Viewpoint and ‘ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History’ Partner to Deliver One Billion Online Ads Leading up to the G8 Summit in July
New York, NY – June 15, 2005 – ONE – an historic effort by Americans to rally Americans, ONE by ONE, to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty- and Viewpoint (NASDAQ: VWPT) – a leading provider of innovative visual technologies for the web and the desktop – today announced a landmark partnership to raise awareness for ONE.
Viewpoint has joined with ONE to reach Americans one billion times through an unprecedented online public awareness campaign. Viewpoint is currently delivering approximately 30 million online ads per day thanks to generous ad space donations it’s received from Time Warner’s (NYSE: TWX) AOL, 24/7 Real Media (NASDAQ: TFSM), Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) MSN, Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), MSNBC, the New York Times’ (NYSE: NYT) About.com, Burst! Media, Gamespot.com, Accuweather.com, Right Media, ValueClick (NASDAQ: VCLK), and Viacom’s (NYSE: VIA) CBS.com, CBS News and UPN. The original campaign was produced by Jon Kamen’s @radical.media.
“Viewpoint and Jay Amato have moved mountains to make one billion impressions happen exactly when they’re needed — before the G8 leaders meet to discuss how our countries can help the poorest people in the world. Viewpoint has put together exactly the sort of white-hot way of engaging Americans that Bono asked for, and Viewpoint is making his wish come true in time to make a difference for the poorest people on the planet,” said Jamie Drummond, executive director of DATA, the group founded by Bono, and founding member of ONE: the campaign to make poverty history.
ONE engages Americans through a diverse coalition of faith-based and anti-poverty organizations to show the steps people can take, ONE by ONE, to fight global AIDS and poverty. From the Heartland to Hollywood, Americans of all political and social bents are uniting as ONE. To date, over 900,000 everyday Americans have lent their voices to ONE by visiting ONE.ORG and signing the ONE Declaration.
ONE’s current efforts focus on the upcoming G8 or “Group of Eight” summit of world leaders from July 6th to July 8th in Edinburgh, Scotland, calling for three bold commitments: more and better international assistance, debt cancellation and trade reform for the world’s poorest countries. The “Viewpoint Billion” will add to the American voices calling on world leaders to do more for those with less.
“I’m lending my support to the ONE campaign because I want to do what I can to help make global poverty a thing of the past. We’re grateful for companies like Viewpoint and Radical Media that are helping make sure that ONE will reach the biggest possible audience and encourage people to become involved in this vitally important effort,” said film actor and ONE supporter Kate Hudson, who appears in the ONE stills and video campaign.
The Viewpoint/ ONE partnership are a result of Bono’s acceptance of an award at the TED conference in February. TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an annual conference of 800 thought-leaders recognized for helping create a better future. As part of Bono’s award, he was granted three wishes for the campaign to end global poverty. His wishes were that the nation’s leading tech companies will help: ONE million Americans join ONE by signing the ONE declaration online; ONE billion media impressions for ONE, rallying Americans to stand in solidarity with the ONE billion people who live on less than ONE dollar a day; and, that ONE African country – Ethiopia – realizes 21st century technology by wiring every clinic and school in the country.
Viewpoint CEO, Jay Amato, in attendance at the conference, volunteered to figure out a way to provide one billion online ads.
“I was stunned by Viewpoint’s initial offer, and am even more stunned by the speed with which they’re delivering,” commented Chris Anderson, TED’s curator. “This is exactly the kind of spectacular effort the TED Prize was intended to promote.”
“We are extremely proud to play a part in the ONE campaign,” said Jay Amato, Viewpoint’s chief executive officer. “We were confident that we could find generous publishers to contribute the media, that we could assist with the ad content and deploy our technology to make Bono’s wish come true. And it has been personally heartening to see the incredible support we’re receiving from our partners, and to witness first hand that there can be considerable humanity in good business.”
To deploy the one billion ads, Unicast – the advertising group of Viewpoint Corporation – is using its Unicast Advertising Platform to create, manage and deliver the entire ad campaign. The one billion impressions consist of standard, rich media and video advertisements, with approximately ten to fifteen percent being video ads.
Publishers who would like to participate and donate ad space to ONE should contact Kristen Corey, Unicast’s Director of Partner Sales, at 212-201-0843 or [email protected].
ABOUT ONE
ONE is an historic effort by Americans to rally Americans, ONE by ONE, to fight the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty. ONE is a coalition of almost ONE million Americans, founded by 11 of the nation’s leading relief and advocacy organizations: Bread for the World, CARE, DATA, International Medical Corps, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps, Oxfam America, Plan USA, Save the Children US, World Concern, and World Vision. ONE also works closely with the National Basketball Association, Rock the Vote, and the Millennium Campaign.
ABOUT VIEWPOINT
The Viewpoint Platform is the technology behind some of the most innovative, visual experiences on the Web and on the desktop with leading clients such as America Online, General Electric, General Motors, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Lexus, Microsoft, Samsung, Scion, Sony and Toyota. The Unicast Online Advertising Suite – the Company’s next-generation ad deployment and management system – and the Viewpoint Toolbar – the Vision for the Future of Search – are the latest breakthrough technologies using the full power of the Viewpoint Platform. More information on Viewpoint can be found at www.viewpoint.com.
FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS
This press release contains “forward-looking” statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and similar expressions that reflect Viewpoint’s current expectations about its future performance. These statements and expressions are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause Viewpoint’s actual performance to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these statements and expressions. Such risks, uncertainties and factors include those described in Viewpoint’s filings and reports on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the lack of assurances that Viewpoint will deliver one billion online ads. Viewpoint and Unicast are trademarks of Viewpoint Corporation. Copyright 2005 Viewpoint Corporation. All rights reserved.