Word of Mouth
Are Friends More Influential Than “Influencers”?
This may not come as a shock, but new research suggests that, yes, our friends are more influential than so-called “influencers” like bloggers.
According to MediaPost,
…a new study from Canadian research firm Pollara, self-described social media users put far more trust in friends and family online than in popular bloggers, or strangers with 10,000 MySpace “friends.”
Of more than 1,100 adults polled in December, nearly 80% said they were very or somewhat more likely to consider buying products recommended by real-world friends and family, while only 23% reported being very or somewhat likely to consider a product pushed by “well-known bloggers.”
But what if your friend happens to be a “well-known blogger”?
When Bryan swings by the office between conferences — as he did this morning, after speaking at eMetrics Summit last week in Toronto — there’s always some new website, product, blog or book he’s recommending. This time around, he had a stack of books. “Pick one,” he said. So I grabbed a copy of Evgenii “Geno” Prussakov’s Online Shopping Through Consumers’ Eyes.
“It’s a quick read,” Bryan insisted. “Lots of great research in there.”
I haven’t read it yet, but the first page I flipped to had a chart, illustrating that “86.6% of online users would actually follow recommendation links/advice sent to them by their friends and peers.”
Before I had a chance to share that with Bryan, he was already onto the next thing.
“Have you seen TripIt.com yet,” he asked. “It’s brilliant. You can upload your entire trip itinerary — not just flights, but everything — and email it or text it out to friends and family in one step.”
Sure enough, I put down the book and went to TripIt.com to check it out. (Sorry, Bryan, but I researched it because you’re a friend, not because you’re a “well-known blogger.” 
)
UPDATE: More interesting stuff on this topic from MediaPost.
Related Posts:
Written by:Robert Gorell
The Good, The Bad & The Pay-Per-Click Ugly
A few months ago, I showed how Dell had bought a PPC ad for “bestbuy Sony DSC-W80,” and although they were smart to buy this highly-targeted search term, there was no follow-through on the landing page.
Bryan Eisenberg bought the camera last year and was so happy with its performance that he’s been spreading the word around the office ever since. After doing a routine Google search, we noticed — unsurprisingly — that there are a lot of bidders for the term “Sony DSC W80″.
What we soon found was that, much like Dell, the landing pages these other e-tailers were taking visitors to illustrated everything from the good, to the bad, to the PPC-ugly.
Plenty of options…
Looks like there’s a lot of competition for this search term. If a searcher clicks one link and doesn’t find what they’re looking for, it will be easy for them to hit the Back button, to see if the competition makes learning about it — and eventually buying it — easier.
When customers have this many options, getting your link on the front page of Google isn’t enough; you have to bring them as far into the buying process as you can with the information you are given. Lets take a look at how well the different options presented here do at bringing the searcher closer to the purchase.
Make sure the Landing Page works
Walmart.com had one of the top 3 paid search results. When we click their link, we assume we’ll be taken where we’ll easily find the product that was advertised. Instead, the customer is brought to a non-working page (curiously titled “walmart9.com”), forcing them to click the Back button.
Obviously, Wal-Mart needs to update this URL. While it may have once led somewhere, it now only brings frustration to the camera-seeking masses. They’re losing sales and paid search credibility with anyone who clicks it.
Walmart.com surely has a massive PPC budget to oversee, and updates like this can slip through the cracks. But it serves as a good reminder to keep tabs on your paid search ads. If you notice one is converting poorly, or not at all, you should at least make sure the landing page works.
Give us a Brand or Category Page (at least)
Thankfully, Vanns.com doesn’t give us a broken link, yet it merely brings us to the homepage. This won’t do.
Since I typed in a specific brand and model number, I expect to be brought to a Product Page — or, at the very least, a Brand Page or Category Page. They have exact information about the product I’m looking for and they just drop me off on the homepage? Leaving it up to the visitor to first find a tiny “Digital Cameras” link, then navigate through the site to find the Product Page, is an unnecessary gamble, especially since the paid search link promised “Sony DSC W80 in stock!”
Why not take me directly to the Product Page instead of making me scan the homepage just to find a Category Page?
Sony’s word against Bryan’s?
You’d think the company that made the product would have something to say about the camera, even if it’s discontinued — which, apparently, it is. At this point, the halo from Bryan’s positive word-of-mouth is beginning to crack. (”Thanks a lot, buddy. Does this camera really exist?”)
SonyStyle.com is missing out on an opportunity here. Although they no longer make the camera, they could provide links to similar cameras, especially if there’s a newer versions of the same model — which there is. They could use this page to show improvements that were made to the newer model. This page provides visitors with nowhere to go besides Back.
• Manufacturers: It takes time to get the word out about your products. If you don’t take advantage of it, you’ll lose some sales from late adopters (a huge chunk of the market).
• Retailers: Don’t forget to capitalize on positive word-of-mouth from older model numbers. Turn would-be customers for those older products into buyers of the newer ones. If you still offer popular discontinued products, leverage that advantage with targeted Pay-Per-Click ads and Landing Pages.
Unscramble the Search
Finally, the product I’m looking for — and it’s right on the landing page. NewEgg.com has it down. They even show visitors the newer model on the same page!
NewEgg removes all the obstacles a visitor might go through to find the product (they’ve already clearly told Google) they’re looking for. They place visitors in the perfect place; this is where customers are in the buying process when they search for “Sony DSC W80″. It was a little harder to find this camera than it should have been, but ultimately, NewEgg shows how to get the most out of your PPC ads.
New research shows that fewer people are clicking Pay-Per-Click ads on Google. In past discussions on this blog, readers have expressed that they no longer use PPC ads because of numerous bad experiences. Perhaps that’s why so many companies out there aren’t optimizing or paying attention to their PPC ads, which — soon enough — affects how useful they are for consumers.
If Pay-Per-Click is part of your online strategy, make sure your ads are optimized. Otherwise, you’re leaving money on the table. PPC can be very valuable when used properly. But if you neglect it, and the experience isn’t useful for customers, these campaigns can negatively effect your business.
To be truly PPC- and Landing Page-savvy, here’s how to appeal to all buying modes.
. .
[Editor’s Note: Want to convert more customers with your Pay-Per-Click campaign? Contact us.]
Related Posts:
Written by:Daniel McGuigan
How to Elf Yourself Out of Millions
One might think having the year’s biggest viral marketing hit would be any business’s dream come true. Unfortunately, though, not all Web traffic is equal, and popularity contests don’t pay the bills.
According to Advertising Age, 26.4 million people spent a total of 2,600 years at ElfYourself.com, turning themselves and unsuspecting family members and coworkers into virtual dancing elves. But chances are that unless you’re a marketer, blogger, or anyone else who might have bothered to notice in the first place, you’ve likely forgotten that OfficeMax was behind the “Elf Yourself” campaign.
Don’t take my word for it. Ask anyone who’s aware of Elf Yourself — and pronounce it carefully when you do — whether they can recall who sponsored the campaign.
Most of the answers I’ve gotten thus far (”Starbucks?”; “Barnes & Noble?”; “Wasn’t that Staples?”) have been guesses.
As OfficeMax VP of Marketing and Advertising, Bob Thacker, sold it to AdAge,
“We were looking to build the brand, warm up our image. We weren’t looking for sales. We are third-place players in our industry, so we are trying to differentiate ourselves through humor and humanization.”
Really? Not even looking for sales? Wow. If that’s the case, why even bother linking the campaign’s site to OfficeMax.com?
The article goes on to suggest that since many of those who searched for Elf Yourself around the time used the phrase “OfficeMax,” that must somehow mean their branding effort paid off. And that makes sense — so long as you ignore that it seems most people discovered the dancing elves via email and instant messenger, not search.
Get Elastic’s Linda Bustos sparked some debate about all of this, asserting that,
“Brand awareness is extremely valuable and important, especially in OfficeMax’ competitive industry. It might not result in immediate sales, but it should impact long term market position. Social media marketing (including blogging, podcasting and interactive viral campaigns) is a long-term strategy. It’s not a newspaper circular, it’s not PPC advertising, it’s not email marketing. Like celebrity endorsement or a Super Bowl ad, it won’t necessarily drive sales during a specific time period.”
Absolutely. But should the successful use of cute gimmickry — so long as it attracts a large, albeit random, audience of people who aren’t in buying mode, to a site that links to homepage, for a business that sells office supplies — be considered an automatic win?
So, millions of people go to a site that has little (no offense, elves) to do with the brand. No attempt is even made to engage would-be customers in a buying scenario (”Elf Yourself and save 10% on last-minute holiday treats when at OfficeMax.com”). No… nothing? That’s branding!?
One of the folks who commented on Linda’s post makes a telling point about the SEO logistics at play:
[…] this is search engine dynamite! The domain elfyourself.com (which is linked to by nearly 30,000 other websites) links directly (and only) to the officemax.com homepage. Conventional internet marketing dictates that this will have a huge impact on officemax.com’s ability to rank in Google on competitive terms. I’d love to see their stats - I bet it’s a big win.
Rank well on “competitive terms” — for whom? Elves? In a lot of other circumstances, this would be a great point, but in this case, it’s yet another example of why “conventional internet marketing” wisdom is misleading. Getting the extra traffic feels nice — and often impresses the boss — but there’s one thing that always feels better: Money.
Still, let’s see how much traffic Elf Yourself is driving to OfficeMax.com:
Not much of a traffic boost, is it?
But, hey, this wasn’t about traffic or revenue — it was about fun, right? Not for Toy New York, the agency that developed Elf Yourself. Nope. As Linda pointed out to me in the comments on her post, they’re the ones who are probably benefiting the most from this.
Looks like she’s got a pretty good point…
How about shareholder value? Kevin Horne points out that this is the second year in a row that the elves stuffed coal in the OMX stock price:
[…] in 2006, the company actually reported a decline of some $7 million in retail sales in its fourth quarter, 11 million “elf visitors” notwithstanding. Or notwithclicking either, apparently. Talk about squandering an opportunity. Two years in a row.
Oh well, at least OfficeMax got some national press coverage out of this. Let’s see what happens in this clip from Good Morning America:
Don’t get me wrong. I like the elves. It just seems that, since they’re already such hard workers, why not put them to work? (Even Santa’s got that figured out.)
Before you elf yourself out of millions in missed revenue from a viral marketing campaign, ask yourself: What good are millions of visitors if they don’t buy millions in goods?
Sometimes it takes better planning.
Related Posts:
Written by:Robert Gorell
Wasting Money Targeting Influentials? Another Tip…
I’ve never been a huge fan of Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point, because it oversimplifies how ideas spread. I intuitively knew that idea spreading was more complicated than that. In the February 2008 issue of Fast Company there’s an interesting article that I think provides additional context for understanding viral marketing: “Is the Tipping Point Toast? — Marketers spend a billion dollars a year targeting influentials. Duncan Watts says they’re wasting their money.”
Here’s just a small excerpt:
In the past few years, Watts–a network-theory scientist who recently took a sabbatical from Columbia University and is now working for Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) –has performed a series of controversial, barn-burning experiments challenging the whole Influentials thesis. He has analyzed email patterns and found that highly connected people are not, in fact, crucial social hubs. He has written computer models of rumor spreading and found that your average slob is just as likely as a well-connected person to start a huge new trend. And last year, Watts demonstrated that even the breakout success of a hot new pop band might be nearly random. Any attempt to engineer success through Influentials, he argues, is almost certainly doomed to failure.
“It just doesn’t work,” Watts says, when I meet him at his gray cubicle at Yahoo Research in midtown Manhattan, which is unadorned except for a whiteboard crammed with equations. “A rare bunch of cool people just don’t have that power. And when you test the way marketers say the world works, it falls apart. There’s no there there.”
And this is not, he argues, mere academic whimsy. He has developed a new technique for propagating ads virally, which can double or even quadruple the reach of an ordinary online campaign by harnessing the pass-around power of everyday people–and ignoring Influentials altogether.
Not everyone appreciates the mind bomb Watts has tossed into their midst. He says one music executive pronounced his work “bullshit” on the spot. But a growing group of marketers believes Watts is radically altering the way companies attempt to produce trends. “He is changing the way people think about the way we communicate,” raves Robert Barocci, president of the Advertising Research Foundation. “He’s one of the best thinkers in the industry today.” But is Watts right?
Whether you agree or not, the article is worthwhile reading for every marketer. Sneeze all over us and let us know what you think about Watts’ ideas.
Does it change your mind at all about how viral marketing works?
Related Posts:
Written by:Jeffrey Eisenberg
Should You Cancel All Your Advertising?
In February 2003, Amazon.com canceled all their advertising and put that money towards free shipping as a word of mouth strategy. Many thought Jeff Bezos was crazy and that Amazon.com would never turn a profit. In 2007 they were solidly profitable with over $15 billion in revenues. Bezos knew that marketers used to get paid to make promises the business had no intention of keeping.
He understood that, in an increasingly transparent environment, being truly customer focused would matter more than telling customers about how great your service was.
Recently, Joe Nocera of The New York Times told millions of people that Amazon puts customers first in his part article, part testimonial, part morality tale, “Put Buyers First? What A Concept.” You should read it in full but here are a few excerpts:
“They care about having the lowest prices, having vast selection, so they have choice, and getting the products to customers fast,” [Mr. Bezos] said. “And the reason I’m so obsessed with these drivers of the customer experience is that I believe that the success we have had over the past 12 years has been driven exclusively by that customer experience. We are not great advertisers. So we start with customers, figure out what they want, and figure out how to get it to them.”
Anybody who has spent any time around Mr. Bezos knows that this is not just some line he throws out for public consumption. It has been the guiding principle behind Amazon since it began.
[…] Amazon says it has somewhere on the order of 72 million active customers, who, in the last quarter, were spending an average of $184 a year on the site. That’s up from $150 or so the year before. Amazon’s return customer business is off the charts. According to Forrester Research, 52 percent of people who shop online say they do their product research on Amazon. That is an astounding number.
[…] Indeed, in a presentation to analysts in late November, the company’s chief financial officer, Thomas J. Szkutak, showed one slide that read, “Over $600 Million in Forgone Shipping Revenue.” And that was just for one year.
Wall Street, however, has never placed much value in Mr. Bezos’ emphasis on customers. What he has viewed as money well spent — building customer loyalty — many investors saw as giving away money that should have gone to the bottom line.
[…] There is simply no question that Mr. Bezos’s obsession with his customers — and the long term — has paid off, even if he had to take some hits to the stock price along the way. Surely, it was worth it. As for me, the $500 favor the company did for me this Christmas will surely rebound in additional business down the line. Why would I ever shop anywhere else online?
Clearly, it was worthwhile for Amazon to cancel its advertising.
Am I advocating that you cancel your ad budget? Perhaps. How are your products, service and customer experience doing?
Your customers’ delight matters even more tomorrow than it did yesterday, especially online.
When a visitor comes to your website, will they brag to their friends about what they bought and who they bought it from, or will it be somebody else they rave about?
Can you tell me why they shouldn’t brag about you, your products, and your service? After all, it’s the customer experience that matters. So why aren’t they buying?
Do you need help figuring out why they don’t buy from you? We can’t fix your products or services but we can help you improve your online customer experience, increase your conversion rates and help you understand your customers better.
Related Posts:
Written by:Jeffrey Eisenberg
Why Your Conversion Rate Matters More Tomorrow
Roy Williams, the Wizard of Ads, shares a brilliant insight from one of his fastest growing retail clients today in his Monday Morning Memo:
I asked, “How is traffic trending? Are we ahead of last year?”
“Roy, I don’t measure traffic.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Last week one of my salespeople made 63 sales presentations and closed only 24 of them. That tells me 39 people bought somewhere else. And right now they’re telling all their friends why they bought where they did. They’re showing off their purchases and explaining why they didn’t buy from us.”
“Good point.”
“That salesperson is no longer with us.”
“You’re really serious about this.”
“Today’s close rate is the most reliable indicator of tomorrow’s traffic. When close rate is high, traffic increases. When close rate begins to slide, traffic soon begins to slide as well.”
The same applies online.
When a visitor comes to your website prepared to buy — not everyone will buy right away, of course — and isn’t converted by your sales process, they are likely to buy from one of your competitors. When they brag to their friends about what they bought and who they bought it from, it won’t be you they rave about. It’s the customer experience that matters.
Can you tell me why they shouldn’t have bought it from you?
(Do you need help figuring out why they don’t buy from you? We can help you increase your conversion rates and understand your customers better.)
Related Posts:
Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Word of Mouth Down the Toilet
When’s the last time you were out in public and had one of those must-go-now moments? You’re torn between embarrassment and physical agony. The panic’s rising. Perspiration beads on your forehead. What do you do? Hope the first store you walk into lets you use the employee-only washroom? (This usually works only if you are desperate and pregnant.) Lean into the stranger next to you as you turn beat red and whisper, “Where’s the nearest bathroom … it’s kinda urgent“?
One company empathizes with your predicament. Not only do they help you prevent those can’t-hold-it-in situations, they’ve created a great public service that puts public restrooms on the map and at your fingertips. Just go to http://imodium.com/page.jhtml?id=/imodium/include/3_5.inc
“That was page-dot-what?” Yeah. See a major mistake here that’s just flushed a, um, boat-load of word-of-mouth marketing right down the toilet?
Of course you can awkwardly type this gibberish into your portable device and bookmark it. I would. But where do you really want that link living, on the road and off the computer? In memory!
When you’ve really really got to go, the only words going round and round in your head are: I need a bathroom! No “include-slash-three” about it! So use a domain name that reflects the need and helps market your product.
Give people - especially desperate people - something easy to remember and share. Here’s a compassionate, useful reference tool that is also a perfect place to promote a brand. So make it easy to share when the need is crucial. What a way to help people remember you were there when their need was … pressing.
I’ve registered NeedaBathroom.com. The nice people behind the bathroom finder can contact me, and I’ll gladly transfer the domain. No cost. As a thank you, because you’ve done something good for the public. Whew!
Related Posts:
Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Why I Nearly Flaked on the Season Pass
Last winter, when I made my temporary move to Salt Lake City, I started researching the local ski resorts. The mountains surrounding the city are known for having some of the world’s biggest and lightest powder snow. I was convinced by the customer reviews I’d read online that were written by local ski bums from Utah.
Time and again, I read and heard reviews about the Snowbird resort having some of the most challenging terrain, coated by the area’s best powder. So when I finally got a chance to ski Snowbird’s Cottonwood Canyons trails for myself, I quickly turned into a raving Snowbird fan.
I was set on getting a season’s pass for the this year. And after reading reviews like this one from CitySearch, my excitement about the upcoming ski season reached fever pitch:
Depending on the characteristics of — or our level of attachment to — the must-have thing du jour, we all buy in different buying modes to match our feelings about it. I typically purchase commodities in a more Spontaneous mode, but I take my ski season very seriously, and my search for a good deal on a Snowbird pass turned into a Methodical review of various resources to find the ultimate deal. I took my time and I read everything I could before I pounced.
Although I knew I wanted a season’s pass, I had a hard time justifying the steep price Snowbird was asking ($1,149). If the season let me down with only a few big snow days, I could be kicking myself for risking that much money.
As the summer came to a close, I got a little anxious about my upcoming purchase. Around this time, I heard a radio ad about “Sniagrab,” an annual sale run by the Sports Authority a local sporting goods chain called Canyon Sports. They were offering discount season’s passes to Snowbird. I don’t recall them specifying a sale closing date, but when I called Canyon Sports (shortly after hearing the ad), I was let down when I heard I’d missed the sale by one day. Maybe it’s my fault that I missed their sale, but the ad was vague and I had still acted quickly. It made me feel stupid — as dumb as that sounds.
Chances are you won’t catch me in a Canyon Sports any day soon.*
Unwilling to give up my quest for a deal, I searched for “snowbird seasons pass” at Craigslist. Believe it or not, there was a woman who posted a 10-day pass because she’d recently broken a bone and wouldn’t be skiing this season. She was selling it at a discount because she obviously needed to give the buyer an incentive to purchase from her, rather than go directly to the source. But since I was planning on skiing more than 10 days, I continued my search.
I sent an email to my local friends, asking if any of them had a connection to help me out. To my delight, I received a reply from a snowboarding friend. He encouraged me to join the Velocity Sports club in order to get a discount at Snowbird. Velocity’s an exclusive club, so in order for me to join, my friend had to sponsor me. He was only allowed to sponsor one person annually. There was also a $40 membership fee that I had to pay upfront. I signed up and paid my dues but this still didn’t guarantee me a discounted season’s pass. Before I had a shot at one, they made a limited promotion available to existing members who have been members for over a year. So I waited and waited for a reply.
After two weeks without a reply, I sent them a follow-up email. They told me I would hear back from them in a couple of weeks. When three more weeks passed without a reply, I decided to email again. That same day, I received a phone call from Velocity Sports, telling me that the promotion was now open to me but I had only two days to take action.It’s a good thing I didn’t miss the promotion (like I had with the Canyon Sports promo). It would’ve been nice to have gotten periodic updates from Velocity about the promotion. Then again, maybe I would have never even heard from them had I not been really good at nagging! Regardless, they came through for me in a big way, and I got my season’s pass for $799; a $310 savings (after membership fee) over buying directly from Snowbird.
No matter where they decide to buy a product, 64% of customers regularly do their research online before they go for it. In this case, there were a few multi-channel influencers (i.e., the radio ad, craigslist, Snowbird.com) in my buying decision process, but only the consumer-generated media (i.e, the customer reviews and word-of-mouth) had a positive influence on where I actually bought the thing.
The bottom line: It seems the local skiing/snowboarding community is more involved in finding and offering good deals for Snowbird customers than Snowbird is itself.
What do you think? Am I just griping, or should Snowbird consider being more involved in the community in order to better harness their marketing potential?
[Editor’s Note: See comments below. Our sincere apologies go out to everyone at Canyon Sports. Although it seems the Sports Authority chain — not Canyon Sports — has the Sniagrab Sale, there’s too much confusion about who Melissa called. Did she call Canyon Sports, and they answered her about a different sale that just ended? Who knows? Still, it seems there’s a whole lot of ski marketing fog to break through in Utah. Either that, or Melissa needs to stop multi-taking when she drives. 
]
Related Posts:
Written by:Melissa Burdon
Now Available: Bigger Logo… from a Cream!
Here’s a rhetorical question: Ever get a well-intended yet ill-advised request from a client or customer? If so, you should try the brand-spanking new Make My Logo Bigger Cream.*
Taking a moment to answer a few questions between demo requests, here’s what Agency Fusion CEO Brett Derricott had to say about the campaign:
We’ve been working closely with designers and agencies for over 5 years now. Although we’re a technical company, we love being involved with creatives and our success has come from understanding their needs, tastes, frustrations, etc. So, this campaign is something of a tribute to designers for all of the headaches they experience at the hands of their sometimes-clueless clients.
The campaign is only 6 days old and we’re already over 100k unique visits (most of that traffic has been since Monday). We’ve had more than 350 demo requests and t-shirt sales are really picking up as well.
Agency Fusion hit on a very sticky topic among their target, designers. (A web designer friend sent me the link to MakeMyLogoBiggerCream.com yesterday, L’ing OL via instant messenger.) But they didn’t stop there. No, they kept using magic words to delicately switch the topic to how they can help the real problem.
Exhibit ‘A’
Exhibit ‘B’
Congratulations to Brett and the rest of the Agency Fusion team. You’ve given us all a great example of how combining a great concept with spot-on web copy and calls to action can fuse into a truly persuasive experience — without the big logo.
[*Results may vary. If bigger logo lasts more than four hours without boosting your conversion rate, seek marketing help immediately. A bigger logo may not be the best way to treat limp persuasion. Be sure to test your assumptions before insisting on “no white space,” or using a ridiculously big logo, fluffy web copy, or fluorescent colors in general. Other rules and regulations may apply.]
Related Posts:
Written by:Robert Gorell
Toys ‘R’ Us Scares Away Customers, Giraffes
Remember those commercials from the 80’s (”I don’t wanna grow up, because if I did, I wouldn’t be a Toys ‘R’ Us kid”)? Well, a lot of those kids grew up to be parents — and the thrill, as they say, is gone.
In our upcoming 2007 Online Customer Focused Excellence Study, ToysRUs.com fared well below average. The study, which tracks 300+ online retailers, found several giraffe-sized disconnects in the customer experience; things that seem inexcusable for a click-and-mortar retailer with the budget and brand recognition of Toys ‘R’ Us. And with the holiday shopping season upon us, the company presents a feeling of doom for many parents who’ve come to rely on the store to pacify beloved, nagging children.
But they’re not just making things difficult online. Toys ‘R’ Us has a fundamental business problem. They’re scaring customers away — and not just because it’s Halloween. Joseph Jaffe explains the disconnect:
See, here’s the problem. Toys R Us spends all this money on silly 30-second spots with talking giraffes designed to “persuade” kids to nag their parents to take them to the store, but the stores themselves are largely warehouses, void of life, talking giraffes and any experiential quotient whatsoever. If you’ve ever set foot in a Toys R Us, you’d know exactly what I’m talking about.
[…] Here’s the scary part. From what I was told, this (customers returning toys without gift receipts) happens roughly 12 times a week and when it happens, it’s typically Dad doing the returning; it’s typically on a Saturday and it’s typically a shouting match that ends in frayed nerves, expletives and threats never to set foot in a Toys R Us store again.
Try and do the math. 12 x 52 = 624 x 836 (according to the number of stores in the US) = 521,664 unsatisfactory returns per year.
But wait, there’s more….
Now attempt to factor in “lost revenue” associated to a) frequency of transactions (conservative guesstimate of 4 x a year), b) dollar value of average transaction (let’s say $35) and c) word of mouth (let’s say an ultra-conservative pre-social media factor of 15), and you might just be looking at a number of $1.09bn which is either in play or at risk. fyi - Toys R Us’ 2005 revenue was $11.28bn, so my numbers aren’t exactly Monopoly (or Linden) equivalents.
The sad thing is that the staff at Toys R Us really wanted to help me, but “their hands were tied”. The real sad thing is that had a suit from Corporate been in the store (a sighting equivalent to Hailey’s Comet), they would have whipped out their “key” and saved the day on an ad-hoc and unscaleable basis.
Whether Jaffe’s math adds up is another story, but it doesn’t really matter. When you kick mothers out for breastfeeding, ruin kids bikes, let kids eat lead paint, and upset people by not letting them buy what you advertise, you’ve got a brand that clearly doesn’t wanna grow up.
Ahh, the good ol’ days…
Related Posts:
Written by:Robert Gorell
