. The magazine will be distributing the Haute Shopping Card in the October issue, inviting readers to enter the pin number on a special website and be taken to a page with special offers from nearly 50 MC advertisers, who’ve Marie Claire $5,000 for placement on the site and agreed to buy additional advertising in the magazine, generating $2.5 million for Marie Claire, according to a report.

Another major brand, L'Oreal’s Redken, is attaching the cards to its hair care products packages. After customers enter the pin number, they are taken to a page with beauty and fashion tips, music from a few trendy artists and a sweepstakes with a top prize of a trip to New York to attend an MTV party.

Redken is also advertising the program in YM, a Gruner + Jahr USA Publishing magazine. Redken and YM split the cost of the promotion, according to Adelman, although Redken as a YM advertiser may have paid YM for the promotion. Laura McEwan, YM's publisher, calls it a reader service. "Our partnership with the music industry and expertise in beauty and fashion allowed us to generate a Redken branding program that provides readers with exclusive content," she says.

Indeed, exclusive content is the major draw of DownloadCards. They allow advertisers to offer a variety of exclusive content, from free music to prizes to detailed product information. Adelman calls it an "offline delivery system" since it starts with the cards, but becomes an online promotion as soon as customers enter the pin numbers. The cards can be distributed anywhere - in magazines, CDs, at concerts, in shopping malls and movie theaters, Adelman says.

Clients pay a fee for the technology and a per card fee with a 50,000 card minimum, Adelman says. The price of each card varies from 15 to 30 cents depending on how many are printed. The company also offers creative services and can create and design the cards.