Plenty of media sources reported server crashes for some retailers hoping to cash in on a “Cyber Monday” sales bounce to kick off the holiday shopping season. But while 404 messages were as common as slip-and-fall incidents in the parking lot of your local mall, the damage to concerned retailers (i.e. Victoria’s Secret, The Gap, Old Navy, Banana Republic, Borders, Comp.USA and Home Depot to name a few) could be significant.
Here’s why:
This holiday season is brewing up a “perfect storm” for a financial disaster when it comes to Q4 sales for retailers. Not only is 2008′s holiday shopping season five days shorter (thanks to the floating Thanksgiving holiday and leap year), it also has one fewer weekends than last year. Add to that the fact that we’ve all just learned that the US has been in a financial recession since last December (still not clear as to what took so damn long to figure that one out) and a majority of consumers are saying they’re tightening their spending belt this year.
The result: it looks like the first few days of the holiday shopping season will be the only chance any retailer stands for making a “silk purse” out of the sow’s ear that is 2008.
Prelminary reports on Black Friday and the following weekend were that sales figures were up marginally over 2007 (+3%) – but none of the pundits are expecting that positive margin to hold.
Monday was a bad time to have your server go down.
I’m sure we’ll get plenty of explanations as to “why” things happened the way they did. Let’s hope these retailers are around next year to put the lessons they’ve learned to good use.
Tags: Black Friday, Borders, Comp.USA, Cyber Monday, Holiday Shopping, Home Depot, Online Retail, Promotion, Retail, The Gap, Victoria's Secret
Posted by Mike Bawden under Brand Crafting, Brand USA
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Laura Ries offers some worthwhile evaluations of celebrity endorsements enjoyed by Democratic candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. You don’t have to be a political wonk to enjoy her post.
From a marketing perspective, many of the lessons taught through this endorsement excercise carry over to consumer products and services. A celebrity endorsement isn’t worth that much if the celebrity doesn’t really understand the “what” and “why” of the brand he or she is endorsing.
One-dimensional product pitchmen, even if they’re well-known sports or entertainment celebrities, can elicit the same response Laura has about Cheer’s star Ted Danson: “Does anyone care what Ted Danson has to say? I don’t think so.”
Posted by Mike Bawden under Much Ado About Marketing
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Do you hate that guy that seems to be an expert on everything? Well, thanks to the Creative Generalist, we’re able to give you this link to a guy who isn’t an expert on anything.
Meet the Non-Expert.
It’s a humorous series of information (or is it misinformation) about a wide variety of topics. Which begs the question: “What kind of questions do the Non-Expert(s) answer?”
Well, for starters:
“My understanding is that the term “begs the question” has essentially been bastardized, whereby laymen (i.e., us) have misconstrued or broadened its meaning, and in the process have pissed off a very small group of anal-retentive, scholarly types (i.e., them).
Now, I assume that when you use the phrase, like most other people, you use it to mean something like, “Well, that opens up another can of worms.” For example: Your 16-year-old son gets in a fight with a bouncer at a strip club. Sure, it’s bad enough he’s rumbling with bouncers—and you are probably in need of some parenting books—but you might say the whole situation begs the question: How did he, being underage, get into the strip club in the first place? And did he at least get a lap dance before he was thrown out? (Let’s hope so.)”
And so it goes …
