HITWISE UK COMMUNITY UPDATE

Sport Relief Website Becomes Most Popular Humanitarian Site in UK

London, 18^th July 2006

Sport Relief, the fundraising initiative from Comic Relief and BBC Sport, saw its website become the most visited Humanitarian site in the UK in recent weeks as donors logged on in support of tens of thousands of runners preparing for their one mile run for charity on Saturday 15^th July 2006.

The latest analysis from Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, reveals that Sport Relief became the top ranked humanitarian site in the UK for the week ending 8^th July 2006, rising from 4^th position the previous week. Among all websites in the UK, the site’s ranking reached #282 on 15^th July 2006, up from #1,028 a week earlier.

Further reflecting the massive public interest aroused by the fundraising initiative, the Sport Relief website accounted for 33% of visits to Humanitarian sites on 15^th July 2006, the day of the fundraising event, up from 12% of visits on the previous Saturday.

“The sharp increase in visits to the Sport Relief website demonstrates the power of fundraising events and campaigns to drive online traffic,” said Heather Hopkins, Director of Research for Hitwise UK. “Hitwise analysis has shown that visits to charity websites are driven by specific events and promotions. Sport Relief offers a perfect example of a charitable event that mobilised the attention of UK consumers.”

Searches for David Walliams Send Visits to Sport Relief

Among the top search terms sending visits to the Sport Relief site were searches for David Walliams, whose cross channel swim in an impressive 10.5 hours received a great deal of publicity and helped fuel public interest in the day. The Little Britain star featured in four of the top 20 search terms sending visits to the Sport Relief website in the four weeks ending 15^th July 2006.

Sainsbury’s, the sponsor behind the Sport Relief mile initiative, ranked lower in search terms sending visits to Sport Relief, with ‘sainsbury sports relief’ ranking 51^st among searches sending visits to the Sport Relief website for the four weeks ending 15^th July 2006. However, Sainsbury’s played an important role in sending visits to the Sport Relief website in the build up to the event. In the week ending 15^th July, Sainsbury’s ranked 10^th among sites sending visits to www.sportrelief.com. Sport Relief was also the 15^th ranked site visited after Sainsbury’s.

Emphasis on Children’s Charities Attracts Diverse Demographic Groups

Analysis of the lifestyle profiles created of visitors to the Sport Relief site reveals strengths with three of Experian’s Mosaic Groups: ‘Symbols of Success’, ‘Happy Families’ and ‘Ties of Community.’

All three demographic groups are likely to make charitable contributions to children’s charities, a major drive of the Sport Relief fundraising initiative. In addition, the ‘Ties of Community’ and ‘Symbols of Success’ demographic groups are likely to make charitable donations to third world charities or homeless charities, causes that are both represented by Sport Relief.

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites.  Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as affiliate programs, search marketing, online advertising, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. 

More information about the Hitwise Competitive Intelligence service is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis on online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Jannie Cahill

jannie.cahill@hitwise.com

Tel: 020 7378 3619