Britannica faces up to the digital age.

and Ireland.

According to the company, the revenue from in-home sales no longer

justifies the costs. It will now concentrate on other direct marketing and

retail activities, and plans a œ1 million world-wide rebranding

campaign.

”We have no alternative. We are responding to consumer demand for faster

and more convenient ways to buy,” said Tim Pethick, vice president and

general manager of England Language Products, which produces the

encyclopaedia.

”We have already adapted our products to the emerging electronic age, with

the Britannica Internet Guide, our web site Britannica Online

(www.eb.co.uk) and our CD-Rom, the Britannica CD98, launched last

November.”

Such modernisation was inevitable. Since the early 1990s, worldwide sales

of the 32-volume printed edition of the encyclopaedia have fallen by 85

per cent. And this year in the UK, the company expects to sell only 4,000

printed sets costing an average œ3,000 each, compared to 80,000 CD-Roms

selling for œ125.

”It’s been difficult to shrug off our leather-bound image and extensive

heritage,” admitted Carol Seale, Britannica’s PR manager. ”And perhaps

we’ve been a bit slow to embrace new marketing means.

”Partly, marketing is product-led,” she added. ”Whereas the

encyclopaedia’s printed version lends itself to in-home presentations, the

CD-Rom doesn’t, so we have had to find out new ways of marketing it.”