ERA’s Public Relations Committee Chairman Jeff Meltzer interviewed on CNBC.
Archive for June, 2009
Death of a Salesman: CNBC Billy Mays Interview with Jeff Meltzer
Monday, June 29th, 2009
Past Billy Mays Coverage
Monday, June 29th, 2009
The following two blog posts humorously show why we as an industry loved this larger than life personality.
Obama, Billy Mays, ERA and a Chia Pet??
Billy Mays Visits Livemercial’s Office
To read Electronic Retailer’s May cover feature on “Pitchmen,” click here.
Billy Mays: 1958-2009
Monday, June 29th, 2009
Statement from the Electronic Retailing Association on Death of Iconic DRTV Pitchman, Billy Mays
ARLINGTON, Va.–June 28, 2009 – The Electronic Retailing Association (ERA), the leading trade association for direct-to-consumer commerce, issued the following statements on the death of Billy Mays, one of the pioneers in the direct response television (DRTV) industry:
“DRTV has grown to be a $300 billion business during the last 20 years, and Billy Mays played a key role in making this possible,†said Julie Coons, president and CEO of ERA. “His dedication to DRTV will be remembered by those of us in the industry, as his animated approach to marketing dozen of products, such as Orange Glo and OxiClean, will be remembered by millions of consumers. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his wife, Deborah, and to his family and friends.â€
“This is a sad day for those of us that were lucky to know Billy,” said Nathan Fagre, chairman of ERA and senior vice president and general counsel of 
ShopNBC. “He worked hard, cared about his family and friends and he will be greatly missed.”
2009 ERA D2C Convention Video!
Thursday, June 25th, 2009Watch as ERA CEO Julie Coons delivers a sneak peak of what attendees can expect from ERA’s upcoming 2009 D2C Convention in Las Vegas September 13-15. Register now! Early bird ends July 1!
Click here to visit ERA’s YouTube channel!
The Onion – Direct Response Style!
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
Enjoy these hilarious videos that touch on aspects of the direct-to-consumer industry.
US To Trade Gold Reserves For Cash Through Cash4Gold.com
New BabySafe Ball Makes Shaking Your Infant Guilt And Injury Free
Also worth a look: Twitter Creator On Iran: ‘I Never Intended For Twitter To Be Useful’
Pat Cauley is Electronic Retailer magazine’s eMedia Editor.
Blogola: Are Product Reviews in Danger?
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
If you are thinking about buying something online, one of your first steps in evaluating the product might be to see what kind of reviews the product has received. But what if the reviewer was paid to give a favorable review? This is a practice that clearly has some troubling implications. That’s why the FTC recently addressed this practice in the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (yes, this is the same proposal that would require evidence of typicality for some testimonials).
But, consider this: You want your product to appear on reviews because you believe it will help increase the visibility of the product or brand. You send a free sample to a well-known blogger and you explicitly tell them they should be neutral in their review and should disclose that they received the product for free. Under the FTC’s proposed changes you may have liability. If on the same day you also send your product to a product reviewer for a publication without any agreement requiring disclosure, and they do not disclose that they received the product for free, you do not have liability!
Product reviews online come in many forms. In some contexts consumers will expect that the product was given to the reviewer as a free sample. If a college student reviews a new game console every week, would anyone really think that he or she is spending thousands of dollars a month to share friendly advice? This is a complicated issue deserving careful analysis; the FTC must consider the nuances of product reviews before adding new regulations for bloggers.
Get involved! You can learn more and do something about these proposed changes here.
For more information on ERA’s government affairs efforts, click here.
Tomi Turner is ERA’s legislative manager.
ERA Members with Musical Talent Needed for D2C Live Stage!
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
The Electronic Retailing Association is proud to announce that for the first time ever, its own members will perform as a rock band during the 2009 ERA D2C Opening Reception Sunday, September 13, outside on the pool deck of the Paris Hotel from 6:00 -7:30 p.m. All performers in the D2C Live Stage will have their names and pictures printed in ads promoting the event in Electronic Retailer magazine, on the ERA website, as well as separate ERA e-mail blasts. This will be a “pay for play†event that will require each performer to help sponsor this event. (Sponsorship contributions will be determined by ability to pay and the amount you play.)
What Kind of Talent Are We Looking For?
•   Guitar Players
•   Bass Players
•   Drummers
•   Keyboard Players
•   Singers
•   Horn (sax, trumpet, etc.)
•   Percussionists (wood block, maracas, tambourine, etc.)
Guitar and Bass players will be required to bring their instruments. A drum set, keyboards, amps, etc. will be rented for this event.
PLEASE NOTE: We will be playing very simple blues and pop progression songs so there’s no need to worry about being good enough to play. Everyone has full-time day jobs, after all! The chosen players can submit song choices that they’d like to perform or, choose from a list of approved songs. Once accepted as a band member, each player will be provided sheet music (notation, tablature, chords and words). There will be one rehearsal on Sunday prior to the Opening Reception. Please contact Jeff Meltzer at jeffmeltzer@earthlink.net or (212) 868-4600 no later than July 7th, so we can start practicing now!
AsSeenOnTV.Com CEO Dan Fasano Passes Away
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009
ROCHESTER, N.Y.—AsSeenOnTV.com has announced the death of its founder and CEO, Dan Fasano. Mr. Fasano passed away in Florida after a long battle with leukemia. Mr. Fasano was a pioneer in the direct response industry and created some of the most notable As Seen On TV concepts—including the website www.AsSeenOnTV.com and
As Seen On TV Direct. AsSeenOnTV.com President Mary Beth Fasano will ascend to the CEO position. She has been actively managing the company since Mr. Fasano became seriously ill last year. Ms. Fasano stated there would be no change in the operations of the company. She also announced that long-time corporate advisor and Rochester attorney Ron Axelrod will continue in his advisory position and that Frank Costanzo, former president of the company, has agreed to advise during this period.
In recent years, Dan has been a committed philanthropist to Hospice, The Leukemia Society, The National Bone Marrow Donor Program and the Moffitt Cancer Center. The Fasano family asks that memorials be made to Dan’s Foundation, www.MiracleOfLifeFoundation.org.
Direct Response Gets Down in San Diego!
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009Below are a few photo highlights from the recent Response Expo.
Have photos you want to share with the industry? E-mail them to eMedia Editor Pat Cauley at pcauley@retailing.org.
Upcoming events you don’t want to miss:
ERA NYC Networking Reception - June 18
ERA Europe 2009 Electronic HomeShopping Conference - June 28-30
ERA L.A. Networking Reception - July 21
2009 ERA D2C Convention - September 13-15 (Early bird/free exhibit pass for ERA members ends July 1!)
Should We Consider Social Media a Luxury?
Wednesday, June 3rd, 2009
The California Supreme Court’s recent decision to uphold Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage, has sparked statewide protests. As discussed on this blog before, social media has changed the way in which people organize their efforts for a united front.
The recent Prop 8 protest in West Hollywood was publicized by blogger Perez Hilton via posts and tweets and brought out not only celebrities, but also readers that may have otherwise been unaware of the protest. As can be backed up by abysmal ratings, the only reason Hilton’s recent spat with Miss California over gay marriage got any traction at all was through social media, not because hordes of people actually watched the Miss USA pageant live. Either way, utilizing social media to organize and reach mass audiences for marketing purposes or otherwise may soon be considered a luxury for U.S. citizens.
According to a recent article in the L.A. Times:
Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square this week, Chinese authorities have rounded up dissidents and shipped them out of town. Now, they’ve even shut down Twitter.
Along with their usual methods of muzzling dissent, the authorities extended their efforts today to silence social networking sites that might foster discussion of any commemoration of the events of June 3-4, 1989.
The action is a new sign of the government’s concern of the potential of such technology in an authoritarian society where information is tightly controlled.
China has the world’s largest online population, and Internet communities have proven increasingly influential in spreading word of events to everything from student protests to group shopping excursions.
People are going outside the normal, controlled channels to set up communities online, spreading information about campus unrest and other potentially subversive activities taking place in this vast nation.
Government Internet monitors have shut down message boards on more than 6,000 Web sites affiliated with colleges and universities, apparently to head off any talk about the 1989 events, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.
Numerous blogs maintained by edgy government critics such as avant-garde artist Ai Weiwei have been blocked and the text-messaging service Twitter and photo sharing site Flikr could not be accessed within China on Tuesday. Video sharing site YouTube has been blocked within China since March.
Additionally, CNN reports that even the U.S. military is now using social networking sites to reach out to non-traditional audiences by documenting the war efforts in Afghanistan. One thing’s for certain- whether organizing protests or simply shooting marketing messages out to consumers, it will be interesting to see how social media’s role within our lives continues to evolve.
Pat Cauley is Electronic Retailer magazine’s eMedia editor.
Microsoft Launches Google Rival “Bing”
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009“Why don’t you Bing it?â€
A year from now, if you hear someone say that — and actually understand what it means — Bill Gates will be a happy billionaire. That is because it will be a sign that Microsoft is finally making progress in its quest to challenge Google in the Internet search business. Bing, the name Microsoft gave to the new search service it unveiled Thursday, is its answer to Google — a noun that once meant little but has become part of the language as a verb that is a synonym for executing a Web search. After months of, uh, searching, Microsoft settled on Bing to replace the all-too-forgettable Live Search, which itself replaced MSN Search. Microsoft invested billions of dollars in those services and failed to slow Google’s rise, so a new name certainly can’t hurt. Microsoft’s marketing gurus hope that Bing will evoke neither a type of cherry nor a strip club on “The Sopranos†but rather a sound — the ringing of a bell that signals the “aha†moment when a search leads to an answer. The name is meant to conjure “the sound of found†as Bing helps people with complex tasks like shopping for a camera, said Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online audience business group. And if Bing turns into a verb like, say, Xerox, TiVo or, well, Google, that would be nice too. Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, said Thursday that he liked Bing’s potential to “verb up.†Plus, he said, “it works globally, and doesn’t have negative, unusual connotations.†Some branding experts said choosing the name Bing was a good start, but also the easiest part of the challenge facing the company, since most people turn to Google without even thinking about it.
To read the entire New York Times article, click here.
To check out Bing for yourself, click here.
Loading ...The 7 Deadly Sins of Business
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009CNNMoney recently highlighted Jay Goltz’s seven business-killing traps that every entrepreneur must avoid.
1)Â Â Â Sloppy Accounting: Done properly, accounting is a diagnosis of everything that’s right and wrong with your company. You should be able to complete a pro forma income statement at the beginning of the year that shows your recipe for making money. Crucially, you need to understand the ratio of sales to expenses that will result in profitability. You want to be able to say, “This business needs to gross $800K for me to have a $100K profit,” as opposed to merely saying, “I hope I can make $100K one day.”
2)Â Â Â Unrealistic Pricing: You must truly understand your costs, which include often-neglected components like scrap, freight, damages, theft and obsolescence. Once you do, you need to figure out what your cost of goods sold (COGS) number must be for you to make money. Keep in mind that your selling price is not your average selling price — you have to factor in discounts, which will increase your COGS number.
3)Â Â Â Naive Hiring: It takes patience and skill to hire the right people. Busy entrepreneurs can easily be romanced by the applicant who says, “I work hard and I’m a fast learner. I just haven’t had the right opportunity.” Here’s the trick to smart hiring: Call references, ask them the right questions, and listen hard to their answers. Key question: “If Bob is so great, how come he doesn’t work for you anymore?” I want to hear this kind of reply: “Bob is brilliant. I’d rehire him in a second, but his wife got transferred.” A long silence at the other end of the line tells me this candidate isn’t worth my while.
4)Â Â Â Fear of Firing: No sane person enjoys letting people go, but it’s necessary if you want to run a great company. As in any competitive endeavor, it’s critical to have the best people. It’s easy to keep mediocre employees around, especially when they are nice and loyal — but it will hurt you sooner or later. Here’s a good test: Would you be relieved if anyone on your team quit tomorrow? If the answer is yes, you’ve got a problem.
5)Â Â Â Lack of Standards: One of your main jobs is to set standards in such essential areas as quality control, customer service and the company’s public image. In my picture framing business, the standard for quality control is arm’s-length inspection: If you can’t see a problem at arm’s length, you’re fine.
6)Â Â Â Lack on Controls: It’s easy enough for customer service failures, pricing errors and quality issues to get lost in the shuffle. You need to identify and fix these problems before they do lasting damage. In my business, one out of 200 times there’s a problem with a framing job: the wrong mat, the wrong color and so on. Every screw-up gets a “hot ticket” assigned to it. The mistake gets fixed, and every month I have a record of what the problems are and who’s causing them.
7) Poor Branding: Recently I gave a speech to an audience of appliance dealers. I told them to focus on the layout of their stores, their signage, even how their employees dress. One dealer said, “We tried that branding thing and it didn’t work.” Wrong answer. In business you brand yourself every day in a million ways. The real question is whether your branding helps or hurts your bottom line. Most entrepreneurs aren’t naturally talented in all seven of these areas, and that’s the reason a lot of businesses fail. But failure is a great teacher. Learn and you will earn.
Jay Goltz employs 110 people at Artists Frame Service, Chicago Art Source and Jayson Home & Garden, all based in Chicago. He is the author of The Street-Smart Entrepreneur.
What are you thoughts?
