ETD: 953 Super Bowl of Advertising; E-Mail Fees Could Change
E-Commerce Economies; Gifters Expected to Spend More on Valentine's
Day Gifts This Year
E-Tailer's Digest
etd_post at gapent.com
Tue Feb 7 11:44:17 GMT 2006
E-Tailer's Digest --- Everything for the Retailer
Issue #0953 February 7, 2006
George Matyjewicz, Moderator mailto:georgem at gapent.com
Published by: GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.etailersdigest.com
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CONTENTS
[1] Greetings
[2] Super Bowl of Advertising
[3] E-Mail Fees Could Change E-Commerce Economies
[4] Gifters Expected to Spend More on Valentine's Day Gifts This Year
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[1] Greetings.
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Hi All:
Who watched the Super Bowl on Sunday? How about sharing your
comments about the advertising, in what many are saying is the "Super
Bowl of Advertising."
The latest talk is to pay a premium for e-mail, as proposed by AOL
and Yahoo. The concept sounds interesting, but I question how
effective. What do you think?
Pam Danziger shares with us her survey on gifting for Valentine's Day
- the next gift-giving holiday globally. Good stuff.
Now, let's get to everything for the retailer.
Sincerely
George Matyjewicz, PhD
Chief Global Strategist, GAP Enterprises, LLC
mailto:georgem at gapent.com
http://www.etailersdigest.com
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[2] Super Bowl of Advertising
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I was with my son Heath (the artist) Sunday for brunch. He said he
had to get back to watch the Super Bowl. Now, I know he, like me,
does not follow football. Well, it wasn't the football game, rather
it was to watch the commercials, considered by many (especially in
the ad world) to be the Super Bowl of Advertising.
There were estimated to be 90.7 million viewers of the Super Bowl
this year, the largest audience since 1996. Yet the teams playing
came from small TV audience areas. (Pittsburgh and Seattle). So, it
had to be the advertising that drew the crowd eh? ;-)
Each year, folks watch the commercials and talk about them for days
afterward. In fact, there is at least one site that shows the ads
for the past 32 years. http://ad-rag.com/sb.php
Cartoons and violence was the theme for most ads, as Bud Light, Diet
Pepsi, Michelob and Sprint all used physical gags to hawk their wares
at the Super Bowl. Advertisers used mauling bears, flying dinosaurs
and even action movie star Jackie Chan to wow viewers with sight gags.
Others went against the grain, such as soap brand Dove, which sent a
tender message about self-esteem among teenage girls, and Toyota,
which celebrated a bilingual father and son who switch easily between
Spanish and English.
So, for those who watched, which ad did you like best?
George
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[3] E-Mail Fees Could Change E-Commerce Economies
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The news that AOL and Yahoo are planning to roll out a certified
e-mail delivery service based on partner company Goodmail Systems'
CertifiedEmail methodology is leading some e-mail marketers and
related providers of e-commerce services to conclude that a
sea-change -- largely unwelcome -- is underway in their industry.
Paying for premium access to e-mail recipients could have just as
large an impact as the "net neutrality" issue, stated Peter Koeppel,
founder and president of Koeppel Direct, which counts DirecTV and
Premium Nutraceuticals as clients of its direct response television
media buying service.
"Net neutrality" is the controversial idea that telecom providers
should charge additional fees to companies that send large files --
music or videos or consumer VoIP services -- to their clients over
the Internet. "These two movements could change the economies of
Internet commerce, so it will be interesting to see how it all plays
out," Koeppel told the E-Commerce Times.
Adding Another Level
At face value, the new services planned by AOL and Yahoo do not
appear to represent dramatic change to existing policies. AOL already
offers two levels of service to e-mail marketers; this new service is
merely an additional level, AOL spokesperson Nicholas Graham told the
E-Commerce Times.
For an additional fee that will be set by Goodmail, he explained,
marketers can request that their e-mail be handled in a manner that
will result in a more trusted response from customers and a better
return on investment for them.
That is because recipients will know that the distinctly packaged
e-mail is not fraudulent -- e.g., a phishing expedition. They will be
assured that it is a legitimate message sent from a marketer with
whom they have opted in to receive communications.
Since the news of this new program broke last week, several erroneous
reports about this service have since circulated, Graham maintained,
including scare stories about recipients receiving unwanted spam from
vendors that have signed onto the service, and e-marketers finding
their bulk e-mail deliberately shunted to a spam inbox.
"If you are a large bulk sender of e-mail that opted in and is
following our unsolicited bulk e-mail policy, those e-mails will be
delivered," Graham insisted.
"Where those e-mails end up is subject to the actual recipient," who
can always unsubscribe, he noted.
Yahoo could not comment in time for this article.
Loud Protests
The outcry against the plan is not entirely unwarranted, at least
from marketers' perspectives.
For starters, a new fee structure by the major providers of e-mail
could result in an increase of costs for e-mail campaigns, which
Graham did not deny.
"I've seen reports that said this could double the costs of an e-mail
market campaign," Koeppel said, adding that such projections make
sense. "The costs of delivery now are fairly minimal, so any new
costs could increase the costs of delivery significantly."
Other potential developments could be the rise of an assured delivery
auction environment, he continued, much like the way bidding has
intensified around certain Google keywords.
Details at...
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/cDugehqm0rzVpi/E-Mail-Fees-Could-Change-E-Commerce-Economies.xhtml
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[4] Gifters Expected to Spend More on Valentine's Day Gifts This Year
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About two-thirds of gifters are expected to celebrate Valentine's Day
With Christmas gift shopping just barely over, gifters are already in
the mood for the next major gifting holiday: Valentine's Day. To
date about 15 percent of gifters have already made their Valentine's
Day purchases, with some 54 percent planning to make purchases,
according to Unity Marketing's Gift Tracker survey conducted in
January 2006. Overall Unity expects some 60-to-65 percent of
gifters to make Valentine's Day gift purchases this year.
In 2005 some 60 percent of gifters bought Valentine's Day gift,
making it the third most popular gifting holiday after Christmas (96
percent bought gifts in 2005) and Mother's Day (67 percent).
To date Valentine's Day gifters have spent on average $105 for their
gifts, which is 40 percent more than the $73 they averaged last
year. With gifters being more cautious in their holiday gift
spending in 2005, we expect the amount they spend on the major gift
holidays during the first half of the year to be ahead of last
year. Shoppers don't feel the hit as much to their budgets when they
only have one or two gifts to buy, so they are likely to be more
generous for Valentine's Day 2006.
In addition some 30 percent of shoppers are expected to buy
Valentine's Day decorations this year, giving an additional boost to
retailers' sales results of the holiday.
Gifters spent nearly $2,000 buying gifts last year
Overall gifters averaged $1,935 buying gifts throughout 2005, with
their budgets divided 61 percent for gifting holidays or $1,190, like
Christmas, Valentine's Day and so on and 39 percent or $745 for
gifting occasions, such as birthdays, weddings, new baby, etc.
Gifters spent about 6 percent less overall buying gifts in 2005 than
they did in 2004, when gift purchases averaged $2,062. Gift shoppers
continue to look for gifts that offer the maximum value for the
lowest cost. That is why they favor shopping in discount department
stores where their gifting dollars stretch farther.
About Gift Tracker Survey
Unity Marketing, on the forefront of market research on the gifting
market, conducts a quarterly gift tracking study to measure the pulse
of the gift consumer in a longitudinal survey of 500-600 gift buying
consumers. Every quarter Unity tracks what gifts they bought during
the past quarter, what gift occasions and holidays stimulated those
purchases, how much they spent per holiday and occasion, where they
bought gifts, the store and product brands they relied upon for gifts
and their expectations for future purchases of gifts. The next Gift
Tracker survey will be fielded early April 2006 to track 1Q2006 gift
purchases.
Gift Tracker gives retailers and marketers that rely upon the gift
market the ability to track the ups and downs in gift purchases in
real-time and discover how their target market expects to spend their
budgets for buying gifts over the next three months. In addition to
the four quarterly tracking studies, marketers also receive a
year-end summary of luxury gift consumers' purchases and spending on
the seven major gifting holidays, like Christmas, Mother's Day and
Easter and twelve gifting occasions, including birthdays,
anniversary, wedding, friendship, showers, housewarming and other.
For more information on Gift Tracker, click this link
http://www.unitymarketingonline.com/reports2/gifting/gifttracker.html
Pam Danziger, President
Unity Marketing
717-336-1600
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