Monthly Archives: January 2011

Online Shopping….Dream or Nightmare?

January 31, 2011 in Culture by Caitlin Epstein

7:15 a.m. Alarm goes off

7:30 a.m. Shower

7:40 a.m. Dress for Work

7:55 a.m. Breakfast

8:00 a.m. Log onto Hautelook, RueLaLa, Gilt Group and Groupon to check out what today’s sales have to offer…

8:08 a.m. Insert credit card number

8:11 a.m. Sprint outside and catch the bus.

Am I embarrassed that I set my alarm 15 minutes early in order to make time to check out the daily sales? A little bit….

However, I am not alone. Discount shopping sites are the rage right now. These sites, Hautelook, RueLaLa, and Gilt (to name my personal favorites), host 24-48 hour sales of every luxury you can imagine at incredible discount prices. From designer clothes to home goods, vacation rentals to gym memberships, spa treatments to restaurant gift cards, a dedicated bargain hunter can find pretty much anything they’d ever want at 50% off.

Groupon and LivingSocial are other sites in the same family, offering incredible discount coupons for a very limited time period, encouraging shoppers to buy NOW or risk losing the opportunity. The “I’ll think about it” rationality of shopping is completely eliminated. These sites encourage impulse buys and rarely offer a return policy…a shopper’s dream and downfall all wrapped into one.

The theory works; Groupon reports having 40 million subscribers to their daily coupons and 3.9 million unique visitors to their site. LivingSocial is becoming incredibly popular as well, reporting 2 million unique U.S. visitors to their site.

Whether its a trend, fad, addiction, obsession, life saver, breaking the bank or all of the above, there is no denying the world of online shopping and bargain hunting has gone viral!

(image via Google Images)

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IDG, Inc. Garner 2010 Folio Editorial Awards; Forbes.com Launches New Design

January 31, 2011 in Industry by Eastwick

Congrats to this year’s 2010 Folio editorial award “Eddies” recipients, including:

  • Inc. Magazine – best B‐to‐B, Banking/Business/Finance, Single Article for the April 2010 story, “The Office is Dead. Long Live the Office”
  • Computerworld (IDG), NetworkWorld (IDG) and Internet Evolution (TechWeb) – best B‐to‐B Technology/Computing/Telecom,Website

It looks like Forbes.com is going for a Folio design award “Ozzies” win next year based on the Jan. 24 launch of a completely redesigned blog site.  Visually, it’s starting to look a lot like TechCrunch, which is duking it out with sister publication Engadget under the AOL umbrella, according to Verne Kopytoff at the New York Times.  Lucia Moses at AdWeek reported that Forbes.com’s three-month-old AdVoice program, “advertisers could pay to have their labeled blogs appear alongside those of editorial staffers. Now, their contributions can run anywhere on the site that a staff writer or contributor can appear, not just the blogs section.”  (See also Nov. 2010 blog “Critics Pan Forbes.com Blog Platform.”)  Says Forbes.com, stay tuned for video and mobile capabilities.

Photo courtesy of Dustin and Jenae

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What Happens to Social Video in 2011?

January 31, 2011 in Industry by Eastwick

MediaPost reported that, “…in 2009, the industry saw less than 700 social video campaigns,” but social video in 2010 saw something like a 180% increase in campaigns ran year-over-year. A lot of major brands like Coca Cola (with its the Happiness Machine campaign) and Old Spice (The Man Your Man Could Smell Like campaign) went viral last year, and with big success. With Ridley Scott’s production of Life in a Day movie premiering at Sundance Film Festival this year, the YouTube video era will only continue gaining mainstream notoriety. If you’re a marketer and you haven’t considered the channel yet, you need to. Take a look at Sharethrough CEO Dan Greenberg’s “The Future of Social Video” presentation below. Dan outlines compelling facts, figures and reasons why the future of video is really now. After all, Dan was named a Media Maven by Advertising Age for a reason…he really knows his stuff.

Check it out:

The Future of Social Video

View more presentations from Sharethrough.
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Krazy Over the Kardashian Brand

January 31, 2011 in Best Practices, Culture by suzanne

“I know a show doesn’t last forever. If you create a solid brand, that could last forever.” – Kim Kardashian

Love her or hate her, Kim Kardashian has turned herself into an empire with multiple reality shows, three DASH clothing stores and business deals like ShoeDazzle.com, QuikTrim, her Belle Noel  Jewelry line and much more. The key to her success? Giving fans what they want.

Kim’s not shy to social media at all. In fact, she uses her blog and Twitter (over 6 million followers) to connect with fans, promote products and provide a real look into her celebrity life. Part of her mass appeal comes from her “accessibility” to fans.

In her interview with USA Today’s Donna Freydkin, she states: “I really feel like our brand, my brand especially, is for my fans because I read all the comments. It’s been a cool process to see them asking me for something and me being able to provide it. That’s kind of how I base what products I want to do, is what my fans are really asking me for.”

There are a few lessons to be learned from Kim (even for our techiest clients):

  • Social media and blogging can go a long way.
  • Build a solid brand, not just a solid product.
  • Engage with your end users — from the CEO down.
  • Personalization is key.

Image courtesy of clothingbrands24.com.

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