Leadpile’s Blog

Have you ever received a coupon or incentive via email and then forget about it or lost track of it because you didn’t print it right away? Good news! JCPenny has selected a handful of it’s stores to test mobile coupons.
According to ONLINE MEDIA DAILY, 16 JCPenny locations installed “2D” capable scanners at registers that have the capability to read the barcode off the coupon directly from consumer’s cell phones with email capabilities. Customers can download a free application at cellfire.com/jcpenney or by texting “JCP” to 28888 from their cell phone.
JCpenny will be promoting several different incentives to test this during the holiday season. Pending the results of this trial, JCPenny will possibly expand this feature to additional stores.
“Ten million digital coupons were redeemed in the first six months of 2009, up 25% from a year ago.” For the high percentage of Blackberry and iPhone users that have their phones within reach every moment of the day, this could be potentially a great new thing! The incentive to use the coupon could be much greater given that printing, saving, and finding the coupon could be a thing of the past!

Sitting at my desk I can look around and see a LG phone, Dunkin’s cup, Apple computer, and the list can just go on and on. Whether it’s billboards, magazines, people’s clothing, or on the internet, advertising is literally everywhere. But where hasn’t advertising really tapped into yet? Your cell phone.
Mobile advertising is a market that many companies are trying to get more into. With everyone and their mother having a smart phone, it only makes sense for this to be the next big step in advertising. According to emarketer.com, the projected spend for 2009 in mobile advertising is 416 million, and it will soar up to $1.56 billion by 2013. Currently, the main forms of mobile advertising are through texting and banner ads. The mobile banner ads work in a similar fashion as internet banner ads. With mobile texting advertisers can purchase packages to meet their needs (packages can include a certain number of texts per month along with keywords) and then send them out to all their contacts.
Personally, I think that mobile advertising is great. Just the other week, I received a text for free admission to a concert because I had been at that same venue earlier that week. All I had to do is just show the text at the front door and I was in. No strings attached! Marketing strategies with incentives always seem to work the best. It gets the consumer in the door (for free in this case) and it still brings in revenue with other purchases such as food and beverages. If this isn’t a win win situation, then I do not know what is.

With all the fancy phones that we all have, there are challenges that have come up for the wireless carriers. Unlike the internet, wireless carries are concerned about regulations being implemented that would allow users to freely go to any and every website(s) on their phones. They see this as a real issue because there are designated wireless towers in specific areas that are providing the wireless service for those in the area. If wireless carries are not able to manage traffic that their users can utilize, then certain “internet surfing” is going to ultimately affect those around them. For instance, there are certain websites/applications that are considered bandwidth “hogs”. This is not necessarily an issue when on the internet, however certain sites/applications are affecting the service of those around you because of the “hogs”. For this reason, wireless companies are wanting the traffic to be managed so you can not access certain websites or applications, because they do not want the others to feel the affects from this “internet surfing”.
So what is the best way to resolve this sort of issue? Should there be regulations put on wireless customers on what websites or applications they utilize on their cell phones? My concern is this is only the beginning of what our cell phones and internet are going to be able to do, so isn’t there a way to maybe increase wireless towers around our country to overcome this potential issue? If we are facing issues with not enough bandwidth for everyone to go to any website or use any application they want, then isn’t it just a matter of adding more service?

Leadpile is looking for more publishers to drive traffic to our car warranty offer. With recent changes to the car warranty industry, many are turning to the internet for leads of people looking to purchase a car warranty/auto service plan/vehicle protection plan. Leadpile realizes this, and has created custom banners and a landing site for our publishers to utilize. If this is something that you would be interested in doing, let us know!

It looks like big brand names are maybe seeing that technology (the internet specifically) is where they need to look to to promote their products bigger and better. In recent years, luxury brands have not had to look at using the internet to generate business. They would do costly things like high end fashion magazine layouts or lavish displays at their stores. However, when times are tough (and you see a lot of traffic on your website) you brainstorm on ways you can generate business for the smallest cost. This is why many luxury brands are now looking at the internet as a way to generate more interest in their “brand”. Previously, businesses could solely depend on traditional sources of revenue, but never the internet. Adage.com reports that less than 33% of luxury companies were using the internet to generate business. I can not imagine this, but it seems it is in fact true. The future of the internet is really where it is at, yet some are just a little slower at seeing the “light” it seems. I guess better late than never!

Grand Marnier a liquor that has always been presented with class, is launching a new advertising campaign in October revitalizing it’s image and hoping to attract a younger demographic. French images with a more of a modern twist than seen in previous campaigns, will be intertwined with social media and consumer involvement. According to Adweek , Grand Marnier who is new to the social media world will be hoping to attract attention from new and existing buyers through banner ad placements on Facebook.
In addition to the more commonly placed banner ads, using one of the more “on top of the trends” approaches Grand Marnier has developed two iPhone applications that will promote consumer involvement. A game that consumers are able to pour drinks with a simulated shaker, and e-cards that feature animation will encourage people to connect with the efforts to revamp the brand.
Does consumer involvement attract additional dollars? I know that given the opportunity to have a fun new application on my phone would entice me to possibly bring up the brand name in conversation. Heightening awareness of the product…however, does not change my likes or dislikes, suddenly developing a taste for Grand Marnier will probably not happen even though I do like the look and feel of the new campaign.

iPhones and Blackberry’s are everywhere. It seems like you can not turn your head without seeing one or the other, but which is better? In most cases, when people are looking to purchase a new phone, they look at two main points; service and phone capabilities.
When the iPhone first came out there were thousands of people who switched from providers such as Verizon to AT&T, just because of the exclusive deal that AT&T has with Apple. Currently, you can not get the iPhone through anyone except for AT&T. I have yet to meet a single person who does not love their iPhone, but there is one huge problem – no service! Constantly AT&T users are complaining about this. I see people putting their phones only in certain parts of their house, because they know that is the only place they can get and take a call.
According to Brandweek.com, some AT&T users have had enough. Their quality score has dropped where Verizon has been staying steady. With Verizon offering great deals on their “app” friendly BlackBerry’s, there is no reason to suffer without service any longer! I agree that the iPhone couldn’t be more unique and user friendly, but what is the point of having a cool phone if you can’t even use it? For those of you who are just too brand loyal to give it up, that’s fine, but don’t go crying to the Verizon users when you are broke down on the side of the road in the middle of know where with no service and no way to get help.

Many conversations recently have involved payday loans and how they are just not right for consumers, yet articles like this one today make you think that maybe a payday loan is not really a “bad” option for a consumer. With this recent news that banks are under fire for the insane overdraft fees they charge consumers, payday loans are looking pretty good right now. Banks are projected to be generating up to $38.5 billion dollars in fees being charged to our nation’s bank customers. Congress is not liking this, and is looking at cracking down on all the banks that are charging these fees. What appears to be happening is consumers are using their debit cards and not having enough funds to make the purchase, yet the banks allow the transaction to take place and then charge the large overdraft fee. Maybe banks should not allow these sorts of transaction to take place, which in turn are getting the consumers more and more in debt?

Microsoft is gearing up to test a new format for ads appearing in the search ad format. Traditionally, this ad type appears as plain text with links either imbedded into the text or in adjacent to. According to MediaPostNEWS, the new ad type that will be live next month will introduce logos and favicons hoping to attract consumers attention as well as generate more search campaign dollars to Bing.
Bing which has continued to increase its market share of the search engine world, and currently sits at 10.7%, still has a long way to go to catch Google who is number 1 with 64.6% of the market share.
When searching, does the ad type on the page attract you to return to a specific search engine? Does ad type affect your choice, more than habit? I know that I have been making an attempt to utilize Bing, but 9 times out of 10 I am at the search results produced by Google before I even realize I made the decision. Flashier ads may attract additional buyers to the ad, but the consumers will have to be attracted to the search engine first!

We hear so much news about social networking sites and all the changes that are going on with them. However, I would have thought that reports would show internet users tend to use social networking sites more than content related sites. That does not seem to be the case. DMNews is reporting that users are actually spending almost twice as long on content websites versus the social networking sites. I found that very surprising. According to the reports, “Consumers spent an average of 6 hours, 58 minutes on content sites, while they spent about half of that time on community sites: 3 hours, 1 minute.
Consumers spent an average of 2 hours, 40 minutes a month on e-commerce sites; communications — e-mail and instant messaging — sites commanded 4 hours, 54 minutes; and search took up 57 minutes. Compared with 2008, time with content rose slightly, while communications, community and commerce slipped a small amount, and search jumped by a few minutes.
In terms of share of online time per category, people sent 42% of their time on content sites, down 2% compared with 2008. They spent 13% of their time on e-commerce sites, down 19% vs. 2008; and 13% of their time on community sites, up 63% compared with last year. Time spent on searches remained flat at 5%.””
So actually when looking at the numbers the community sites/social networking sites had increased which now really makes sense. In future years, this report I am guessing will continue to show a rise in the social networking sites year after year. I would also have guessed that e-commerce sites would have been higher because a lot of people purchase products online. Maybe because of the status of our nation’s economy has made an impact on the figures for that category? Either way, this is pretty interesting information for all of us that are looking to know where consumers are.

Facebook is the largest social networking site out there. Whether you are looking so see what your friends are doing, finding old classmates, or just trying to stay connected, Facebook seems to have it all. All except Twitter that is.
When Facebook failed to acquire Twitter.com in the fall of 2008 they decided to do the next best thing and try to be more like them. Within the past week Facebook launched Facebook Lite, which essentially works in the same manner as Twitter. Facebook Lite took out all the frills so a user can only post their status updates. This is a great way to get more people to the site who are looking for a simple way to follow what their friends or favorite businesses are doing.
Facebook has also made it so people who already have Facebook can simply “Tag” a friend and then begin to follow them. This will eliminate the need to juggle between two Facebook accounts. Facebook really did their homework when they decided to start to have some of the same features as Twitter. They even decided to copy the “@” that one puts in front of a name when someone “Tweets” to someone else. So it looks like Facebook didn’t do their homework, but just copy off the person next to them.

We all have been saying this for a while…. how does Twitter make money????? Now it seems that we will all now know, because they are officially offering advertisement on their site. Companies of all natures have all been using Twitter as a way of communicating brief updates of what is going on with their world, however now Twitter can pocket some money from this sort of thing.
I have to say reading about Twitter incorporating advertisements on it’s site prompted me to go to the site to check it out. I am trying to now see what changed? Maybe I wasn’t going to the site enough before, but where are the advertisements? I was thinking I would see a bunch of ads etc on the sidebars of the site, yet I do not see any of that.