User Friendly Media Inc. is an online IT entertainment company whose differentiated business strategy is to provide client companies access to its concentrated IT audience by bundling their marketing messages in with User Friendly's entertainment features

With over 525,000 unique visitors a month, many from proxy servers in the industry's top IT players and consumers, User Friendly's audience boasts high MRI (971- 1664) and PMB (640 to 809) indices in BPI (Business Purchase Influence) for several IT products. The User Friendly difference is that it reaches this audience through humour and cultural entertainment products instead of straight IT or IT business content.

User Friendly has carved out a specific niche that overlaps the entertainment and IT worlds. Banking on the power of entertainment, especially humour, to build loyalty and strengthen brand recognition and messaging, User Friendly clients (which have included IBM, Compaq, SuSE, and SGI) either: sponsored User Friendly animations, interactive videos and branded services; or commissioned their own animated e-cards, banners or custom cartoon art work featuring the User Friendly style.

User Friendly audience demographics fall well within the IT specialist or MIS/EDP professional job descriptions employed by PMB and MRI. Of its professional audience members, 72 pPRCent are in core IT occupations (e.g. programming, systems administration, SW or HW development or technical support) with 28 pPRCent in peripheral IT occupations (e.g. middle and senior management, customer service and IT sales).

This demographic has a huge influence on business technology purchases. MRI indices for the U.S. indicate that the User Friendly audience demographic is usually directly involved in IT equipment purchase. For example, marketers of networking HW or software are 14 times more likely to find a valuable qualified prospect within this demographic. For PC HW and SW it is 10 times more likely and for Mini & Mainframes it is 16 times more likely to find a valuable qualified prospect.

In Canada, the PMB indices for this demographic show that at work it is 6 times more likely to use a laptop or multimedia speakers, 8 times more likely to use utility software and over 7 times more likely to use sound boards.

The site started over three years ago with the User Friendly cartoon strip. The IT community, drawn to the specific IT humour, built a following for the cartoon that has since expanded into other entertainment product offerings. By staying close to the community through comment and chat systems, User Friendly's global audience has given the site permission to market to it in ways that the audience deems appropriate.