Marketing Pilgrim Published: “LivingSocial Flexes Amazon Muscle” plus 3 more

LivingSocial Flexes Amazon Muscle
Starbucks Rolls Out Mobile Payment System to 6,800 Stores
What’s All the Fuss About Quora?
Ringback Advertising is on the Rise

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 06:01 AM PST

It's interesting here at Marketing Pilgrim to watch what our readers will push out to their social network through retweets and what they comment on. One thing I noticed is that whenever we talk about Groupon there is great interest but crickets if we talk about LivingSocial.

Well, here's something that will catch your attention. Remember the $183 million investment that LivingSocial received? Did you notice that $175 million of it came from Amazon? Do you think that Amazon might have the muscle to make Groupon flinch? If they make offers like this one today they will (Hat Tip to Business Insider).

You may miss the deal but it might be worse to think Groupon will continue to have no real competition. I suspect Amazon might have something to say about that, don’t you?

Starbucks Rolls Out Mobile Payment System to 6,800 Stores

Posted: 19 Jan 2011 05:11 AM PST

Starbucks is busy keeping itself ahead of the curve. First, there is the Starbucks logo change 'controversy' (I use the term very lightly but it did get people talking). Now, the retail and branding giant has rolled out the mobile payment plan it forst introduced in 2009 to 6,800 Starbucks locations and outlets.

According to the Seattle Times

The clever mobile payment system that Starbucks has been testing in a few stores in Seattle, New York and Silicon Valley is going national.

Starbucks is announcing that it has expanded the “pay by phone” program to 6,800 of its stores, plus more than 1,000 outlets inside Target stores. It began testing the system at a few stores in September 2009.

To use the system, Starbucks cardholders load an application onto their iPhone or BlackBerry smartphones. The application displays a barcode that’s scanned at the register to pay for drinks. Users can also manage Starbucks accounts and find nearby stores with the application.

Here is how the app looks when in action.

More information from the Starbucks release

One in five Starbucks transactions is now made with the store cards, and mobile payments “will extend the way our customers experience and use their Starbucks Card,” Brady Brewer, vice president of card and brand loyalty, said in a release. “With mobile payment, the Starbucks Card platform further elevates the customer experience by delivering convenience, rewarding loyalty and continuing to build an emotional connection with our customers.”

That loyalty translated into a 21% increase in how much money was loaded onto cards last year with that number hitting $1.5 billion. That's a lot of mocha frappa half calf double decaf no whip thingamawhatzits for sure.

Starbucks claims it is the largest mobile payment business currently (we'll have to take their word for it). Android phones are next for an app but maybe Starbucks will wait to see if those pesky things are still in existence after the iPhone comes to Verizon.

What’s All the Fuss About Quora?

Posted: 18 Jan 2011 05:10 PM PST

For the past month, I’ve seen article after article about how the new Q&A site Quora might be the next social media darling. The site began in “invite only” mode, which certainly helped elevate the buzz. Then Ashton Kutcher started answering questions there, so that was an indication of . . . something.

Now open to the public, the site does appear to have some heavy hitters in the community, particularly those in the journalism and tech areas. I saw the founder of Lifehack, the CEO of Mashable, a former AOL Chief Marketing Officer and the CEO of Netflix. Quite the cocktail party.

The questions on Quora are more intelligent than the ones you find on those other Q&A sites. For example: How did Mint acquire 1.5m+ users without a high viral coefficient, scalable SEO strategy, or paid customer acquisition channel?

Seriously, I was wondering the same thing, so thank heavens for Quora or that would have kept me up all night.

As with all Q&A sites, you can use Quora to promote your business. Simply find a question that’s in your field and answer it. Unlike Answers.com, Quora puts your name and affiliation front and center which makes you more visible and it helps users judge the validity of the information. The site is much cleaner than Answers.com, a bit too clean, and it leans more toward social connections, downplaying the rise and fall of popular updates such as you see on Digg.

The downside is that Quora isn’t intuitive. The site doesn’t open to the most recent questions. Instead, it delivers the recent updates from your categories which I don’t remember picking. It must have figured my interests based on my Facebook profile and it’s not wrong, but I prefer to browse a wider range of questions and that’s impossible. The site also appears to be self-monitored wiki style because you can make changes to the way things are organized. Not sure about that, either.

Quora feels very techy, which is probably why tech blogs seem to love it. But despite the fact that it’s gaining in popularity it still seems like a site that is destined to become a large spam repository. As for it being the next great marketing tool, I don’t see it. Do you?

Ringback Advertising is on the Rise

Posted: 18 Jan 2011 01:59 PM PST

Everyone knows what a ringtone is but I admit I was thrown for a moment when I saw this new report about ringbacks. A ringback tone is what you hear while you’re waiting for your call to connect. Usually it’s a sequence of beeps, which aren’t very pleasant to listen to, so why not offer something more fun like the McDonald’s jingle or a reminder to have a Coke and a Smile with lunch.

Ringback advertising is on the rise and according to a new report from Juniper Research, ad dollars are likely to hit $780 million by 2015. Juniper reports that many companies offer airtime credit in return for opting in to the branded content program, so that makes it a win-win on both sides.

Not so, says Dr. Windsor Holden who warns that ringback advertising could “jar” the listener causing a “backlash from disgruntled callers, conceivably resulting in a decline in network voice traffic."

I find it hard to believe that listening to an ad over a cell phone would lead to the demise of the entire mobile market. I’m sure someone said that about TV and look at where we are now with an average 18 minutes of commercials in every 60 minute show.

While ringbacks aren’t that common here in the US, they’ve very popular in Turkey and on the rise in China and India where the free airtime offer is more enticing. As for here in the states, it might take more than a few cents credit in order to get people to listen to ads every time they make a call, but with mobile advertising in general on the rise, it’s bound to happen and soon.

What are your thoughts on ringback advertising?

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