Andy Boyer

Got it. What's Next?

Category: Marketing (Page 23 of 25)

The Battle of Shareholder Value vs Environmental Concern

September 12, 2007 /

So back in the 90’s, it started becoming en vogue for Corporations to donate profits to charitable organizations.  This started a very interesting debate about whether companies should simply deliver value to their shareholders, or be responsible for bettering the communities in which they belong.

An easy argument was to drop the charitable giving money into the overall Marketing budget and call it "Community Relations."  If a giant bank sponsors runs for Leukemia and Breast Cancer research, then one could argue the CPM was worth the donation.  It’s a pretty compelling argument that you can get a lot of community goodwill on your side, which then helps with non-tangibles such as recruiting, brand management and corporate morale.

Fast forward to 2007, and the magic bullet is in going "Green." Companies are denting their bottom line to use recycled paper, advanced heating and cooling systems, subsidizing public transportation for employees and other efforts.  And shareholders seem to be ok with that.

But what about Google’s latest announcement.   According to a Google release, "Google.org is committed to finding innovative transportation solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming…As part of this initiative, we are issuing a $10 million request for investment proposals (RFP). We plan to invest amounts ranging from $500,000 to $2,000,000 in selected for-profit companies whose innovative approach, team and technologies will enable widespread commercialization of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, electric vehicles and/or vehicle-to-grid solutions."

Now, you can look at this 3 ways:

1) Google makes $10 million in an hour, so it’s irrelevant to shareholders.  Great PR move.

2) This is a completely for profit effort for Google, stemming from their M+A group, and Google Shareholders should benefit down the road.

3) This $10 Million is nice, but why is an online search and media company investing in Transportation, something they could not possible know anything about?  Shareholders should be annoyed.

On a lighter note, what happens if Google ends up building the killer transportation app?  Will everyone be commuting to the Microsoft campus on the Google Mobile?

 

Do Protesters Need Image Consultants

August 27, 2007 /

So President Bush visited Seattle, or more accurately, Bellevue, this afternoon for a fundraiser for Congressman Dave Reichert.  I happened to be driving by the hotel a few hours before the President’s appearance, and was surprised by the hundreds of protesters gathered on street corners around the hotel.

As I drove through this collection of people, I was struck with a thought. Just based on their appearance, I don’t know if I could ever agree with them.  They were ragged, dirty and unkempt.  I found myself wanting to disagree with whatever their signs said, just so I couldn’t be classified with them.

It made me wonder whether protesters could be more effective if they spent a little more time tuning their message to the mainstream, rather than preaching to the fringe.  How many worthy causes are derailed by failing to observe basic tenets of marketing and public relations?  Furthermore, if a protester’s goal is to sway and persuade, and their actions instead make me sympathetic to the cause they are protesting, shouldn’t the protester stop attending events?  Isn’t in the protester’s best interest to evaluate the effectiveness of his campaign?

I wonder if the power of Freedom of Speech is diluted by zealots and  loonies who use it to push people away.  From a marketing perspective, how do you control your zealots, and make them unharmful to your cause?  If you were the Prius Marketing Manager, and someone started a blog campaign asking people to send in pictures of where they get stoned in their car, how would you react?  In today’s internet where everyone can be heard, how do you control your fans that can do harm to your ability to market to the mainstream?

 

Ripple TV, and the Emergence of Localized Advertising

August 13, 2007 /

So I have to admit being very intrigued by a company called Ripple TV.  You may have seen Ripple at a neighborhood Tully’s.  The concept is pretty straightforward – a typical High Def TV, displaying canned news and sports information from CBS and ESPN.  But the catch is, the screens are designed to run locally targeted ads that small business can create and upload themselves.

Or to put it another way, the two major pains about advertising are the creative costs and the inability to target effectively.  Ripple TV solves both these problems.  I get to choose which Tully’s my ad runs, and they provide me the tools to create the ad on the fly and upload it.

"Ripple has partnered with many of the World’s leading retail brands to provide a powerful in-store digital media experience that keeps their customers engaged, entertained and informed. Ripple’s user experience is customized specifically for each distribution partner, providing a truly custom experience that perfectly supports the brand, demographic, geographic and user experience requirements of each partner. Ripple keeps your customers engaged with the very latest news, financial information, sports, weather, traffic, local information and entertainment programming from the World’s leading content brands." 

So, the only initial limitation, which I’m sure will be solved soon, is that they have relatively few major partners (Tully’s), and so the audience is not very diverse.  But, that’s hardly a criticism.  Instead, I applaud Ripple for landing such a great anchor partner.  That really is quite a coup.

I don’t this affects agencies at all, because if anything the Ripple system grows the advertising pie, catering to small business owners that agencies didn’t really care about anyway. And the small business owner only needs a rudimentary sense of style and analytical skills to run a test ad for $75 in a neighborhood, so the cost to get started is minimal.

Fascinating concept, and I hope it does well. 

 

The Eventual Death of the Airport Magazine Stand

July 24, 2007 /

Maybe I’m not the average consumer, but I find about 85% of my purchases of magazines and books come during the hour I’m kicking my heels at the airport waiting to get on a plane.  Especially if I know it’s going to be a long flight, I know my laptop will be of limited use, and I won’t have internet anyway. 

Now, this glaring market inefficiency is being solved by Qantas, and one can only assume it will be the first in a long line of dominos to fall.

From Slashdot:

"Australian international airline Qantas has just announced in-flight broadband will be available across all classes in its new fleet of A380s. Also on offer will be laptop power in economy and internet access in the seat-back entertainment system. They are retrofitting existing 747s with elements of the technology, and providing several ports for passengers with more expensive tickets. It would also allow recharging of USB-powered devices. The Ethernet port is for laptops that don’t have wireless, or for people who simply prefer an Ethernet connection over WiFi.

No word yet on whethere any sites will be deemed "inappropriate" for viewing.  But the ability to plug in and read anything pretty much eliminates your need to buy magazines, portable DVD players, books, or other heavy items that add to your carry-on bag. So, sell your Hudeson News and W.H. Smith stock…

Politics 2.0

July 11, 2007 /

So, Hillary Clinton received much press and fanfare for allowing her supporters to nominate what should be her campaign song.  The theme of that seemed to be, "Hillary really connects with her supporters."

So then what do you say about Mike Gravel, a much smaller budgeted candidate who is really using User Generated Content as a way to get his marketing materials produced.  From his MySpace blast:

Please send your Gravel 2008 Flyers, Banners, and Graphics to submissions@gravel2008.us. We will be posting the best ones on the main website for others to use. Please feel free to be as creative as you’d like. Thanks to all of you for your support!

Maybe the Internet can equal the playing field a little.
 

Launch of MyElectionChoices.com

July 9, 2007 /

MyElectionChoices.com%20logo.gifAfter a few weeks of tinkering, we’ve launched the 1.0 version of MyElectionChoices.com.  The site will continue to evolve, but in its current form, visitors get to choose topics they care about in regards to the 2008 Presidential Election, then select positions they agree with from various candidates. 

At the end of answering a few topics, visitors then find out which Presidential Candidates they share political views with.  Since we have statements from 17 candidates, there’s bound to be a couple people that you’ve never heard of.

There are still plenty of improvements to be made, but give it a whirl and let me know what you think.  There’s a Groups option at the end to make it easy to invite others and compare how certain groups compare aggregately to National Averages.  And there’s a survey at the end as well that will help us shape the constant revisions.

Inspiration from an Unlikely Millionaire

June 28, 2007 /

If you had an Internet connection at work in 2000 or 2001, one of your colleagues forwarded you a link to HotorNot.com.  You played with it for somewhere between 5 minutes and 8 hours, helplessly clicking on the neverending stream of pictures of people who wanted you to judge how good looking they were.

About 1% of this crowd probably wondered if the founders were making any money, or if they simply launched the site for fun.  Well it turns out they were making GOBS of money.  Giant trucks were backing up and dumping bars of platinum into their backyard.  In a nutshell, it proved that a simple idea, at the right time, with the right people, was infinitely more powerful, satisfying and worthwile than simply attending weekly staff meetings.

Well, if you read techCrunch you probably already wandered over to this blog post from the CEO of HotorNot. If you have ever considered running off and starting your own idea, here are some wise words to help get you moving in that direction.

Supreme Court Ends 96-Year-Old Ban on Price Floors

June 28, 2007 /

I haven’t seen too much of this floating around the blogosphere yet, and maybe it’s my paranoia kicking in, but this morning’s Supreme Court ruling piques my curiosity.

From the New York Times: The Supreme Court on Thursday abandoned a 96-year-old ban on manufacturers and retailers setting price floors for products.  In a 5-4 decision, the court said that agreements on minimum prices are legal if they promote competition.  The ruling means that accusations of minimum pricing pacts will be evaluated case by case.  The Supreme Court declared in 1911 that minimum pricing agreements violate federal antitrust law.  Supporters said that allowing minimum price floors would hurt upstart discounters and Internet resellers seeking to offer new, cheaper ways to distribute products.

So, why is this interesting to the Internet and Ecommerce world?

What’s unclear from the article is how far the price floor extends.  Let’s use Harry Potter books as an example.  Even though the franchise sells more books than anything else being published, retailers actually don’t make that much profit on the sales.  Thanks to major chains like Wal-Mart and Amazon selling the book at discount as a way to get people into their stores, the retail price hovers below other books. 

But now it seems that the Harry Potter Publisher could set a minimum price if it wanted, effectively stopping Amazon from pricing below the competition.

This has further reaching effects if you start taking into account all the Amazon Associates and Ebay sellers out there.  These companies have done a great job creating as close to a free market economy as you can get.  Now, the law looks like it’s going to allow the stifling of that free market, putting the power back into the hands of producers, who can now decide the prices before they even reach the market.  And I don’t have any idea how this affects the secondary market for items.

Another example is a widget system like Mpire.com whose whole reason for being is to help consumers find the lowest prices on items being sold on the web.  Well, if this "lowest" price is being set by the manufacturer, how does any small discount retailer make any noise to grab a customer?

Unless I’m reading into this wrong, this appears to be a strike at Internet Ecommerce.  Manufacturers don’t like when there is little surplus in their supply and demand graph, and have now artificially manipulated the system to get that surplus back.  I’m sure there will be more to come on this.

TixMob Launches in UK – New Way to Buy Tickets for Events

June 19, 2007 /

An old friend from Manchester sent me news about his company, Tixmob, this morning. Here’s a synopsis:

http://www.tixmob.com/ Is a new concert ticket agent, just like Ticketmaster and Seetickets we work directly with concert promoters and event organizers to sell tickets on their behalf.   Unlike Ticketmaster, Seetickets etc.. A Tixmob ticket is paperless. Upon purchase it is sent to your mobile phone in the form of an sms message with a bar code. When you get to the event the ticket taker will scan the ticket with our scanner to prove it’s valid and it hasn’t already been used. So ticket touting/scalping is more difficult, you’ll probably get in faster since, for a while at least, we’ll usually have our own que.   A big complaint people have about ticket agents like Ticketmaster is all the crazy fees they stick on top of the ticket price. Generally Tixmob will have a booking of 10% of the tickets face value. As some extra incentive for people to try the product, we’ve reduced booking fees on our first few events to as low as 2%.

While it appers to be UK based for now, the US possibilities seem far reaching as well.  I would assume sports teams would love the anti-scalping features.  Anyway, something to keep an eye on.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2025 Andy Boyer

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑