Author Archive
Deals Tipping Point
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Malcom Gladwell’s 2002 best-seller, The Tipping Point, makes the case that little things add up until a critical mass hits and then—watch out—seismic change occurs.
Don’t look now, but we are approaching a tipping point in the digital deals market.
An interesting analysis of recent research on use of smartphones for financial transactions ranging from shopping to banking reveals increasing comfort and familiarity with this platform as a “mobile wallet.” In fact, the report cites a survey of digital thought leaders in which 65% agreed that by 2020 mobile wallets will have nearly eliminated the need for cash or credit cards.
Combine that with the dizzying rate of in-store location based technologies emerging—from Bluetooth radio towers in store that can have individual conversations with your phone to geolocation based technologies that can deliver offers based upon the store you are visiting to GPS enabled mobile apps that can let you scan what deals are available from stores in your vicinity—and you have some very promising possibilities for the future of daily deals.
The demand for value and savings is a constant human desire. What is changing are the platforms and models that we can deliver them through. With smartphones poised to become the “wallet” of the future and technology emerging that can deliver highly relevant deal offerings, we could be headed for a very seismic change in the digital deals market indeed in the not too distant future.
You’re Engaged!
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It’s long been understood that when it came to digital media marketing, paid search advertising was where it’s at. After all, people came online to find information. In order to find that information, they had to search. Therefore, paid search was the most effective and efficient way to make an impression online.
Then came Facebook and Twitter and all of the other social media platforms. The realization emerged that people were coming online not just to search for information but to connect with others. And now the ad dollars are flowing to social.
New research conducted by media company Strata is showing that for the first time ad dollars devoted to social media have overtaken search and are approaching the money spent on display.
The reasoning here is simple. Consumers are coming online to connect – so let’s try to connect them to our brand by being on social platforms. Logical, but flawed. Consumers are coming online to connect, but with each other – not necessarily with brands. Even more so than just connecting, consumers are looking to engage with each other because through that engagement there is value to be had. Brands are not achieving this because they are not necessarily looking to engage with value but simply by being visible. It is the display ad approach carried forward to social media.
So how do brands offer sufficient value online to provide consumers with the engagement they want and find of value? Well, they can accomplish this by providing something of value – such as discounts and promotions.
For all its billion dollar valuations, the digital world is still evolving and marketers are constantly looking for ways to keep up and connect with consumers appropriately and effectively. But one thing is a constant – for a relationship to be meaningful there has to be reciprocal value. The discount and promotion category has gone through changes itself, but it excels at delivering value. And as brands look to connect with consumers in the digital environment, there is no better way to secure the engagement they are devoting marketing dollars to achieve.
Innovative Marketing, On “Purpose”
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Jim Stengel, former CMO of P&G and author of Grow, which advocates for placing ideals as the foundation of business growth, is a primary proponent of “purpose-driven marketing.”
It’s a philosophy that says marketing works best when you intensely engage the consumer and use marketing dollars to give back to them. The drive for this is not surprising considering that traditional marketing no longer works that well.
A recent survey by Nielsen found that only 47% of consumers worldwide trusted paid advertising (a double digit drop since 2009). In fact, things have gotten so rough that there is a school of thought that says marketers should start paying consumers to watch their ads.
The reality is, consumers don’t look at ads because they bring no real value to their lives. If they want product information, they can find it on their own. Ads—for the most part—are just disruptive interlopers that intrude on consumers trying to access content. But if marketing actually added value to the consumer’s life, that is, actually made it better, well, then you have a whole different level of engagement and effectiveness.
That is why I believe deal providers and platforms are the future of marketing—they actually deliver something of value to a specific consumer and get them to engage with a brand in a very relevant and active way.
Entertainment.com is demonstrating this by showing that deals work best when they are viewed as a marketing platform. Why is this? Because in the deal structure you have the perfect elements for a reciprocal relationship. The brand provides real savings in exchange for the consumer’s attention. The deal provider is not disrupting the consumer—in fact the consumer is entering into a relationship with the brand willingly and often enthusiastically. How many engagements with advertising can you think of that accomplish that?
The deal industry is in its infancy. When it is able to fully articulate and demonstrate that it is the best and most effective/innovative marketing platform, the industry will be transformed.
Because there is no better purpose for marketing than to make the consumer’s life better and there is no more effective way to enhancing that ecosystem than by delivering money-saving value at the most effective time and place. That’s truly being “purpose-driven.”
What matters is the deal, not the day
Posted by: | CommentsThis week I had the pleasure of participating on the opening panel at the Daily Deal Summit East, curiously titled, “State of the Union – Industry Interrupted.” Here are some Flikr photo's of the action.
Curious, because the name of the panel—which was charged with looking at whether the daily deal industry had peaked—assumes that what is important is the “daily” and not the “deal.” Now, granted, this was the “Daily Deal Summit,” but what has been shaken recently—if anything—were “daily deals” not “deals.” The deal market as a whole is growing remarkably.
What is under question is if the concept of delivering deals on a daily basis had run its course. The answer is—of course not—people love deals! This market has not anywhere near yet realized its potential. The model that most providers use may need some fixing, but in no way are consumers done with receiving a new deal each day—nor are merchants tired of offering them. In fact, some 70% to 80% of merchants have not yet even tried a daily deal program—but would like to. The opportunity for growth is significant to say the least.
What has been “interrupted” is the train of thought that focused on delivering only one deal a day. Why? Why can’t consumers have multiple deals? Why do they have to wait for us to curate deals? Why can’t they have the option to purchase those deals beyond the day they were offered?
Well, that’s what we have done with Entertainment.com Deals, launched this week. It’s an evolution of the daily deal model that was designed specifically to better balance consumer desires and merchant needs.
Merchants need innovation—not imitation. They also want to work with trusted partners that have their long-term interests in mind. At the last daily deal summit I predicted that imitation would lead to rapid consolidation…and that’s why we see half the number of providers in the space now. In listening to our 70,000 local merchants and national brand retailer partners, they tell us they need broader-based promotional tools that allow them to choose how to best target consumers. That’s why we go beyond Deals with programs designed to acquire, retain, win-back, engage and build loyalty with prospects and their customers. Giving merchants more choice, flexibility and control is why our merchant partner retention rate is over 80%. I am told that is the churn rate of many Daily Deal providers!
And that’s really where the state of the daily deal union is—innovation and evolution. Because in today’s market if all you have is one deal a day to offer, your industry won’t just be “interrupted,” it may be over.
Reality is Subjective
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One of the most frequent questions I received about our participation in The Celebrity Apprentice was not “what’s Donald Trump like?” but is the drama you see on the show real or staged?
It’s real!
What really struck me about the experience is that these celebrities really want to win – for their charities and for themselves. Remember, these individuals are successful because they are naturally competitive. So there is no need for show producers to “create” drama and tension. Put highly creative, successful people in a room and tell them only one will win and you will get plenty of fireworks.
NBC 4 WDIV Detroit had great fun with this on a “behind-the-scenes” segment they aired on Monday. Click here to view the video.
Local Company Makes Good
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One of the great characteristics of local media is their interest and desire to not only report on, but – when appropriate – support, local businesses.
So a nod of thanks to NBC 4 (WDIV) in Detroit for their great support last Friday in producing a preview report on Entertainment.com’s Celebrity Apprentice appearance. It helped remind everyone in the metro Detroit area that companies in their region are national leaders in employing novel marketing techniques, while also providing our employees with a bit of extra pride when discussing the show with neighbors, friends and families.
Plus it was a lot of fun to do. Click here to view the video.
Backstage Innovation at the Celebrity Apprentice by Julie Anixter, Innovation Excellence
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Here's a fantastic article from my friend Julie Anixter at Innovation Excellence:
If Only We Could Have Seen The Walgreens-Entertainment Deal Go Down!
How would you feel if your good friend was going on the Celebrity Apprentice? Shock, fear, surprise, joy, mild anxiety coupled with great anticipation? (Many of the same emotions it’s worth noting that often appear in the work of birthing new ideas.) When Dean DeBiase announced to me that he’d be appearing – with Melissa Fisher, his CMO/COO on behalf of their company, Entertainment Promotions, I was so triggered into multiple states of response that I could only turn for comfort to what former celebrity therapist turned perfumer Mandy Aftel once pronounced: “Genius is being able to hold conflicting feelings simultaneously!” And I’m not talking about ME. I’m talking about HIM. That may just be the genius of Donald Trump and his reality series. He inspires a Rainbow Room of emotions and the American public cannot stop engaging in his brand of Entrepreneurial Personality-Driven Entertainment, and he and his family just keep serving it up!
Dean DeBiase, Chairman and CEO, and Melissa Fisher, Chief Operating and Marketing Officer, appeared in a segment during the season introducing a challenge related to the recently launched Entertainment.com™ Savings Membership, an all digital membership featuring online and mobile coupons. They seemed to be having fun.
We often counsel clients that “immersions” in new realities are a real way to get closer to the target audience and stimulate new thinking. As I immersed in the truly surreal two-hour Celebrity Apprentice last night for the first time, I wondered how much of this circus was spontaneous and how much was, er, guided? But to paraphrase Dalton Ross from EW.com you can’t make this “You weren’t dreaming — you were having a nightmare!” stuff up!
I so wished for the hidden mini cam filming the real backstage goings on. It was two hours of fast prototyping (in their case the task was a television ad for entertainment) on steroids, over the top language and visceral collaboration that ended with the ceremonial “you’re fired!” from the great Donald, supported with hard hitting probes from two of his well heeled, steely-eyed multi millionaire offspring. (“Did you really say that Lou?”)
Then I realized – hijinks aside, I already know the most important stuff that happened:
- Tens of thousands of dollars were raised for charity (Magic Johnson’s and others)
- Dean and Melissa got roughly 9 million people to learn about and engage in their brand in an ultimately bold, hilarious and provocative way, and
- The most important backstage goings on would never have been televised. The real stuff of entrepreneurial innovation, the create-something-out-of-whole-cloth stuff that is really the way it works when it works well. The Walgreens Entertainment.com deal that got done behind the scenes backstage at the Celebrity Apprentice, happened…because…they were both there!
That deal got done with lightning speed because…and here is one key insight for innovators – not that they happened to bump into each other and but because they were opportunistically READY. I can’t help but think that the patina and pulse of Casino-esque Trump empire contributed to their willingness to take some risks.
The Walgreens-Entertainment deal represents a great win for both companies. In this highly publicized, Boardroom gladiators meet human celebrities atmosphere it’s not surprising that a new idea rocketed into public view. These Celebrity Apprentice people have no time to waste! The public is waiting! And they’re hungry! And they want MORE!
Entertainment was able to quickly move to an alliance with the retailer and announce that its Entertainment.com™ Savings Membership, an all digital membership featuring online and mobile coupons, will be exclusively launched in Walgreens stores nationwide and all Duane Reade drugstores beginning in April.
Walgreens will carry the digital membership in the form of a pre-paid card available at all of its more than 7,800 stores, as well as all Duane Reade locations in New York and New Jersey. Introduced in 2011, the Entertainment.com Savings Membership is an all digital alternative to the iconic Entertainment® Book Membership. Together the products provide consumers with a choice as to which type of savings membership they prefer from Entertainment, allowing them to save anytime, anywhere and any way they want.
This deal was done literally backstage, when Dean and a Walgreens executive started bantering back and forth.
That it happened in record time, because it was intuitive and probably blindingly obvious is NOT par for the course in corporate America. That’s a credit to decisiveness of the two companies. That it now gets imbedded in their shared narrative of the Celebrity Apprentice makes it memorable.
And the five other kinds of innovation last night’s episode represented:
1. Marketing Innovation
How do you go up against Groupon, Google and Living Social if you’re Entertainment.com? Not with your checkbook, that’s for sure, but with your wits! Securing 9 million consumer eyeballs, the NBC promotion machine, and two brand new home-made commercials (by one of those New Jersey Housewives no less!) that while if not used, certainly will linger, was a perfect guerilla tactic.
And what better way to launch your mobile app then on Easter Sunday night after the last ham has disappeared and everyone’s settling in for some entertainment between the Masters and Mad Men? I’m a big believer in the learning by doing, show the phenomenon school of communications. Both commercials’ stories demo’ed the convenience of the mobile app, in the time honored context of love, lust, and parental overreaction.
2. Brand Innovation
Celebrity Apprentice, the Apprentice franchise, and Mr. Trump’s cultural zeitgeist may or may not appeal to you, but there are millions of other people who care. Judging from the spirited debates on TMZ and Huffington Post Entertainment, this no holds barred competition enthralls the masses. If you’re a mass, entrepreneurial brand, particularly one that appeals to all the coupon, discount and promotion mavens and Mom-pretreneurs who want to be helped to go into to business for themselves, this is a pretty perfect mashup. Not to mention all the new merchants for whom you just became a household name.
3. New Product Innovation
Done on the fly. Because they could. Because it made sense. See Walgreens deal above.
4. Cultural Innovation
Remember the old adage “sex sells?” Perhaps, when it comes to the Celebrity Apprentice, it’s really evening in America after all. Another great Dalton Ross on EW.com line, “And if I weren’t already so mentally scarred by the Teresa/Clay/Arsenio threesome, I would no doubt be extremely troubled by Aubrey cooing “Daddy!” at Paul and Paul immediately bringing up the topic of spanking. What-in–the-name-of-a-strongly-worded-Human-Resources-sensitivity-training-memo is going on here? Gang bangs? Role playing? Spanking? Just another season of Celebrity Apprentice, baby!” Baby indeed.
5. Personal Innovation
This was clearly a marketing innovation and coup for DeBiase, Fisher and Entertainment.com.
Entertainment.com is changing the discount and coupon industry by offering consumers a variety of options that allow them to save anytime, anywhere and any way they want.
“Being able to show our new all digital Entertainment.com Savings Membership, mobile app and even mobile coupon redemption on the show was….priceless” said DeBiase.
According to Melissa Fisher, “What makes Celebrity Apprentice an ideal platform for brands is not only the huge audience it reaches, but the way it engages people with brands as few platforms can. People who watch celebrities take on challenges in hopes of benefitting their charity get very involved with that brand. They begin to take ownership of it – have a vested interest in it. And that’s a very powerful benefit More importantly, it’s a very innovative show in the way that it brings consumers into contact with the companies it features – and that is so important for an innovative brand such as ours.”
This line up of innovations made Entertainment’s participation on the show a natural. It’s great representation for Michigan through a homegrown business and a lot of fun. Fun, different, and ideally, profitable.
imagecredit: tlc.com
Innovation – You Never Know Where You Will Find It
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Innovation is one of those things that you can’t necessarily plan. It can happen anytime, anywhere—often in a flash.
The key is to place yourself in a position to recognize the often obscure opportunity when it happens and be ready to move quickly.
Case in point – the new Entertainment.com™ Savings Membership that will be launched exclusively with Walgreens starting Monday, April 9th.
When Entertainment decided to participate in this season’s Celebrity Apprentice it was because we recognized it as a innovative marketing platform that reached millions of people and enabled a myriad of unique promotional opportunites. We weren’t necessarily looking for a new partner, too.
But in the midst of production, there was Walgreens, also participating in the show, and for the same reasons. They saw it as a great platform to promote their wonderful “Walk With Walgreens” program – an innovative program for sure.
As Entertainment and Walgreens, who are in back-to-back episodes, spent time together, we began to realize the synergies that existed between the two organizations and how we could develop some timely opportunities to deliver a unique value to their customers. From that sprang a new idea and rapid prototyping. That’s something that is often missing from the equation—partners with a joint sense of mission, purpose, passion and sense of urgency to do something remarkable together.
And that’s how innovation comes about—people making the inconceivable happen. The best ones often happen in a compressed amount of time—in a pressure cooker—like on the show. We all know that innovation needs a reboot now and then It’s not just the process that gets the mind working in wonderful way, discussion, exploration, investigation and “what ifs”, is often not enough. Bringing the right people together at the right time, making a decision and then making something happen together—now that’s magic.
We launched the new Entertainment.com™ Savings Membership card program with Walgreens in record time—and cobranded it with Donald Trump and the Celebrity Apprentice to boot. Instead of the normal cycle time of quarters and months, our teams tossed out the rule books, asked what is possible, and did it together in a short few weeks. Coming up with a remarkable idea is only half of innovation. It is successful execution that turns them into award-winning, break-away product launches. One of Walgreen’s top executives, who was also on the Celebrity Apprentice, Joe Magnacca, saw our opportunity, rallied his troops to partner with us, and magic ensued. It is that kind of operating intuitiveness that separates innovative leaders from followers in business today.
And it’s all the more reason why you should never limit yourself, never turn down an opportunity. Because you never know when you will find innovation in a flash.
NBC Celebrity Apprentice – Celebrate Innovation
Posted by: | CommentsI will be on NBC’s Celebrity Apprentice this Sunday, April 8th, at 9 ET giving the two teams a very specific and challenging task of creating an innovative TV commercial. Celebrity teams consisting of Arsenio Hall, Penn Jillette, Lou Ferrigno, Aubrey O’Day, Lisa Lampanelli and others will be vying to see who can create the most creative 60 second commercial promoting Entertainment’s new all digital Entertainment.com Savings Membership.
Now in its fifth year, Celebrity Apprentice is an incredible franchise, still pulling in some 9 million viewers per episode. I got to experience it up close and personal along with Melissa Fisher, when we taped the show with Donald Trump and crew. Of course the fun of the show is in differing celebrity personalities clashing and the tension and drama these naturally competitive people generate as they compete among themselves. And it’s all held together by the towering persona of Donald and his wonderful children.
But I think there is something else at play here.
This is a country that thrives on innovation. And now, more so than ever, people are looking for innovative solutions to pull us out of our economic doldrums. Even greater than that, they want to believe in innovation again. They want that excitement of discovery—that feeling of possibilities.
And here on the set of Celebrity Apprentice is the messy business of innovation. The frustration. The emotional roller-coaster. The pressure. The aha moment. The Friction. The Real Drama. Here’s the magic of innovation from some of the most unlikely sources, playing out on TV. Many people think that the show is scripted—not at all—for those celebrities and teams that quickly get with the program, what you see is pure entrepreneurial problem solving behavior pouring out on the set. And to all those watching, I can’t help but think it makes them say to themselves, “You know, what? I can do that too!” And I hope they do.
Come watch this Sunday and celebrate innovation with us: http://www.facebook.com/getcoupons
Behind Closed Doors
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It may be time to retire the term “mobile media” and replace it with “personal media.” Because what is happening behind closed doors in homes across American is not so much mobile as, well, personal.
According to a study recently released from mobile ad server MoPub, more folks are playing games on their mobile devices at home than they are out of home. I admit, my wife caught me playing Angry Birds way to late on my iPad the other night.
That’s coupled with an analysis that shows this year more video will be watched online than from a physical source. Meaning Netflix, HuluPlus and others will be reaching a tipping point this year that will see the gradual assignment of DVD and Blu-Ray to the dustbin of technology history. The analysis does not specify on what all this online video is being watched, but I think there’s an excellent chance it’s on mobile media and that it is being watched at home. (TV, meet dustbin). I can’t remember the last time I watched an HBO episode on my TV since HBOGO came on the scene, which lets me watch what, where and when I want on any device.
So, once again, we consumers find better applications for technology than what it was originally marketed for. Yes, it’s great to have platforms that are mobile. But consumers always want their content to be “personal.” For consumers, these platforms are just better for gaming and video than game consoles and computers because these prevent the user from “holding” the content in their hand, making it less personal.
Perhaps we should start talking about “personal” media, rather than mobile media. And by doing so, hopefully content producers will begin to adapt and innovate as they realize how this platform is really being used – behind closed doors.
