Tag: Groupon

  • Weekly Top 5

    This week’s updates include Google + 1, Groupon and Living Social, Jack Dorsey’s return to Twitter, Hotmail’s new interactive mail and Facebook Questions.

    [scribd id=52085687 key=key-gt7rxnc32pvs173mxif mode=list]

  • Weekly Top 5

    [scribd id=51588944 key=key-1c6uu4xv3i5f88tvluss mode=list]

  • Weekly Top 5

    [scribd id=51588958 key=key-2kydon7ehsq0ov2uwxde mode=list]

  • Appeasing consumers

    Last week, I had asked on twitter whether Indiatimes should consider buying/building a GroupOn clone and use its other media platforms to scale the business, especially since its also proxy advertising for their clients. In response, Shahid had wondered what prevented an Airtel from getting into it. The point (simplistically) being that, any platform owner with a ‘captive’ audience could get into the business.

    It made me think about the mobile as a platform, especially considering the app talk I’ve been doing on the blog for a while now. While appification across platforms is what I’d discussed last week, for the purpose of this post, I shall restrict my thoughts to mobile platforms. Even before I read and wrote about the appification across platforms, I had asked a question on qoura “Has any Indian bank considered a smartphone app?”  (http://qr.ae/GETp) I got 2 answers, and though I was looking for Android, they were still helpful – Robin Samuel pointed me to ICICI (I think Gopi had also mentioned it on Twitter) and Aditya Sengupta mentioned a Nokia Money + YES Bank pilot.

    Citibank, whom I bank with, had a few Android apps, I noticed. The Citi Hong Kong app was specially interesting, since in addition to location of ATMs, they also display offers nearby. I’d obviously like an app which will also help me transact, and they have that too, elsewhere. (they are by no means, the pioneers or only ones, as a google search would tell you). The idea here, though is a ‘commodity’ service (banking) increasing user convenience, and making a shift to another bank less appealing. This isn’t an ad vs app debate, but spreading this information would be simple enough (without mass media) during consumer acquisition, as well as later through digital and social platforms. Maybe even tie up with a mobile manufacturer and offer to subsidise the handset for the consumer in return for publicity. The point, platforms are exploding and brands need to think of new ways to associate and partner. These apps could itself evolve into a branding vehicle.

    And since that point is made, we can broaden the scope beyond mobile as a platform. Just in case you thought brands might be constrained with that as the only option, how about TVs, kitchens, laundry rooms, cars, tables? Check it out.  (via Avi Joseph)

    until next time, Applying minds 🙂

  • Group Pwn

    I’ve never gotten around to trying group buying/deal sites until once recently, though I always thought that they were fulfilling a need for businesses and consumers. But when I read this ‘peculiar’ story titled Groupon’s Success Disaster, I found myself identifying with it (from a consumer perspective, we’ll get to that in a bit) and since the number of group buying sites in India is only a few numbers lesser than the number of social media consultants, I thought it made sense to spare a few thoughts on it.

    The (linked above) story is of a small business owner, who, after 3 months of using Groupon, discovered that the deals were hurting the business financially and then had to take $8000 out of savings to cover payroll. Considering that, I thought the Groupon reply has quite a cruel title – ‘Too much of a good thing‘, but it is well drafted.

    The win-win for business-consumer in this is because it gives the former a chance to spread the word on the service and probably get some feedback on it and the latter mostly gets a good deal. Like I mentioned, I used a site recently for what seemed like a good deal. Though the deal process was painless, I ended up spending more money than what I normally would, thanks to a mis-communication (and some carelessness on my part). It means that I won’t be a repeat customer. It ends up as a lose-lose. Now this is probably the exception to how it usually happens, but…

    It did make me think whether the business owners get into deals with a strategy in place. Not just in terms of finance, but also in terms of their expectations of buzz, their delivery capability as well as how they’d manage to make the customer return. When it is kept in mind that social platforms and deal sites are mostly interwoven, I think it’d make sense for the business to use their service delivery (assumed good) and connect it to their social presence. A “We hope you liked it. Here’s an x% discount for your next visit and we would really appreciate it if you could leave your comments on FB/Twitter” approach. Facebook would especially help the business to spread the word beyond the usual early adopter set. While on retail, its difficult not to mention Foursquare. Though I’d love it if Foursquare aggregated the deals themselves, the businesses definitely can get active on Foursquare and push their deals to users nearby.

    With the (limited) examples I’ve seen, I doubt whether this is being done. So it reminds me of a lot of advertising,  and most social media efforts. The former because the message and the product/service are rarely (generalising) in sync, and the latter because of the lack of strategy and the herd mentality.

    until next time, regroup!