Category: marketing

Big news, though not that surprising…It’s all about ROI.

NYT: Amazon Tries Word of Mouth

Now Amazon has turned its quantitative prowess on one of the most vexing questions in marketing: Is television advertising worth the expense? Amazon’s answer is no. And it has canceled plans for any television or general-purpose print advertising this year. The company is so sure of its decision that it has dismantled its five-member advertising department, assigning the employees to other roles.

[…]

Jeffrey P. Bezos, the company’s founder and chief executive, said that the television campaign did increase sales, but not by enough to justify the spending. Instead, Amazon has decided to concentrate on lowering prices, mainly in the form of free shipping for orders over $25.

Posted by Olivier Travers at 04:40 AM

[marketingfix]

DMNews: Report: DM Owns Online Advertising

Direct marketing increasingly rules the Internet, according to a report published yesterday by Nielsen//NetRatings.
Sixty-six percent of online ad impressions served in fourth-quarter 2002 were direct marketing ads, said the report, “The State of Online Advertising.” This is up from 59 percent in fourth-quarter 2001, according to the New York-based online measurement firm’s AdRelevance service.

“If you firmly believe online advertising is a direct marketing medium, you think like most advertisers out there,” the report said. “While the balance between branding and direct marketing has shifted throughout the tumultuous life of the Internet, today direct marketing is lord and king.”

[marketingfix]

Note to self… Philip Morris is now Altria.

some rejected tag lines…

NEW YORK —The world’s largest tobacco company, Philip Morris, officially changed its name Monday to Altria Group. “This name change is entirely cosmetic in nature,” said Martin Feldman, tobacco industry analyst at Merrill Lynch.

[USA Today: Money]

This is sick. Yet another confirmation that cigarette companies are completely evil.

how tobacco companies targeted gay and homeless customers in SF

[anil dash’s daily links]

Sprint is working with mobile developer Openwave, professional services firm Proteus and web hosting specialist FatCow to enable subscribers to rate Superbowl advertisements. The operator also worked with McKee Wallwork Henderson Advertising to create the ADBOWL system which will be used to track responses.

Users who sign-up to the service will be sent a text message inviting them to rate the Superbowl advertisements on a scale of 1 – 5.

[PMN]

The Chrysler arm of DaimlerChrysler AG is hoping pop diva Celine Dion can convince people to actually fall in love with Chrysler cars. [Auto.com]

The idea that the cars are so great to drive and so beautifully designed that they inspire passion is behind Chrysler’s new brand slogan “Drive & Love,” which has changed slightly from last year’s tag line “Drive-Love.”

Buzz words like passion, romance and emotion are featured in the new advertising campaign, which debuts Sunday on leading U.S. television networks.

“Drop-dead gorgeous cars, that’s what this is about,” Bill Morden, vice chairman and chief executive officer of BBDO Detroit, the ad agency that created the new campaign, told a news conference on Wednesday.

Calling Dion an “ambassador of love,” he said she was an “absolute knock-dead gorgeous person” and an ideal pitchwoman for Chrysler. “She’s a megastar,” he said.

I’m not sure about you, but Celine Dion does not equal love for me. While the cars certainly are beautiful (well, the Crossfire anyway) the campaign ran with such a high frequency last night it’s already old and tired.

The phenomenon has businesses that cater to teenagers scrambling to keep up.
At MTV Europe, a number of text-oriented programs have been added.

Some MTV shows allow viewers to send in text messages that crawl across the screen during music videos — what better way to send a note to a friend? — and others allow texters to choose the next video to be played by casting a text vote for one of two options.

These “video clashes” are extremely popular, says Seth Schulte, vice-president of MTV’s Interactive Europe project. He said programmers who do not move into texting are missing important opportunities.

“The importance of this is huge,” he said. “It’s very important strategically in the sense that we know our audience is not afraid to adopt new media to consume — whether it’s the Internet or mobile — and the research we’ve done very clearly shows the audience is doing all of these things simultaneously, which is pretty staggering. They can consume four or five things at once.”

[Smart Mobs]

Let me offer three examples of companies that failed to deliver a good user experience during the holiday season. They failed through a lack of the basic abilities to do thorough design, implementation, quality assurance, and intradepartment communication.

Source: ClickZ

Last night I received an email from RedEnvelope which read:

Dear RedEnvelope Customer,

Due to an error in our arrival notifier system, you may have accidentally been sent a message on 1/8/03 stating that a gift you ordered had arrived at its destination. We were testing our system and mistakenly sent you the message. Rest assured that your gift was not reshipped, and you were not charged for a second gift. Please accept our apology for any confusion this may have caused. To thank you for your understanding, we would like to offer you free standard shipping on your next order. Simply enter the promotion code on the checkout page next time you order.

Under normal, just ordered circumstances, this would be great customer service, since they were proactive in communicating with me. The problem is that I have not ordered anything recently. The last order I made with them was over the summer!

This morning email number two arrived…

Dear Jonathan,

We just wanted to let you know that the gift you selected for the person below
has been received. If you selected additional gifts for Next Business Day or
2-Business Day delivery to other recipients in the same order, you’ll receive
a separate email from us when each gift has arrived.

************************************
Recipient:
Date Received: 07/31/02
Time Received: 11:27 AM
Shipment #:

Again, great information but almost 6 months after the fact!! I have sent emails in response to each of the messages and have not received any replies just yet. This should certainly prove to be interesting.

This is so ridiculous it is amazing. Verisign paid about $21 Billion in stock to acquire at the height of their market cap and muddles with the brand for 2 years only to roll it back out?? aigh… They certainly could have saved millions of dollars not rebranding everything and re-marketing everything only to reverse it all back.

VeriSign has created a wholly owned subsidiary to operate a new version of the domain name business it bought three years ago. As part of the move, the company will revamp the Network Solutions brand, which has been downplayed since the VeriSign purchase.

It’s never easy going toe to toe with a superbrand. But a war over sneaker cool is heating up. [New York Times: Sports]

Eric Liedtke, director of footwear marketing for Adidas, is a high-energy, high-intensity man. Veins pop from his neck. He often waves his arms around in the air for no clear reason. He curses a lot, and wears athletic shirts that wick the sweat from his skin. At a large whiteboard on the wall of his office, Liedtke messily sketches out his plan of attack.

Seekers of ‘.biz’ Names May Get Money Back (TechNews.com)

Consumers who tried to buy certain “.biz” domain names in 2001 will be eligible for refunds now that Sterling-based Internet address seller NeuLevel Inc. has settled claims that it staged an illegal lottery to dole out the names.

Announcing Froogle!: “Announcing Froogle!: “New, from Google: Froogle! “Froogle is a new service from Google that makes it easy to find information about products for sale online. By focusing entirely on product search, Froogle applies the power of Google’s search technology to a very specific task: locating stores that sell the item you want to find and pointing you directly to the place where you can make a purchase.”” Source: Archipelago