It’s that magical time of the year when brand preferences are being lodged in the consumer psyche by any means necessary, be it free online shipping offers or conventional “doorbuster” style shopper stampedes. (Plus, in an admirable show of advance conditioning, there are those sidebar Four Loko-fueled parking lot brawls.)
But the romance of the brand is a notoriously ephemeral thing, as any casual survey of thrift-store Tickle-Me Elmo and Tamagotchi displays will promptly demonstrate. To do the job right, in this as in so many other realms, we would do well to heed the example of the Germans. As Bloomberg’s Chris Reiter reports, Deutschland’s Big Three automakers—BMW, Mercedes, and Audi (now a Volkswagen property)—have long been locked into a battle for the overtaxed attention spans of the youth market.
Back in February, Audi made a dramatic bid for high-end kiddie allegiance with a $13,300 model of a 1930s roadster, evidently calculating that a Weimar-era collectible is the perfect bridge to the true sturm-und-drang of a privileged adolescence. The model comes replete with “an aluminum frame, hydraulic brakes, seven speeds, leather-clad steering wheel, and oak dashboard,” and nearly sold out of its initial 500-unit manufacturing run, Reiter notes.
The idea behind such lush toy marketing, of course, is to instill intense brand-loyalty among the market’s littlest thought leaders. "Merchandising is important not because you can make huge money with it,” Audi sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer tells Reiter, “but because it's another means of positioning your brand.” That means that Audi isn’t confining its initiatives to pint-sized drive trains, but is branching out to other durable badges of status, such as a $17,000-plus table soccer game—the idea here, evidently, being not so much to cultivate hooligan-style soccer fandom in the plutocratic young, but rather to inculcate the more genteel and respectable habit of full-scale team ownership.
It’s true that Audi isn’t neglecting more downmarket kiddie consumers in its push, with a $60 branded teddy bear and a $400 red-plastic version of the roadster; here, the functional array of model accessories include “an adjustable rollover bar, hand brake, over-sized tires with Audi-style rims, and padded seats.” But the main event is clearly the scrum for top-line market cachet, which is why Audi’s rivals are stepping up their game. Mercedes, for instance, is planning a spring rollout for “the foot-powered SLS Bobby-Benz, featuring headlights, grill, and rear end similar to those of the company's $183,000 SLS sportscar. The toy SLS features quiet-running tires, an Ackermann steering system with tight cornering for living-room maneuverability, and a steering wheel that absorbs impact to prevent injury in the event of a collision.” The model will boast a comparatively modest $120 asking price—but that loss-leader price point is a small sacrifice when you’re grooming future six-figure auto customers. "All the products have to live up to Mercedes' standards for quality and safety—especially our toys, which are all-time favorites with the next generation of Mercedes-Benz customers," reports Christian Boucke, who heads up the Benz accessories division.
BMW, meanwhile, appears to be the most horizontally minded lifestyle competitor in the luxe-branded market, brandishing a wide panoply of gear from a $460 kid-scale version of its M3 GT2 race car to a pair of $50 rain boots. The Beamer accessories division also turns a healthy 7 percentish profit—even though its brand-keepers, too, stress their real stake is in the longer-term loyalty game. “We are first and foremost a marketing initiative, and the main objectives are to broaden the brand's presence and strengthen loyalty," says Thomas Goerdt, who directs BMW’s distinctly un-German-sounding merchandising and lifestyle unit.
Still, the great risk of too-rampant accessory branding is market saturation—which is why Michel Gabriel, a branding specialist who has advised past Audi projectS, draws the line at underwear, even though “a lot of money can be made from a product” aimed at the intimate end of the brand market.
We can’t help thinking, though, that the Grosse Drei auto barons are selling short tomorrow’s financial titans with mere miniature knockoffs of luxury rides—and not just because their British competitor, Aston Martin, still owns the highest tip of the market with a Volante Junior model fetching a cool $24,000 with a devoted consumer base of young royals—who have duly gone on to modify their fullscale Astons to run on wine.
After all, the lesson of branding the world over is that a truly consummate brand eventually eclipses its mere material referent—hence the power of the glyphlike Nike swoosh (which only cost the firm $35 when design student Carolyn Davidson submitted in in 1971), or the “i”-themed Mac brand interface. Likewise, the business model for Mercedes has involved coaxing lavish multimillion-dollar subsidies from U.S. lawmakers at the same time it’s presented itself as an above-the-fray survivor of the 2008 global auto downturn.
Likewise, BMW has briskly seen to it that influential state congressional delegations have placed its own export interests ahead of the bailed-out U.S. auto industry—while Audi’s corporate parent Volkswagen has at least been candid in soliciting U.S. bailout funds, while also putting in for homeland funds to shore up its rickety loan operation. (Needless to say, this corporate pursuit of public-sector handouts doesn’t seem to have softened VW’s stand on American union drives, since like other foreign automakers, it’s expanded operations in anti-union right-to-work states to evade higher labor costs at home.) All of which is to say that, if doting plutocratic parents are looking to instill formative brand preferences this holiday season, nothing says “heed daddy’s example” like a simple, influence-subsidized government check. And Lord knows that for the properly connected family or industry, a good government kickback is about as hard to obtain as a pair BMW rain boots.
You, valued and valuable reader, are invited to join Chris Lehmann and your other fellow rich people to celebrate the publication of Rich People Things, this Thursday, December 2nd, at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City, from 7 to 9 p.m. There will even be a brief chit-chat with Thomas Frank and Maureen "Moe" Tkacik.
This post is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark as a new part of the Spark of Genius series that focuses on a new and innovative startup each day. Once a week, the program focuses on startups within the BizSpark program and what they’re doing to grow.
Consumer electronics search engine and review site Retrevo had the best traffic day in its four-year history on Monday. But unlike Cyber Mondays of the past, site visitors who were browsing the site’s comprehensive reviews also had the option to buy electronics without leaving the Retrevo site.
In the past two months, the company has been dipping its toes into e-commerce — an industry that it plans to dive into fully next year. The site’s long-time sources of revenue have been advertising and cost-per-click fees it collects by referring its users to electronic retailer sites. Since launching e-commerce components, such as its daily deals, it has more than doubled its monthly revenue.
To complement the new strategy, the company is launching a new search engine today that allows consumers to search accessories, the major portion of its product offerings, by entering a specific electronic device they wish to accessorize.
Taking this leap into e-commerce was something of a risk for CEO Vipin Jain. E-commerce is a decidedly different industry than review indexing, and there was a question of whether readers who trusted the site for information would also trust the site with their money (the answer thus far appears to be that they will).
Mashable recently chatted with Jain about making the transition that he says is likely to triple annual revenue.
Building a Strong Frame
Retrevo built a 6-million-unique-users-per-month user base for its search and review engine before it decided to start selling products itself. And although selling electronics is turning out to be much more profitable than recommending them, the four years that it spent refining this system were an important component in building the site’s e-commerce success.
For one thing, customers already trust the site. “We probably would not have had this much success with e-commerce if we had not gone through building the trust with the information and reviews and recommendations first,” Jain says. “I think that where we are and where we think the company is going to be, I think that is a result of having that belief in the recommendation and the advice we are giving them. It is easier for them to open their wallets and give us money to buy products.”
It’s also unlikely that consumers would choose to buy from the site if it were just another Amazon-like retailer. The comprehensive reviews, which make it easy for people without a lot of technical knowledge to pick out a product, is the reason that people will continue to visit the site. And, as Jain sees it, the commerce component is a way of completing this easy-to-navigate experience. Instead of sending customers to a third-party site that might be confusing, users can easily complete their checkout where they started their search.
Changing Course
Earlier this year, when Retrevo started planning for the switch, the staff didn’t have any delusions about what a drastic change the company would be making. Retrevo sought new talent from online retailers like Newegg.com and eBay to help its team think in e-commerce terms.
“We were the king of the hill in our old world (CE reviews and recommendations),” Jain says. “E-commerce is full of potholes, and we are going against big guys such as Amazon. Amazon can be very aggressive when it comes to pricing for items that they want to move.”
Instead of competing with Amazon down to pennies, Retrevo’s advantage needs to come from helping customers buy the best products for their needs and get the most out of them. The accessory search engine that launches today, for instance, helps customers find the right accessories based on what devices they have. If the accessory doesn’t work with the device, the company will accept the return with no questions asked.
It would seem that selling and recommending devices on the same site might be a conflict of interest, but Vain insists that it is no more so than when the review site has hosted advertisers like Sony in the past.
“I think we have established over the years that Retrevo is a trusted place and the reviews and recommendations that we give you have not been influenced by any business model or revenue model,” he says.
Because being a reliable source of decision-making information about products is the key to its e-commerce strategy, it seems like much of Retrevo’s success or failure will depend on whether this statement holds true.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Chuck “Caveman” Coker, Dean Terry
Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
For more Startups coverage:
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Knight Science Journalism Tracker » Blog Archive » <b>News</b> from the <b>...</b>
Wikileaks is top news right now. And not only for political journalists. There is a science journalism perspective, too, proves the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Jürgen Kaube). “Every social relationship depends on some, perhaps a lot ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
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Knight Science Journalism Tracker » Blog Archive » <b>News</b> from the <b>...</b>
Wikileaks is top news right now. And not only for political journalists. There is a science journalism perspective, too, proves the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Jürgen Kaube). “Every social relationship depends on some, perhaps a lot ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
advertising enlargement
Knight Science Journalism Tracker » Blog Archive » <b>News</b> from the <b>...</b>
Wikileaks is top news right now. And not only for political journalists. There is a science journalism perspective, too, proves the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Jürgen Kaube). “Every social relationship depends on some, perhaps a lot ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
bench craft company rip off pills reviews
Knight Science Journalism Tracker » Blog Archive » <b>News</b> from the <b>...</b>
Wikileaks is top news right now. And not only for political journalists. There is a science journalism perspective, too, proves the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Jürgen Kaube). “Every social relationship depends on some, perhaps a lot ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
small bench craft company rip off
Knight Science Journalism Tracker » Blog Archive » <b>News</b> from the <b>...</b>
Wikileaks is top news right now. And not only for political journalists. There is a science journalism perspective, too, proves the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Jürgen Kaube). “Every social relationship depends on some, perhaps a lot ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
free advertising enlargement exercises
It’s that magical time of the year when brand preferences are being lodged in the consumer psyche by any means necessary, be it free online shipping offers or conventional “doorbuster” style shopper stampedes. (Plus, in an admirable show of advance conditioning, there are those sidebar Four Loko-fueled parking lot brawls.)
But the romance of the brand is a notoriously ephemeral thing, as any casual survey of thrift-store Tickle-Me Elmo and Tamagotchi displays will promptly demonstrate. To do the job right, in this as in so many other realms, we would do well to heed the example of the Germans. As Bloomberg’s Chris Reiter reports, Deutschland’s Big Three automakers—BMW, Mercedes, and Audi (now a Volkswagen property)—have long been locked into a battle for the overtaxed attention spans of the youth market.
Back in February, Audi made a dramatic bid for high-end kiddie allegiance with a $13,300 model of a 1930s roadster, evidently calculating that a Weimar-era collectible is the perfect bridge to the true sturm-und-drang of a privileged adolescence. The model comes replete with “an aluminum frame, hydraulic brakes, seven speeds, leather-clad steering wheel, and oak dashboard,” and nearly sold out of its initial 500-unit manufacturing run, Reiter notes.
The idea behind such lush toy marketing, of course, is to instill intense brand-loyalty among the market’s littlest thought leaders. "Merchandising is important not because you can make huge money with it,” Audi sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer tells Reiter, “but because it's another means of positioning your brand.” That means that Audi isn’t confining its initiatives to pint-sized drive trains, but is branching out to other durable badges of status, such as a $17,000-plus table soccer game—the idea here, evidently, being not so much to cultivate hooligan-style soccer fandom in the plutocratic young, but rather to inculcate the more genteel and respectable habit of full-scale team ownership.
It’s true that Audi isn’t neglecting more downmarket kiddie consumers in its push, with a $60 branded teddy bear and a $400 red-plastic version of the roadster; here, the functional array of model accessories include “an adjustable rollover bar, hand brake, over-sized tires with Audi-style rims, and padded seats.” But the main event is clearly the scrum for top-line market cachet, which is why Audi’s rivals are stepping up their game. Mercedes, for instance, is planning a spring rollout for “the foot-powered SLS Bobby-Benz, featuring headlights, grill, and rear end similar to those of the company's $183,000 SLS sportscar. The toy SLS features quiet-running tires, an Ackermann steering system with tight cornering for living-room maneuverability, and a steering wheel that absorbs impact to prevent injury in the event of a collision.” The model will boast a comparatively modest $120 asking price—but that loss-leader price point is a small sacrifice when you’re grooming future six-figure auto customers. "All the products have to live up to Mercedes' standards for quality and safety—especially our toys, which are all-time favorites with the next generation of Mercedes-Benz customers," reports Christian Boucke, who heads up the Benz accessories division.
BMW, meanwhile, appears to be the most horizontally minded lifestyle competitor in the luxe-branded market, brandishing a wide panoply of gear from a $460 kid-scale version of its M3 GT2 race car to a pair of $50 rain boots. The Beamer accessories division also turns a healthy 7 percentish profit—even though its brand-keepers, too, stress their real stake is in the longer-term loyalty game. “We are first and foremost a marketing initiative, and the main objectives are to broaden the brand's presence and strengthen loyalty," says Thomas Goerdt, who directs BMW’s distinctly un-German-sounding merchandising and lifestyle unit.
Still, the great risk of too-rampant accessory branding is market saturation—which is why Michel Gabriel, a branding specialist who has advised past Audi projectS, draws the line at underwear, even though “a lot of money can be made from a product” aimed at the intimate end of the brand market.
We can’t help thinking, though, that the Grosse Drei auto barons are selling short tomorrow’s financial titans with mere miniature knockoffs of luxury rides—and not just because their British competitor, Aston Martin, still owns the highest tip of the market with a Volante Junior model fetching a cool $24,000 with a devoted consumer base of young royals—who have duly gone on to modify their fullscale Astons to run on wine.
After all, the lesson of branding the world over is that a truly consummate brand eventually eclipses its mere material referent—hence the power of the glyphlike Nike swoosh (which only cost the firm $35 when design student Carolyn Davidson submitted in in 1971), or the “i”-themed Mac brand interface. Likewise, the business model for Mercedes has involved coaxing lavish multimillion-dollar subsidies from U.S. lawmakers at the same time it’s presented itself as an above-the-fray survivor of the 2008 global auto downturn.
Likewise, BMW has briskly seen to it that influential state congressional delegations have placed its own export interests ahead of the bailed-out U.S. auto industry—while Audi’s corporate parent Volkswagen has at least been candid in soliciting U.S. bailout funds, while also putting in for homeland funds to shore up its rickety loan operation. (Needless to say, this corporate pursuit of public-sector handouts doesn’t seem to have softened VW’s stand on American union drives, since like other foreign automakers, it’s expanded operations in anti-union right-to-work states to evade higher labor costs at home.) All of which is to say that, if doting plutocratic parents are looking to instill formative brand preferences this holiday season, nothing says “heed daddy’s example” like a simple, influence-subsidized government check. And Lord knows that for the properly connected family or industry, a good government kickback is about as hard to obtain as a pair BMW rain boots.
You, valued and valuable reader, are invited to join Chris Lehmann and your other fellow rich people to celebrate the publication of Rich People Things, this Thursday, December 2nd, at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City, from 7 to 9 p.m. There will even be a brief chit-chat with Thomas Frank and Maureen "Moe" Tkacik.
This post is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark as a new part of the Spark of Genius series that focuses on a new and innovative startup each day. Once a week, the program focuses on startups within the BizSpark program and what they’re doing to grow.
Consumer electronics search engine and review site Retrevo had the best traffic day in its four-year history on Monday. But unlike Cyber Mondays of the past, site visitors who were browsing the site’s comprehensive reviews also had the option to buy electronics without leaving the Retrevo site.
In the past two months, the company has been dipping its toes into e-commerce — an industry that it plans to dive into fully next year. The site’s long-time sources of revenue have been advertising and cost-per-click fees it collects by referring its users to electronic retailer sites. Since launching e-commerce components, such as its daily deals, it has more than doubled its monthly revenue.
To complement the new strategy, the company is launching a new search engine today that allows consumers to search accessories, the major portion of its product offerings, by entering a specific electronic device they wish to accessorize.
Taking this leap into e-commerce was something of a risk for CEO Vipin Jain. E-commerce is a decidedly different industry than review indexing, and there was a question of whether readers who trusted the site for information would also trust the site with their money (the answer thus far appears to be that they will).
Mashable recently chatted with Jain about making the transition that he says is likely to triple annual revenue.
Building a Strong Frame
Retrevo built a 6-million-unique-users-per-month user base for its search and review engine before it decided to start selling products itself. And although selling electronics is turning out to be much more profitable than recommending them, the four years that it spent refining this system were an important component in building the site’s e-commerce success.
For one thing, customers already trust the site. “We probably would not have had this much success with e-commerce if we had not gone through building the trust with the information and reviews and recommendations first,” Jain says. “I think that where we are and where we think the company is going to be, I think that is a result of having that belief in the recommendation and the advice we are giving them. It is easier for them to open their wallets and give us money to buy products.”
It’s also unlikely that consumers would choose to buy from the site if it were just another Amazon-like retailer. The comprehensive reviews, which make it easy for people without a lot of technical knowledge to pick out a product, is the reason that people will continue to visit the site. And, as Jain sees it, the commerce component is a way of completing this easy-to-navigate experience. Instead of sending customers to a third-party site that might be confusing, users can easily complete their checkout where they started their search.
Changing Course
Earlier this year, when Retrevo started planning for the switch, the staff didn’t have any delusions about what a drastic change the company would be making. Retrevo sought new talent from online retailers like Newegg.com and eBay to help its team think in e-commerce terms.
“We were the king of the hill in our old world (CE reviews and recommendations),” Jain says. “E-commerce is full of potholes, and we are going against big guys such as Amazon. Amazon can be very aggressive when it comes to pricing for items that they want to move.”
Instead of competing with Amazon down to pennies, Retrevo’s advantage needs to come from helping customers buy the best products for their needs and get the most out of them. The accessory search engine that launches today, for instance, helps customers find the right accessories based on what devices they have. If the accessory doesn’t work with the device, the company will accept the return with no questions asked.
It would seem that selling and recommending devices on the same site might be a conflict of interest, but Vain insists that it is no more so than when the review site has hosted advertisers like Sony in the past.
“I think we have established over the years that Retrevo is a trusted place and the reviews and recommendations that we give you have not been influenced by any business model or revenue model,” he says.
Because being a reliable source of decision-making information about products is the key to its e-commerce strategy, it seems like much of Retrevo’s success or failure will depend on whether this statement holds true.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Chuck “Caveman” Coker, Dean Terry
Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark
BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.
For more Startups coverage:
pennismarketing
Knight Science Journalism Tracker » Blog Archive » <b>News</b> from the <b>...</b>
Wikileaks is top news right now. And not only for political journalists. There is a science journalism perspective, too, proves the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Jürgen Kaube). “Every social relationship depends on some, perhaps a lot ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
free advertising enlargement exercises
Knight Science Journalism Tracker » Blog Archive » <b>News</b> from the <b>...</b>
Wikileaks is top news right now. And not only for political journalists. There is a science journalism perspective, too, proves the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Jürgen Kaube). “Every social relationship depends on some, perhaps a lot ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
advertising enlargement info
Knight Science Journalism Tracker » Blog Archive » <b>News</b> from the <b>...</b>
Wikileaks is top news right now. And not only for political journalists. There is a science journalism perspective, too, proves the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Jürgen Kaube). “Every social relationship depends on some, perhaps a lot ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
allbench craft company rip off
Knight Science Journalism Tracker » Blog Archive » <b>News</b> from the <b>...</b>
Wikileaks is top news right now. And not only for political journalists. There is a science journalism perspective, too, proves the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Jürgen Kaube). “Every social relationship depends on some, perhaps a lot ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
bench craft company rip off videos
Knight Science Journalism Tracker » Blog Archive » <b>News</b> from the <b>...</b>
Wikileaks is top news right now. And not only for political journalists. There is a science journalism perspective, too, proves the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Jürgen Kaube). “Every social relationship depends on some, perhaps a lot ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
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Knight Science Journalism Tracker » Blog Archive » <b>News</b> from the <b>...</b>
Wikileaks is top news right now. And not only for political journalists. There is a science journalism perspective, too, proves the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Jürgen Kaube). “Every social relationship depends on some, perhaps a lot ...
Light Can Generate Lift - Science <b>News</b>
Researchers create a lightfoil that can push small objects sideways.
This Week in Credit Card <b>News</b> - MoneyBuilder - making sense of <b>...</b>
Provided by LowCards.com More Than Eight Million People Drop Out of Credit Card Use More than eight million consumers stopped using credit cards over the past year, according to a new study by TransUnion. The use of general purpose ...
homebench craft company rip off
It’s that magical time of the year when brand preferences are being lodged in the consumer psyche by any means necessary, be it free online shipping offers or conventional “doorbuster” style shopper stampedes. (Plus, in an admirable show of advance conditioning, there are those sidebar Four Loko-fueled parking lot brawls.)
But the romance of the brand is a notoriously ephemeral thing, as any casual survey of thrift-store Tickle-Me Elmo and Tamagotchi displays will promptly demonstrate. To do the job right, in this as in so many other realms, we would do well to heed the example of the Germans. As Bloomberg’s Chris Reiter reports, Deutschland’s Big Three automakers—BMW, Mercedes, and Audi (now a Volkswagen property)—have long been locked into a battle for the overtaxed attention spans of the youth market.
Back in February, Audi made a dramatic bid for high-end kiddie allegiance with a $13,300 model of a 1930s roadster, evidently calculating that a Weimar-era collectible is the perfect bridge to the true sturm-und-drang of a privileged adolescence. The model comes replete with “an aluminum frame, hydraulic brakes, seven speeds, leather-clad steering wheel, and oak dashboard,” and nearly sold out of its initial 500-unit manufacturing run, Reiter notes.
The idea behind such lush toy marketing, of course, is to instill intense brand-loyalty among the market’s littlest thought leaders. "Merchandising is important not because you can make huge money with it,” Audi sales chief Peter Schwarzenbauer tells Reiter, “but because it's another means of positioning your brand.” That means that Audi isn’t confining its initiatives to pint-sized drive trains, but is branching out to other durable badges of status, such as a $17,000-plus table soccer game—the idea here, evidently, being not so much to cultivate hooligan-style soccer fandom in the plutocratic young, but rather to inculcate the more genteel and respectable habit of full-scale team ownership.
It’s true that Audi isn’t neglecting more downmarket kiddie consumers in its push, with a $60 branded teddy bear and a $400 red-plastic version of the roadster; here, the functional array of model accessories include “an adjustable rollover bar, hand brake, over-sized tires with Audi-style rims, and padded seats.” But the main event is clearly the scrum for top-line market cachet, which is why Audi’s rivals are stepping up their game. Mercedes, for instance, is planning a spring rollout for “the foot-powered SLS Bobby-Benz, featuring headlights, grill, and rear end similar to those of the company's $183,000 SLS sportscar. The toy SLS features quiet-running tires, an Ackermann steering system with tight cornering for living-room maneuverability, and a steering wheel that absorbs impact to prevent injury in the event of a collision.” The model will boast a comparatively modest $120 asking price—but that loss-leader price point is a small sacrifice when you’re grooming future six-figure auto customers. "All the products have to live up to Mercedes' standards for quality and safety—especially our toys, which are all-time favorites with the next generation of Mercedes-Benz customers," reports Christian Boucke, who heads up the Benz accessories division.
BMW, meanwhile, appears to be the most horizontally minded lifestyle competitor in the luxe-branded market, brandishing a wide panoply of gear from a $460 kid-scale version of its M3 GT2 race car to a pair of $50 rain boots. The Beamer accessories division also turns a healthy 7 percentish profit—even though its brand-keepers, too, stress their real stake is in the longer-term loyalty game. “We are first and foremost a marketing initiative, and the main objectives are to broaden the brand's presence and strengthen loyalty," says Thomas Goerdt, who directs BMW’s distinctly un-German-sounding merchandising and lifestyle unit.
Still, the great risk of too-rampant accessory branding is market saturation—which is why Michel Gabriel, a branding specialist who has advised past Audi projectS, draws the line at underwear, even though “a lot of money can be made from a product” aimed at the intimate end of the brand market.
We can’t help thinking, though, that the Grosse Drei auto barons are selling short tomorrow’s financial titans with mere miniature knockoffs of luxury rides—and not just because their British competitor, Aston Martin, still owns the highest tip of the market with a Volante Junior model fetching a cool $24,000 with a devoted consumer base of young royals—who have duly gone on to modify their fullscale Astons to run on wine.
After all, the lesson of branding the world over is that a truly consummate brand eventually eclipses its mere material referent—hence the power of the glyphlike Nike swoosh (which only cost the firm $35 when design student Carolyn Davidson submitted in in 1971), or the “i”-themed Mac brand interface. Likewise, the business model for Mercedes has involved coaxing lavish multimillion-dollar subsidies from U.S. lawmakers at the same time it’s presented itself as an above-the-fray survivor of the 2008 global auto downturn.
Likewise, BMW has briskly seen to it that influential state congressional delegations have placed its own export interests ahead of the bailed-out U.S. auto industry—while Audi’s corporate parent Volkswagen has at least been candid in soliciting U.S. bailout funds, while also putting in for homeland funds to shore up its rickety loan operation. (Needless to say, this corporate pursuit of public-sector handouts doesn’t seem to have softened VW’s stand on American union drives, since like other foreign automakers, it’s expanded operations in anti-union right-to-work states to evade higher labor costs at home.) All of which is to say that, if doting plutocratic parents are looking to instill formative brand preferences this holiday season, nothing says “heed daddy’s example” like a simple, influence-subsidized government check. And Lord knows that for the properly connected family or industry, a good government kickback is about as hard to obtain as a pair BMW rain boots.
You, valued and valuable reader, are invited to join Chris Lehmann and your other fellow rich people to celebrate the publication of Rich People Things, this Thursday, December 2nd, at Le Poisson Rouge in New York City, from 7 to 9 p.m. There will even be a brief chit-chat with Thomas Frank and Maureen "Moe" Tkacik.
This post is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark as a new part of the Spark of Genius series that focuses on a new and innovative startup each day. Once a week, the program focuses on startups within the BizSpark program and what they’re doing to grow.
Consumer electronics search engine and review site Retrevo had the best traffic day in its four-year history on Monday. But unlike Cyber Mondays of the past, site visitors who were browsing the site’s comprehensive reviews also had the option to buy electronics without leaving the Retrevo site.
In the past two months, the company has been dipping its toes into e-commerce — an industry that it plans to dive into fully next year. The site’s long-time sources of revenue have been advertising and cost-per-click fees it collects by referring its users to electronic retailer sites. Since launching e-commerce components, such as its daily deals, it has more than doubled its monthly revenue.
To complement the new strategy, the company is launching a new search engine today that allows consumers to search accessories, the major portion of its product offerings, by entering a specific electronic device they wish to accessorize.
Taking this leap into e-commerce was something of a risk for CEO Vipin Jain. E-commerce is a decidedly different industry than review indexing, and there was a question of whether readers who trusted the site for information would also trust the site with their money (the answer thus far appears to be that they will).
Mashable recently chatted with Jain about making the transition that he says is likely to triple annual revenue.
Building a Strong Frame
Retrevo built a 6-million-unique-users-per-month user base for its search and review engine before it decided to start selling products itself. And although selling electronics is turning out to be much more profitable than recommending them, the four years that it spent refining this system were an important component in building the site’s e-commerce success.
For one thing, customers already trust the site. “We probably would not have had this much success with e-commerce if we had not gone through building the trust with the information and reviews and recommendations first,” Jain says. “I think that where we are and where we think the company is going to be, I think that is a result of having that belief in the recommendation and the advice we are giving them. It is easier for them to open their wallets and give us money to buy products.”
It’s also unlikely that consumers would choose to buy from the site if it were just another Amazon-like retailer. The comprehensive reviews, which make it easy for people without a lot of technical knowledge to pick out a product, is the reason that people will continue to visit the site. And, as Jain sees it, the commerce component is a way of completing this easy-to-navigate experience. Instead of sending customers to a third-party site that might be confusing, users can easily complete their checkout where they started their search.
Changing Course
Earlier this year, when Retrevo started planning for the switch, the staff didn’t have any delusions about what a drastic change the company would be making. Retrevo sought new talent from online retailers like Newegg.com and eBay to help its team think in e-commerce terms.
“We were the king of the hill in our old world (CE reviews and recommendations),” Jain says. “E-commerce is full of potholes, and we are going against big guys such as Amazon. Amazon can be very aggressive when it comes to pricing for items that they want to move.”
Instead of competing with Amazon down to pennies, Retrevo’s advantage needs to come from helping customers buy the best products for their needs and get the most out of them. The accessory search engine that launches today, for instance, helps customers find the right accessories based on what devices they have. If the accessory doesn’t work with the device, the company will accept the return with no questions asked.
It would seem that selling and recommending devices on the same site might be a conflict of interest, but Vain insists that it is no more so than when the review site has hosted advertisers like Sony in the past.
“I think we have established over the years that Retrevo is a trusted place and the reviews and recommendations that we give you have not been influenced by any business model or revenue model,” he says.
Because being a reliable source of decision-making information about products is the key to its e-commerce strategy, it seems like much of Retrevo’s success or failure will depend on whether this statement holds true.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Chuck “Caveman” Coker, Dean Terry
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