C I Host Offers Big Bucks To Brand Basketball Skirmish: Guerilla Stunt

FORT WORTH - November 23, 2004 - (HostReview) - C I Host, a global leader in Web hosting and software development, today announced a full-court press in the world of guerilla marketing antics - a bounty to brand the moronic behavior that broke out in a recent professional basketball game.  C I Host, the owners of stunts including The Human Billboard and The Wi-Fi Guy, offers to pay $10,000 to the first person - player or fan who took or threw a punch captured in TV news coverage - if they will permanently tattoo the hosting company's logo on their fist.

"We do not condone or support this type of behavior under any circumstances," said Christopher Faulkner, CEO of C I Host.  "But chances are these people will be on camera again - at one point or another - so let's see if they want to launch a marketing career.  Of course, they will have to prove they were in the fray."

C I Host, the largest privately held hosting company, was the first company to advertise on the trunks of a Heavyweight prize fighter, embroidering its logo on the waistband of Evander Holyfield in 1999.  Next, on eBay, C I Host found an entrepreneur auctioning off advertising space on his head. The Texas-based company was the highest bidder, inking a deal for $7,000 for five years of exposure.  The Human Billboard now has a 5-by-5 orange and blue C I Host tattoo on the back of his shaved head.  The Human Billboard directly has led to 800 new accounts for C I Host.

"You might say, we are all about 'top of mind' awareness," Faulkner said. "If we can get some tattooed fists spreading our brand, that should add a little punch to our guerilla marketing."

Faulkner's company also is the official sponsor of The Wi-Fi Guy, www.wifi-guy.com, a blog in which a journalist traveled 18,000 miles, covering 43 cities, to explore and review wireless Internet access points, or hotspots.  To date, The Wi-Fi Guy has received an estimated $1.2 million dollars of media coverage.  Perhaps, more conservative than the other stunts, the site has become a respected, albeit somewhat colorful media for the wireless industry.

About C I Host

C I Host (www.cihost.com), based in the Dallas/Fort Worth market, is a Web hosting and Internet solutions provider, domain name registrar (DNR) and application service provider (ASP) serving 210,000 individual consumers and
businesses in 190 countries worldwide.

C I Host creates business-class Web hosting solutions for the small- and medium-enterprise (SME) market, with the broadest portfolio of managed hosting and value-added services in the industry. C I Host is accredited by ICANN to register domain names.

C I Host is HIPAA-compliant and has passed the SAS70 Type I audit.

C I Host has been ranked #1 in speed by the Adoloma Web Hosting Guide. C I
Host has been consistently ranked among the Top 5 Web hosting companies out
of 16,000 around the globe by c|net's Ultimate Web Host List, HostPulse,
WebHostsOnline.com and HostChart.com. C I Host was named among the Top 25
Web hosting companies by HostIndex.com.

C I Host offers turn-key services ranging from initial domain name registration to custom dedicated servers for e-commerce on today's Web. The company offers innovative packages and services to the Internet community.

C I Host operates three diverse data centers across the United States, with its main facility and Network Operations Center in Bedford, Texas. C I Host also has offices in Los Angeles, Chicago and London.

All telco-grade, tier-1 data centers are wholly owned and operated by C IHost and consist of redundant diesel generator backups and a temperature-controlled secure environment with fully redundant UPS capability. All server hardware is fully tested and configured for optimal performance. Daily Web server backups and full fire protection guard against any data loss. To deliver speed and reliability, C I Host's servers are connected to two OC-12 fiber connections, five DS-3 and two OC-3 lines from five diverse Internet backbones for a total of more than 5 Gigabits of
available bandwidth.