Category: Observations

Coupon Sites Offer a Bad Deal for Brands, Part One

I am pretty biased against coupon sites. My wife subscribes to all of them, which is cool. But I don’t like them from an advertiser’s point of view.

My wife bought a deal from a site a few weeks ago. She was pretty excited when she told me about it, and we shook our heads in wonder, “How can that business afford to do this?” Then she got this email:

——– Original Message ——–
From: [email protected]
Subject: [Auto-Reply] Cupcakes
Date: 14 Oct 2011 12:01:29 -0700

Thank you for your interest in Little Miss CupCake

Unfortunately because of the issue we experienced with dealfind.com we are not accepting ANY orders for the time being, and we will not be accepting any of the Dealfind vouchers purchased.
We apologize for the inconvenience.

DEALFIND ISSUE
Dealfind oversold passed what I had asked them to,
and then would not turn off the deal when asked to do so.
To top that off, they refused to answer my calls and emails as the deal was going on.

They added free delivery to the deal, which was not the case.
I had told them there was no free delivery allowed.
I gave them rates and delivery restrictions, which they refused to put in my ad.
They also stated that the vouchers could be redeemed all at once,
which is not something I agreed to.

I do sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you,
and I encourage you to ask for a refund (Dealfind.com will issue full refunds within 30 days of purchase, I personally cannot issue refunds, as Dealfind has all of the funds)

This is just an awkward mess. How much of this is true, I don’t know. But it looks like a ridiculous offer went out and sold like crazy. The advertiser claims that Dealfind basically just invented the whole offer against his wishes, then disappeared on the day it went out. Now customers are left to sort out the mess with Dealfind, as the bakery has enough to worry about, trying to repair it’s brand from this mess.

I don’t like these sites primarily because the math doesn’t work out very well. Advertisers have to offer steep discounts (roughly 50% off), and then they only get 50% of the proceeds from the deal. So you’re only getting about 25% of the regular price for your product/brand.

Then think about the type of clients this brings the brand: either existing customers already familiar with your brand and just picking up a good deal; or new customers that are often unfaithful to your brand as they seek out new deals from your competition. Now you realize you’ve just paid 75% for a pretty unattractive customer. Can your margins bear 1000 of these customers?

Tomorrow I’ll get into some research done about these sites, and the actual effects these offers have on your brand.

Remembrance Day

I was in the Royal Canadian Air Cadets from the time I was twelve until I turned nineteen. Remembrance Day, and the poppy, have special meaning for me. I would spend every Saturday before Remembrance Day selling poppies in my pressed uniform, outside major shopping centres, grocery stores, and big box retailers; typically in sub-freezing temperatures. We would spend hours and hours there, in the cold, with a box of poppies around our necks. I don’t think it’s done anymore, but it’s something that has had a profound impact on how I think about the poppy.

On Remembrance Day we would participate in one of the many ceremonies conducted by the Royal Canadian Legion. And when I say participate, I don’t mean that we were in the stands. No, we were on the parade ground with the members of the Canadian Armed Forces, and members of the veterans soceity. Afterwards we would help clean up the hockey rink, before heading back to the Legion for a wrap up.

I can remember feeling frustrated that more people didn’t seem to take much notice of the day. For most people it means about as much as Victoria Day (May long weekend): it’s just a day off of work.

I think Remembrance Day is a difficult day for many advertisers. Most holidays celebrate a part of our lives. It’s a pretty straightforward task to craft messaging to spur spending–prefferably on your brand. But Remembrance Day is supposed to be a pretty solemn day. So while advertisers have a large populace with a day off of work, and nothing to do; they can’t co-opt the day for rampant consumerism, which would cause numerous PR problems.

Paradoxically, it’s usually advertisers that shape and define much of our holidays through their command of the media. Remembrance Day remains an amorphous holiday for most Canadians, it does so largely because advertiser’s inability to commercialize the day.

Four Clever Uses of Media in Advertising

I really enjoy ads that embrace the constraints of their media or environment. Here are four examples that caught my eye.

In an effort to get more pro golfers driving BMW, these graphics were installed in the hotel bathrooms of the pro golfers at a tournament in Illinois. If you accepted the invite you got to drive BMW cars on a closed track with tutelage from a couple of pro drivers.

Google’s Starter Guide for Search Engine Optimization

I came across this guide from Google [PDF] on search engine optimization (SEO). With the huge amount of information available online about SEO, this guide from Google is an invaluable, credible resource.

The key points from the guide could as easily be about building good sites for users as they are about building good sites for Google:

  • Create unique, accurate page titles
  • Make use of the “description” meta tag
  • Make your site easier to navigate
  • Offer quality content and services
  • Optimize your use of images
  • Use heading tags appropriately
  • Promote your website in the right ways

For most professionals involved in any aspect of SEO, the guide doesn’t contain any breakthrough insights, but it does work as a great reference.

As content management software becomes nearly ubiquitous for even the smallest online presences, the job of SEO is increasingly falling on the client. People who never would have had to know anything about SEO are starting to need to know the basics. This manual works well as a primer for them. It is even written in a tone that people new to SEO concepts will find approachable.

Bitdefender Rebranding Video

Rebranding videos are an often overlooked part of the rebranding process. Which is unfortunate, because they often do a great job of providing some much-needed context and reasoning to a brand’s employees and its customers. Furthermore, they’re usually a lot of fun and can reenergize an otherwise tired audience.

This video launching the newly updated Bitdefender identity is a good example of this type of work. Brand New has a writeup of the rebranding that is, as always, quite good.

Chuck Testa Taxidermy

I love this commercial that went viral last week. It’s got this self-effacing attitude about itself, without feeling forced. I’m really digging the way that small brands are able to use a bit of relatively cheap consumer equipment and the internet to create powerful advertising.

When your Product is Strong, Simple Sells

Watch this video. It’s simple, not overproduced, and it will sell the heck out of the company, Resource Furniture. The video could be made in an afternoon using any consumer grade video camera and a copy of iMovie (though it was produced by the fine folks at Core77).

The video works because the features and benefits are made so clear. They don’t bury the lead, they get right into the good stuff: demoing their products.

Their website could use an update, but I’m still jealous of the lucky people who get to market stuff like this.