Posts Tagged "Marketing"

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I spent a few days at the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition last week in Boston on behalf of Dukky. Despite the gloomy economy and the shrinking budgets of consumers and marketers alike, enthusiasm about the future of e-commerce buzzed. It seems we’re on the brink of a new frontier – thanks to emerging mobile technologies, wide adoption of social networking sites and a new consumer sentiment that prizes transparency and responsibility.

Here are the five most important e-commerce concepts I either learned (or remembered) while at IRCE:

1) Look at the mobile commerce space as the web of the early 90s: Mobile is changing the world. From the riots in Iran to the coupons in your local grocery store, mobile devices are changing the way we communicate, make purchases, spend our “free time.” Smart phones are 13% of the market now and growing to 38% in 2013. A lot more innovation is to come.

2) Focus on connecting consumers with your brand not your products: Under Armour’s vice president of e-commerce Mark Kuhns said their social media strategy is focused on creating a connection in their customers lives rather than just selling them stuff. It’s working.

3) Email, social & search should be integral in customer acquisition: Customers are spending more and more of  their time online. You need to go out and find them there. You’ll lose them if you don’t.

4) Many companies spoke about getting ready for the recovery instead of wading in the recession: Now is the time to innovate – it’s not the time to hole up and hide. We wrote more about innovation is key to keeping your marketing job earlier this month.

5) Be fiercely competitive and don’t be afraid to take ideas from the bigger players: Amazon is a great example – they started by just selling books and music, now they sell just about everything.
What are your thoughts on e-retail on today’s econcomy?

Taken from my post on Dukky

Todd Skidmore pulled out the win with his design.  Heather and I, independent of each other, chose his design as the best.  The contest was close between four participants, but I liked that Todd made the laces hot pink.  Hot pink in the laces will allow me to replace them with black after the wedding.  Rolling to the gym with too much hot pink might look a little funny on me.

While I did get some cool new kicks out of the contest for my wedding, I was interested to see the viral effects of the contest.  Overall, I was very pleased with the results.  The contest ran from March 9th to March 31st.  Here are some stats from the contest:

-Over 1,500 hits to my site
-Almost 1,000 unique visits
-Over 20 user-generated submissions
-Trackbacks to multiple shoe blogs
-Twitter helped push my blog up to readers in Beaverton, OR (Nike HQ)

Todd Skidmore OFFDAMKT

I learned a great deal about how users interact online.  However, there are several things that I would have done differently next time.

1) Make it easier to submit designs.  The process did cause more problems than I expected.  It would’ve been easier to have the users email their designs to me.
2) I wish more public commentary on the design had ensued.  I was disappointed with this aspect of the contest.
3) Get more people that bleed Nike to participate.

Thanks so much to everyone that participated in any form! If you tweeted the post, created an entry or simply left a comment about what you liked, I really appreciate you helping me have fun on my big day!  It’s going to be fun!

The response to my Nike Shox Wedding Contest and your chance to win $50 has been pretty impressive so far.

The Back-story…

About 6 months ago while discussing wedding plans with my fiancée, I tried to convince her that my groomsmen and I should be able to wear customized Nike Shox as our shoes for the wedding.  Somewhat of a debate ensued.

“It will look horrible!” she playfully exclaimed.
“Jerry Seinfeld did it!” I anxiously responded.
“You’re not him!” she responded as if she were my mother.
“I’ll make sure all the Shox match the vests.”
“No, it the worst idea ever!” she exclaimed in her customary, enthusiastic and playful 5-year old like pitch.

At that point, I proceeded to work on her friends, thinking that she might seriously consider it if it had some strong XX chromosome backing.  Outside of one that works for an ad agency, the idea never picked up steam; but I did manage to help the girls burn off lots of calories through laughing.

Fast Forward…

Two weekends ago, my fiancée informed me that she had spent $300 on her wedding shoes.

blue-manolos

And of course, being made up of XX chromosomes, she can’t help but brag about the “deal” she received, especially since the deal is related to shoes.   This price phenomenon is one of those female conversation starters that I’ve never quite figured out, and I consider my female knowledge slightly above average.  Anyway, she saved some $600 on the “Something Blue” Manolo Blahniks that Carrie Bradshaw wears in the Sex and the City Movie.  If I was a girl, I would have jumped up, hugged her, hit her with a pillow, kissed her and then started to…well, you know all that stuff that Cinemax says that women do when men aren’t around.  Unfortunately for both of us, the conversation took more of a logical approach.

“Wait! You get to wear blue shoes with your white (ivory) dress, but I can’t wear my NikeID Shox?” I asked with sarcastic inquiry.
“But, baby,” she said pleadingly.  “They’ll look terrible; and besides, no one will be able to see my shoes,” she said hesitantly as if she knew what my next move was.
“Then, whyyyyyy are we spending $300 on shoes that no one will see?” I responded in typical guy fashion I assume.
I then heard a voice from above whisper to me, “Well played sir.”

I’m not really sure what happened next because I think I mentally blacked out from my strategically placed response; but when I regained consciousness she was telling me about something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.  The part about blue sounded made-up to me, but I didn’t care because she informed me that if I wanted to wear Nike Shox to the reception only then I could do so.  Victory!!  A series of questions ensued with the only stipulation being that she gets the final say-so.

The Result

After I declared victory, I told her that I would put my social media skills to the test to help choose the colors of my new shoes; thus, we now we have the Nike Shox Wedding Contest.   The goals of the contest are simply to illustrate how the various aspects of social media can be used to create a successful marketing campaign, show how easy it can be to create personal involvement in a brand movement, get people to use their creative talents and for me (and the groomsmen) to be comfortable on my wedding day.

Within 24 hours, I had hits on my site from over 10 countries and a few from Nike’s corporate headquarters.  The contest has a little over 2 weeks to go and there have already been 16 submissions.  So far, I like what I see, but I’d like to see some more questions to make the shoes as personal as possible.   I can’t wait to see what other submissions come forth.

Fine Print: Nike is not officially involved with this contest other than they’ve done their part to keep me as a customer for throughout my entire athletic career.  My fiancee is just simply awesome for letting me do this.

If you read my blog, then you know I’m a big fan of the Nike brand and their commercials.  They’ve been there with me through all my days as an athlete in soccer, basketball and football.  At all levels whether it was all-star teams or the powerhouse that is LSU football, I more often than not chose Nike gear.  I figured they ought to be with me on one of the most important days of my life too.

During my wedding reception (5.9.2009), I will need that extra confidence and bounce to make sure I can make it to each food station with ease as they unveil new dishes throughout the night, meet n’ greet my guests with grace and, more importantly, glide with elegance and style on the dance floor.  I will only be able to perform at my maximum in a set of Nike Shox.  Using this reasoning and my superb litigation skills, I convinced my fiancee to let me wear a pair of Nike Shox during the wedding reception!!

The best part: I’ve chosen the shoe, but YOU get to choose the style and have a chance to win $50!!!  It’s quite simple to compete and win, so here are the rules:

1)    Go to NIKEiD and design a pair of Nike Shox for me to wear at the wedding reception.

2)    The model has to be a running shoe, which are the “Turbo+ iD,” “Experience+ iD,” “ NZ iD” or the “Turbo+ VI iD.”

3)    Save the design to your Nike profile (aka “myLocker”), use the “share” feature at the bottom right to copy the hyperlink to the design and then comment on this post with your design and hyperlink for all to see.

4)    The winner, chosen by us, will receive a $50 Nike gift card!

5)    Pictures of the shoes in action will be posted upon return from the honeymoon.

You can read the backstory on this contest here.

clouvioffdamkt1

Considerations…

1)    My groomsmen and ring bearer will have the option to wear these shoes as well, so your design could be on eight pairs of feet!!

2)    Feel free to comment on the blog with questions or check here regarding anything about the wedding so you can better tailor your design. e.g. What are your colors?

3)    Feel free to email me the wallpaper download, so I can put a copy in my Flickr Stream.

4)    This is a subjective contest, so if you like someone’s design, please leave a comment saying so.  It may influence the results.  Also, my wonderful fiancée gets the final say-so.

5)    Even if you’re not competing, pass along the link to this blog.  Increased competition yields better results.  That’s what Nike and I are all about.

6)    Feel free to ask me any questions about the NIKEiD site or this contest.  Contest ends when my bachelor party begins at Midnight EST on  April 1, 2009!!

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:

*Almost 20% of game-playing respondents to an In-Stat consumer survey report downloading games from Internet sites other than their mobile carrier’s site.
*Of the 2,000 respondents, 29.5% reported playing games on their mobile handsets.
*In-Stat predicts the global mobile gaming market will top $6.8 billion by 2013.

Source: Cellular News

Stats surrounding mobile advertising are always out of this world because no one really has a clue where it’s going to go.   My curiosity runs high in this market because, like everyone else, I see so much potential.  However, like several other advertising mediums, it lacks a standard structure.

Google’s Android is about to release on the T-Mobile G1 in an attempt to compete with the iPhone.  Right now, a ton of money exists in the application market, but it is subsidized by user-purchases not advertising.  However, only 20% of cell phone users use smart phones (Blackberry, Android, iPhone), so how do companies capitalize on the rest of the market aside from ringtones, SMS and MMS?

What do you see as the next big step in mobile advertising?

I went into Starbucks today to nab an Iced Mocha to get my creative juices flowing.  Upon paying, I was granted a receipt that announced my next iced grande beverage would be only $2.  The catch is that it has to be:

•    The same day at the same store
•    It also has to be after 2pm
•    Taxed aren’t included

Starbucks recently announced plans to close approximately 600 stores around the country.  Two of those stores are near me in Atlanta, but I’ve yet to see them shut down.  Starbucks’ new Doubleshot Strategy focuses on their two peak times, which  are in the morning and late in the afternoon when people need that kick.  I assume Starbucks is hoping to create morning and afternoon addicts.

It seems like a good strategy for doubling up business.  However, I think it is only a quick fix like their Pike’s Peak promo fiasco.  I think their idea closing locations to bring the exclusivity back to their brand is what will help drive the Starbucks brand back to investor delight.

$2 Off an Iced Beverage after 2PM

$2 Off an Iced Beverage after 2PM

They say you learn something new every day.

Lately, I’ve been putting a lot of time into honing my SEO skills. A great starting point for anyone beginning on this trek is to use the vast array of free tools out there. A great starter tool is Google Analytics. I’m amazed the amount of information I get out of it. I can track anything from my most popular article to how fast a user’s connection speed is. The most fun feature to me is the geography because I can see where all of my users are located down to the county…err Parish if you’re in Louisiana…line! I have readers all over the United Sates as well as Poland and Jamacia.

Anyway, being from New Orleans and traveling much of the state, I was surprised to learn of a place I’ve never heard of…Killona, Louisiana. Apparently it is only like 25 miles from where I grew up and in the same Parish (St. Charles) as a girl I dated. Anyway, I thought this was neat to learn about a new place in this manner. Much love to my readeR in Killona!

Killona Stats

I was in one of the two Starbucks (there could be another and I haven’t found it yet…the place is big) in Lenox Square Mall in Atlanta yesterday. While I’m waiting for my drink, a man commented to me, “Everytime I go into one of these, they’re packed.”

“Yeah, someone knew something before we did huh?” I responded. I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he was making small talk and not just coming to this realization.

On my most recent trip to KC, I was reading the Business Week cover story on McDonald’s from the week 2/5. It is good summarization of the re-marketing process the Golden Arches have undertaken. The first major push they made was with the whole “I’m Loving It” campaign, which I thought was a poor attempt. However, they have surprised me with a few things like finally accepting debit/credit cards and more importantly pushing their franchisees to run 24/7. It discussed how corporate is slowing down their real estate acquisitions, which immediately brought Starbucks to my mind.

Starbucks is in the process of getting breakfast added to their menus. Within the past year, their prepackaged lunches have become consistent sights in the land of green straws. We can find green umbrellas in some of the most prime real estate in the world today…sometimes two or three on one piece of property.  The Starbucks team are some smart Java chips, but I wonder if they’re missing the vision of Mr. Schultz ; or if they’re beginning to run out of real estate trying or just trying to figure new ways to reinvent themselves. I hope they don’t force the issue through the food though. I’m hesitant to agree with this strategy.

I remember when I spent countless hours studying/writing at Starbucks; and when I finally wore the green apron. The one thing that was constantly being preached is that they provide an atmosphere for coffee drinkers to enjoy various beverages. Still, lunches are offered, it is not the reason Starbucks are always packed…it’s the atmosphere they’ve created. The sense that it’s a place for people like you. I worry that the addition of lunch, breakfast, etc. will begin to blur what they are. They will become the next McDonald’s, which is outstanding for all the partners and shareholders! Therefore, I’m not saying that would be a bad thing; but I forsee some increased in adaption by Starbucks and their large client base.

It also begs the question: Who will be the next Starbucks? Many thought the coffee craze was over. Well, if the niche becomes blurred, will they seek out a new nook in the coffee world? Maybe it will just be small coffee chains in general…maybe a powerful conglomerate that gobbles up smaller franchises to make a network.