Group Buying?

A recent arrival in the internet marketing world is the 'group buying' service offered by a growing number of internet businesses. The strategy is related to the internet marketing use of 'viral advertising' and a form of 'crowd sourcing'. It principally targets consumers who are 'bargain hunters'. Businesses are invited to offer heavily discounted goods or services on the condition that a minimum number of consumers purchase vouchers for the product.

The group buying web business collects a high fee (reputed to be up to 50%) for each purchase.

http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/trends/group-buying-shows-signs-of-slowing-20111104-1myrf.html#poll

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/retail/20110120-australia-s-leading-group-buying-spreets-site-bought-by-yahoo-7-for-40-million.html/

http://www.scoopon.com.au

http://www.groupon.com.au

http://spreets.com.au

http://cudo.com.au

http://www.jumponit.com

Q1. How is this related to eBay auctions?

Q2. What is the benefit to the businesses offering their products?

Q3. Is this method of marketing and retailing sustainable?

Viral Advertising

This method of advertising is a popular way for organisations to promote themselves, their products or services. This can range from consumer products (Guinness) to self-parodies and political promotions.

The comments for this post are examples of viral advertising from students in the Graduate Certificate of Marketing at Holmesglen.

All very interesting and great examples of viral advertising! And one from me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4&feature=PlayList&p=31A99892D5AF7ED9&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA&feature=related

Q1. - How many views for each?

Q2. What are some common features of successful viral advertisments?

Email Hoaxes, Scams, Spam and Chain Emails

The power and ease of using email can also be abused. Emails are used for un-ethical marketing purposes, promotion of illegal schemes and for spreading false rumours. Some examples:

1. Nigerian scam

2. Get rich quick scams - work from home - stock market tips

3. Health and weightloss scams

4. Pharmacy items

5. Politically or racially motivated hoaxes

6. Chain letters to help child cancer victim

Hoaxes can be recognised by a number of characteristics:

1. It appeals to a common fear (heart attack/cancer)

2. It presents an explanation that is simple, seems intuitive and easily understood (but wrong)

3. It looks and sounds scientific or authoritative, and may contain some 'facts'

4. It does not cite or refer to any authority or provide any links to other sources

5. It asks you for forward it on to all your friends etc.

6. All it does is increase your internet download, wastes your time and creates anxiety

7. Hoax chain emails are often associated with viruses and spammers collecting email addresses.

Basic rule is that most chain emails are hoaxes. Check the chain email with one of the hoax web sites and other authorities and do not pass it on!

Check these web sites:

www.sophos.com/security/hoaxes

www.snopes.com

www.truthorfiction.com

www.breakthechain.org

www.scambusters.org

http://www.hoax-slayer.com

www.scamwatch.gov.a

http://www.afp.gov.au/national/major_fraud/internet_scams

http://www.ahtcc.gov.au/tech_crimes_types/fraud.htm

http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_310529

Q1. What is the impact on internet marketing of these email scams and hoaxes?

Q2. How can consumers be protected in these cases?

Q3. What can ethical internet marketers do?

Its the Buzz!

Viral advertising can leverage a personalised approach where an individual is engaged as part of the content.



http://www.sun7news.com/spread.php#embed

"The world of communication is currently undergoing the greatest upheaval any industry has faced since the industrial revolution of the early 19th century. I believe future generations will study this period and call it the “Communication Revolution,” where long standing traditional models of communication were literally turned upside down. The ability of consumers to screen out brands they no longer consider relevant will mean that successful brands of the future will be those brands that engage their consumer in every aspect of not only communication, but also the design and adaptation of their products and services. “Viral” by its very nature can only be successful if you leverage the passion of consumers and brand advocates alike, providing them with an engaging platform that “enables” them to share that passion with their respective communities." ....Duncan Wardle, Vice President of Global PR for Disney Parks


Spourced from : http://www.culture-buzz.com/blog/Disney-s-Virtual-Storyteller-Duncan-Wardle-Explains-1942.html

Q1. How can you 'leverage the passion of consumers"?
Q2. What risks are there in putting consumers into the promotion campaign as active participants?
Q3. Is there a change in consumer behaviour?

Meme?

Internet meme

(from Whatis.com)

An Internet meme is a cultural phenomenon that spreads from one person to another online.

A meme spread online could be just about anything that is voluntarily shared, including phrases, images, rumors and audio or video files. An Internet meme might originate and stay online. However, frequently memes cross over and may spread from the offline world to online or vice-versa.

Examples of Internet memes include:

• LOLcats -- images of cats with semi-literate captions, such as "I can has cheezeburger?"
• The Crazy Frog video.
• The Bride Has Massive Hair Wig Out video, secretly created by hair product manufacturers Sunsilk in an attempt to sow seeds for an upcoming advertising campaign.
• Images of then-president George Bush falling off a Segway in 2003. (This meme sparked follow-up videos of various vertebrates successfully riding the vehicles, including Barbara Bush and a chimpanzee.)
• The 25 random things about me list that propagated throughout Facebook.
• The Dancing Baby.
• Words such as pwn (meaning to defeat or dominate).

According to Lauren Ancel Meyers, a biology professor at the University of Texas, memes spread through online social networks similarly to the way diseases do through offline populations.

Richard Dawkins coined the term meme in his 1976 book, "The Selfish Gene." As conceived by Dawkins, a meme is a unit of cultural meaning, such as an idea or a value, that is passed from one generation to another. A meme is the cultural counterpart to the unit of physical heredity, the gene.

Q1. How is this changing consumer behaviour on-line?

Q2. What is the relationship with marketing?

Q3. Is this just viral advertisng?

The 3 Trillion Shopping Spree

I read about this website in mX 22.04.08

http://3trillion.org/

It's not strictly about marketing, but it's an innovative way of acheiving public awareness through using the internet as a medium and inviting user participation.
hmm!
I have too much time on my hands.

How email really works!!!

From the Google Operating System Blog

What is the marketing message?

Viral Advertising

Here are some examples of attempts at viral advertising by large enterprises:

reversa - side effects
http://www.seemoresideeffects.ca/

McDonald's NameIt Burger
http://www.nameitburger.com.au

1. In what way are they 'viral'?
2. Who is the target audience?
3. How effective is this?
4. What are the global issues for each?
5. What other promotional strategies do they use?

Jingles for Pringles

Latest loony(?) viral marketing campaign as reported in the Marketing Hipster Blog:

Posted by Cord Silverstein in : Marketers, Viral, Community , trackback

I saw a video on Sean’s blog, Craphammer that took me to a real interesting campaign P&G is doing called Jingles for Pringles. They launched a contest where users create their own custom video promoting Pringles of course and upload it to their custom site. Very much like YouTube, users can comment and rate the videos to see what the community likes the best. Along with this online video campaign, P&G has also chosen some malls where they will be having street teams videoing people right there and uploading those videos to the web site as well. The winners get some sort of prizes.

http://www.marketinghipster.com/2007/03/21/jingles-for-pringles-feedback-needed/

http://www.jinglesforpringles.com/home/index.html

What is the objective of this campaign?
Is this effective?
What consumer behaviour is this campaign connecting with?