I love my new smartphone. Not only is it super-awesome, but the apps give me cool stuff to cover in RaceTalk – let me know if there’s a mobile app I must see.
We love not paying full price for things, and the success of group-buying daily deal sites has only fueled our penchant for not paying full-price for everything from pizza to skydiving lessons. The challenge for vendors choosing to participate is turning would-be one-time penny-pinchers into loyal returning customers even after the coupons are distant memories. Many businesses never close the deal, instead being left with the equivalent of countless, unfulfilling one-night stands from consumers who only loved them briefly for their discounts. Now that I’ve painted this sad, sad picture for you, cue LevelUp.
Rather than offering a one-time discount to deal hounds, LevelUp instead offers consumers an incentive to come back: spend $X, get $Y in credit. Spend $X again, get a little more than $Y in credit. The more you spend with LevelUp, the more credit you get back. As described on the site, it’s a “Sesame-Street-simple loyalty program.” We get our savings, and businesses aren’t finding themselves in the red. Good stuff, right? Let us know about your LevelUp experiences in the comments.
Over the past week (and most recently yesterday), both Facebook and Google have announced that they have set up deal offers and will soon be launching their platforms in select cities (mostly on the west coast).
Google’s deal launch comes after a failed attempt to acquire Groupon, and Facebook had already added limited deals into its mobile check-ins which launched back in November 2010 and had been more similar to Foursquare then a daily deal site.
Even though Google and Facebook have hundreds of millions of users, it remains to be seen if they can successfully market their deals to regional/local audiences, something that daily deal companies Groupon, LivingSocial and BuyWithMe have successfully done.
Google and Facebook won’t be the first national Internet company to launch a daily deal. AOL launched wow.com, which is available in select cities around the US, and also features national deals. However, it’s never caught on like some of the others have.
While Facebook and Google have better access to users then AOL, their ability to successfully localize the deals and get the best merchants will be critical to their success. Of course, they could always team with current regional deal sites and publicize their offerings to a larger audience.
Will you check out the deals that Facebook and Google offer to your city?
Today Sam Whitmore stopped by our office, and we had the chance to catch up with him afterwords and discuss what’s in store for PR and media in 2011, pay-walls and media outlets adoption of group-buying. Check out what he had to say:
Earlier this week, we heard from Bloomberg Businessweek that Facebook would be offering a Groupon-inspired discount deal service. Given its potential customer base of over 500 million users, the social networking site definitely has a good starting foundation as it hopes to take advantage of the bourgeoning online-deal market.
Anyone else not surprised? Don’t get me wrong: Facebook is awesome and all, but once again, it’s taking a pre-existing idea from another social networking platform and incorporating it into its own one-stop social metropolis. Facebook has been a copycat from Day 1. Even prior to its conception, we had MySpace, FriendFeed, and several other social networking platforms that eventually floundered and or just never took off.
So what made Facebook succeed where others had failed? In short, exclusivity. Whereas MySpace was a very public platform where any creep could try to add you as a friend (Remember that creeper who was at least twice your age, lived across the country and was always commenting on your pictures for no good reason? Of course you do.), Facebook was initially a private club for college students. Only later, when it had established itself above the common man’s social networking sites, did it eventually open its doors to everyone.
Throughout Facebook’s young life, it has continued to adopt popular online tools in an effort to provide its user base with the be-all, end-all source for online interaction: in May 2007, the Marketplace launched, a lá Craigslist. In April 2009, the Facebook news feed underwent a drastic makeover that resulted in a suspicious resemblance to Twitter. In August 2010, Places kicked off, but while FourSquare doesn’t have nearly as many users as Facebook, it still seems to enjoy a higher volume of check-ins – for now, anyway. Later that year, we talked about the Facebook Deals introduction (and Foursquare still seems to be doing just fine).
Over the last six years, this social networking monolith has tried function as our online interactive Swiss army knife. Sometimes its efforts are impressive, and other times less remarkable – I actually had to see if Facebook Marketplace was still active when writing this post. While it is an enormous platform, I personally think that even the likes of Facebook won’t be able to do it all while holding everyone’s interest.
At the very least, imitation is the best form of flattery though, right? What do you think of Facebook holding the crosshairs over Groupon, or any of its other social adoptions?
Last Sunday during the broadcast of the Academy Awards I couldn’t help but notice several commercials for the group buying service, LivingSocial. I found this interesting as Groupon, one of LivingSocial’s largest competitors, put major ad spent behind a series of Super Bowl commercials that wound up offending viewers and arguably damaging the brand’s reputation (you can read RaceTalk’s commentary here). I would have thought, given this blunder, LivingSocial and other group buying services would shy away from television advertising and focus on other mediums.
I was also intrigued that LivingSocial decided to advertise during the Oscars, a broadcast targeted almost exclusively to women. Does LivingSocial see their core demographic as mostly female?
In addition to the Oscars advertising, LivingSocial launched a deal yesterday for discounted movie tickets via Fandango. PC Mag reported that by 3:30pm the site had sold 609,000 Fandango offers. The deal was so successful, LivingSocial has extended it through the end of the day today.
PC Mag also reported that LivingSocial currently holds the record for the biggest online coupon deal with their Amazon.com offer, which sold 1,378,938 vouchers.
This is the week LivingSocial decided to put their stake in the group buying ground, and they are camped out right in front of one of America’s favorite places: the movie theater.
Are these kinds of ads and offers enough to inch them ahead of Groupon? What do you think?
Last night Groupon aired three commercials (see below) during the Super Bowl, and quickly managed to offend viewers everywhere. While the majority of the outrage was focused on the Tibet ad, all three commercials could easily be deemed offensive by certain groups of people.
Quite simply, the commercials were done in poor taste. But what’s more upsetting is that Groupon is better than that, and they didn’t need to go this route. Let’s look at the facts:
Groupon turned down a $6 billion acquisition offer from Google.
So why, must a company with so much success in their young history, risk offending their customers through these commercials? To me, a company like Groupon – tech-savvy and innovative – should have had the best commercials. But these ads weren’t funny, and the only talk they generated was negative.
With LivingSocial on their heals and putting up a big fight (partially thanks to Amazon’s investment), Groupon needs to focus on keeping their customer base happy and growing. Last night was a step in the wrong direction.
Its no secret that the group buying market is on fire right now. Groupon, LivingSocial, BuyWithMe, CoupMe and dozens more are all competing to be your go-to spot for local discounts.
It seems however that group buying has now reached a new level of ubiquity and popularity as today a woman was proposed to via a custom Groupon!
As with every Groupon, the offer includes a price to buy, the time left to purchase the deal, a photo and of course a description of the offer. This particular deal reads:
“In May of 2006, Greg and Dana’s relationship began as casual movie nights transformed into record-setting make-out sessions. Greg and Dana, or Grana, have happily coexisted since that time. Soon, they will be cohabitating; they are closing on a house, despite having polar opposite careers. Dana is a theatrical artiste, earning a living as an NFL cheerleader for the Cincinnati Bengals, a fact that has forced Greg to endure brutal onslaughts of high-fives. Greg, a cold, logical engineer, plies his trade as a computer man—one of the 150 Americans allowed to use computers.
With a simple answer of “yes,” Dana B. gets to spend the rest of her life with Groupon-approved Stand-up Guy Greg H., who vows to always eat the disgusting bacon from her plate while giving her his tender, delicious mushrooms. A lifetime with Greg H. also comes with such perks as an always-willing concert partner, at least a dozen movie nights over the course of the fiscal year, IT support, and a continued willingness to pretend to enjoy theater.”
What do you think? Does group buying scream “marry me”?
