This VP, Strategic Marketing may not be able to reveal secrets about Napster developments, but he does share his goals in the online world.

With the revenue for fourth quarter, which ended March 31, 2003, equaling $34 million and it's recent acquisition of Pressplay, Roxio is quickly expanding. But it maintains its mission to produce innovative, easy-to-use products that liberate people to create, manage and move its digital media and to add value to its partners around the world with integrity and creativity. As Vice President of Strategic Marketing for both Roxio and Napster, Scott Steinberg’s job is to market these products. In this interview with iMedia, he discussed what he’s working to accomplish within the online world.

Meet Scott at the iMedia Brand Summit, September 21 – 24 in New Mexico.

iMedia Connection: Has Roxio executed any online campaigns recently? If so, what did they involve and what made them successful?

Steinberg: Roxio is constantly developing online campaigns to support our Internet business at www.roxio.com. New product launches and certain seasonal windows are especially aggressive times for us.

iMedia Connection: Are there any vexing issues or challenges facing your company and online advertising/marketing?

Steinberg: There are a couple that apply to both Roxio and Napster. ROI continues to be top of mind. We continue to give a lot of thought and investigation to new marketing techniques such as SMS and IM. We also consider the issues around email and Spam and the viability of email moving forward. We are continuing to look at optimizing cost-per-acquisition and different ways to manage CPA.

iMedia Connection: What does your company have planned for the future in order to approach the interactive space in different and unique ways?

Steinberg: We have always been an aggressive marketer on the Web. Our management team has been very supportive in building our Web store. E-commerce activities have been a big growth point for us, and we have funded marketing campaigns, balanced channel conflicts with our key retailers and still grow our direct business.

iMedia Connection: Have your goals in the online world changed from last year to this year? If so, how?

Steinberg: We continue to learn and optimize. At Roxio, we’ve grown our sku count to include downloadable versions of many of our products in addition to our traditional boxed sku. That has expanded our direct business in that we’re now able to introduce different types of skus to different consumers, and if folks want to get immediate gratification, they can with a download. If they want the whole retail experience, they can with the shrink-wrapped box.

We also continue to improve in integrating our offline and online media plans so we are better able to understand the collective effect of our total marketing effort on our target customer segment. Being able to summarize campaign reach and frequency across all media brings more intelligence to resource allocation.

iMedia Connection: How do you perceive rich media? Have you used it in campaigns? Do you think the benefits make up for the cost?

Steinberg: We think that certain brands are perfect for that type of message and investment. Rich media is extremely important. It’s not right for every promotion or every product but certain brands absolutely lend themselves to rich media, and we plan to do a lot more of that in the coming year.

iMedia Connection: Have you tested out any of the emerging technologies such as wireless, iTV etc?

Steinberg: We have not executed any programs, but they are absolutely under consideration in our plans. We will always test before full implementation, and we are very excited about the potential.

iMedia Connection: How do you evaluate different sites for media placement?

Steinberg: [We look at] content, CPM, other advertisers and associations, and obviously the kind of creative that we can deliver and, therefore, the message. Those are our major criteria.

iMedia Connection: Is there any knowledge you can impart to traditional advertisers that may be hesitant to enter into the online space?

Steinberg: Today’s business conditions challenge us all to deliver reach and ROI with our marketing programs. The best way to demonstrate not only proof of concepts but also program and campaign success is using online as a direct-response mechanism and perhaps in concert with online branding. Now that we have more capabilities with rich media and we are smarter about integrating online reach and frequency metrics with the traditional means to do that offline, it becomes another integral part of the marketing mix.

We’re all multi-channel consumers – no one media is inherently strong enough to gang tackle consumer segments. Additionally, finding ways to tap into Web sub cultures is one of the unique benefits of the Internet.