Viatel launches autumn advertising blitz, 16th November 2004

Campaign includes first major online push for pan-European business communications company

Aims to reach mid-sized businesses tired of technobabble

Viatel, the open-minded, pan-European communications company, today announced its first online advertising campaign to target IT managers tired of technobabble and hacked off with hype. Banner, MPUs and Skyscrapers will appear on key IT websites including ComputerWeekly.com, Silicon.com and VNUnet to deliver a minimum of a million page impressions over the autumn period. In addition to the banner ads, Viatel will be prominently positioned in the email newsletters of these publications and will also be buying in search engine optimisation from Google as it continues to invest heavily in its online strategy and website.

The start of the online campaign is supported with cover wraps around three key UK IT publications, IT Week, Computing and Computer Weekly, and 35 colour spot ads in key trades and National broadsheets, including the FT, The Sunday Times, The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent and The Guardian.

The campaign will be fully-integrated and highly targeted on reaching the UK\'s IT decision-makers. The above-the-line and on-line advertising campaign supports a Direct Marketing campaign targeting 45,000 UK businesses with between 100 and 1,000 employees.

The ad campaign, designed by Miles Calcraft Briginshaw Duffy, demonstrates Viatel\'s open-minded approach to business communications services. The campaign is deliberately fresh and bold, with a sense of humour that articulates Viatel\'s difference in the overcrowded and badly served European business marketplace. It builds on the momentum of Viatel\'s earlier campaigns, promoting a \'No Bull\' approach to sales and business.

Andrew Noble, Marketing Director at Viatel, comments, \'We\'re confident that this campaign leaves no stone unturned in reaching IT managers.\'

\'This is about raising awareness of who Viatel are, what we stand for, and why our approach is simply different from that of the rest of the industry.\'

\'It\'s about creating brand noise, but also about driving sales through a highly targeted campaign to support our ambitious plans for customer acquisition.\'

One campaign execution "shows" a picture of an invisible man with the headline copy "No disappearing when things go wrong" illustrating Viatel\'s recognition of the traditional failings of the IT industry and its commitment to providing a "no bull" approach to its customers. Indeed, Viatel\'s aim is simple: to provide communications services that help businesses across Europe to work faster and smarter- today and tomorrow.

Viatel offers a range of services helping businesses to securely access the internet, connect people and places, manage web applications and increase the security of their data.

About Viatel

Viatel is a pan-European business communications company operating across 6 European markets, including the UK, France and Germany. It has more than 10,000 business customers, providing them with a range of business communication services that help companies of all sizes to access the internet, connect their people and places, manage their web applications and increase the security of their data. Headed by Lucy Woods, formerly of WorldCom EMEA and BT, the company employs 200 people throughout Western Europe.

For further information on Viatel, please visit

www.viatel.com

For further information please call:

James Ralph or Neil Daugherty on +44 (0)207 7340 0430

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