Category Seeing Into the Future
Important Message from Hilary Schneider Regarding Yahoo!/Google
By Tom Polanski, EVP, eBrand Media and eBrand Interactive
Below is an e-mail I received from Yahoo!. Am I the only person to see similarities between the way Yahoo! is being managed and the way the McCain campaign was being managed? To be fair I like and respect everyone we work with at Yahoo! but C-level Management seems to be a little lost. Now that I think about it; what else is new?
Anyways, here you go:
Dear Mr. Polanski,
We wanted to reach out to you directly regarding Google’s decision,
announced earlier today, to terminate the advertising services
agreement that the companies announced in June. Yahoo! continues to
believe in the benefits of the agreement, and is disappointed that Google
has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend it in court.
Google notified Yahoo! of its refusal to move forward with implementation
of the agreement following indication from the Department of Justice that
it would seek to block it, despite
Yahoo!’s proposed revisions to address the DOJ’s and advertisers’
concerns.
While disappointed by this turn of events, we are writing to you to
reaffirm our commitment to working together to drive your advertising
results, and to provide the continued leadership you expect. The fact is
that this deal was incremental to Yahoo!’s product roadmap and
does not change Yahoo!’s commitment to innovation and growth in
search.
Posted by Tom Polanski in Advertising, Seeing Into the Future on November 6th, 2008
Best Buy Matches Lowest Online Price. Trouble for Competing E-tailers?
By Tom Polanski
I underwent an extremely unusual purchasing process with a Best Buy located in Portland, Oregon. It could mean trouble for online electronics retailers.
I’ve been in the market for a replacement plasma display for the family room and since I’ve been a member of AVS Forum for over 5 years I decided to start my research there. Once I targeted the television I wanted I began to contact the forum sponsors regarding pricing and availability. For the sake of clarity, forum sponsors are companies, usually Mom and Pop stores located across the country, that place ads within AVS Forum. The assumption is that the publisher, AVS Forum, only allows reputable companies to place ads within their site and that these companies will give forum members the best prices and service. It’s a great relationship for AVS Forum, online electronics retailers and forum members.
In fact, I was given great prices by authorized dealers and would have been comfortable buying from any of them. I liked them all. I settled on a company in Seattle to make my purchase from. However I began to have second thoughts when I came across a thread regarding problems this new generation display was occasionally exhibiting. A great, award winning display but, again, there are reports of problems every now and then. It’s to be expected with a sophisticated piece of technology but worrisome, nonetheless.
Posted by Tom Polanski in Gadgets & Gear, Seeing Into the Future, Trend Tracker on June 16th, 2008
“Start Negotiating” or “Make An Offer” Buttons On Sites Selling High Price Items
By Tom Polanski
eBrand Media has several e-tailers who sell high priced items through their websites. It occurred to me the other day that there is one feature that really could benefit to our clients that is missing from the tens of thousands of sites we’ve visited; a “Start Negotiating” button placed under the “Buy Now” button for hard to sell items. Why this capability hasn’t been developed yet, I don’t know. I think that there may be tremendous upside to the development and testing of such a feature. I imagine that a button of this type would not only reduce shopping cart abandons but enhance the shopping process for the end-user.
Posted by Tom Polanski in Seeing Into the Future on May 6th, 2008