According to ERA’s most recently commissioned paper, Mapping the Path to Purchase, Forrester Research suggests that television drives online sales. Indeed, 44 percent of the study’s respondents went to retail to find a product they saw on an infomercial or home shopping channel and more than one-third of consumers visit engines (eBay, Yahoo, Google, etc.) to compare prices, with more than 50 percent of those making a purchase.

But wait, there’s more; now it’s the consumers themselves who are creating pathways and signposts. It’s interesting, looking at the apparent quick rise of the “consumer influencer.” It seems just yesterday when branding was king and PR, marketing, research and agencies pushed sales. But today, through the power of blogs, online communities, forums, boards, videos on YouTube, Facebook and more, customers are definitely in charge.

I wonder what retailers think about how this will all shake out? How do retailers leverage those consumer influencers?

Sieglinde Friedman is ERA’s vice president of strategy

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Senator John Kerry is up in arms. And no, it has nothing to do with Clinton, Obama, McCain or even Iraq. Recently, Kerry wrote a post for the popular Huffington Post blog in which he detailed a despicable occurrence that took place at the FCC hearing in Cambridge with Comcast concerning Net Neutrality. As if its move to block certain content a few months back wasn’t bad enough, Comcast actually stooped to paying people off the streets to pack the seats that would have otherwise been given to the hundreds of concerned citizens left literally outside in the cold.

You may be thinking to yourself, “Who cares what John Kerry or the Huffington Post say, I’m a conservative!” Well, don’t take Kerry’s word for it. ERA’s own vice president of government affairs, Bill McClellan, was there in person to witness the entire debacle. As I described in an earlier post, Net Neutrality is one of ERA’s core government affairs initiatives, because keeping the Internet free and open is vital to everyone’s continued e-commerce success. With all this talk about repurposing infomercials and content on the Internet, how would you feel if Comcast decided your site was taking up too much bandwidth and they simply stopped allowing consumers access? They wouldn’t be that shameless, would they?

I can’t stress enough the amount of money, time and energy the telecos spend on Capitol Hill lobbying to take control of the Internet, dividing it into a two-tiered system. Are you concerned but don’t know what you can do to help? I encourage you to join ERA on May 20th on Capitol Hill for our annual Government Affairs Fly-In, where we will brief you on the issues and set you up with your elected representatives so that you can voice your concerns about the vitality of your business and its bottom line’s dependence on an open Internet.

Pat Cauley, eMedia Editor, Electronic Retailer Magazine

Our exclusive interview with Senator John Kerry

Our exclusive interview with Arianna Huffington

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Amnesty International “Protect the Human” project has gone to some interesting lengths to promote its cause for human rights. It’s even employed shock tactics to drive traffic to its website. However, one of its recent campaigns pokes fun at the DRTV industry.

As an industry that’s had its battles with credibility, many direct response marketers try hard every day to improve our collective image. This is one of the main reasons ERA (formally NIMA) was founded in the first place!

Does this sort of joke offend you? Or, are you flattered that an international cause would use a faux live shopping segment to promote its agenda?

Pat Cauley, eMedia editor, Electronic Retailer Magazine

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