Before booking your travel to Las Vegas or San Diego, you may first want to get a few tips from “Saturday Night Live” travel expert Judy Grimes.
Did you miss out on the recent networking receptions in NYC and L.A.? Click here to view pictures from various events at Electronic Retailer’s Buzz page!
Please join ERA at the New York Networking Reception on June 18, 2009 from 6:00-8:00 p.m. for cocktails and great networking with senior leaders of the direct response industry. The reception will be held during DM Days at the Manatt, Phelps, & Phillips offices in Times Square.
Immediately following the reception we will be holding our fourth Meet the CEO Dinner beginning at 8:15 p.m. It will be an intimate gathering where you can mingle with our new CEO, Julie Coons, as well as our Chairman, Nathan Fagre, board members, and ERA staff.
To register, please contact Katie White at kwhite@retailing.org or (703) 841-8284.
Don’t be a Gilly! Instead, get to the head of the class and ahead of your competition by attending ERA’s webinars, receptions and meetings. You’ll learn about best practices, new trends and also network with your industry peers in a fun, relaxed setting.
I’ll admit it- I’m single. My friends and I have debated at great length the notion of taking our relationship aspirations to the web. But isn’t online dating creepy and weird? Well, maybe…but how is it any more creepy than meeting someone random at a bar? Regardless of your online dating opinions, from a business standpoint, we can at least all agree that these sites serve as an interesting, optimized e-commerce model!
I invite you to join me at the eRetailer Summit in Miami, March 1-3, to hear Greg Waldorf, CEO and founding investor of eHarmony.com, deliver the keynote address. Waldorf will share his extensive experience working with high-growth companies as an entrepreneur, investor and executive. Waldorf will speak on the growth of eHarmony, as well as the effectiveness of leveraging a multichannel marketing approach in growing a company, among others topics.
Furthering its theme of connecting you with the right people, the eRetailer Summit opens on Sunday, March 1, with the Solution Zone where ERA’s session speakers will make themselves available to answer attendee questions one-on-one. And in response to attendee requests for the maximum opportunity to network with peers, ERA is launching a three-hour Pool Party Extravaganza immediately following the Solution Zone from 3:00-6:00 p.m. The party will feature lively music, fabulous food and drinks, massage stations and henna tattoo artisans.
While I still have yet to actually take the plunge into online dating, perhaps Waldorf’s keynote address will change my opinion? I’ll keep you posted.
P.S. - Before booking your Miami travel plans, I suggest you check out this recent “Saturday Night Live” skit featuring travel expert Judy Grimes. Move over Tina Fey!
I’ll see you in Orlando, just kidding, Tampa, just kidding, Miami.
Click here for more details on the eRetailer Summit.
While many Americans across the country spent Friday night dressed up as Sarah Palin for Halloween, it was Tina Fey who once again stole the show. Fey reprised her role as Palin for “Saturday Night Live” in a joint appearance with John McCain focused entirely on home shopping channel QVC.
“On the heels of the Obamamercial that dominated the airwaves this past week, comes this skit that opened ‘Saturday Night Live’ featuring John and Cindy McCain who, unable to afford Obama’s paid programming blitz, go on QVC to ply wares along with McCain running mate Sarah Palin in the guise of dead ringer Tina Fey. Do we need any further proof of the ubiquity of electronic retailing as a thread in the fabric of American life?” - Rick Petry
Mock commercials have been discussed on this blog before, whether it’s “Saturday Night Live†or others that find creative inspiration from direct response or general advertising. However, a recent independent commercial supporting Obama has blurred the lines of advertising and advocacy. This example is intriguing because it’s a new take on an old, famous Budweiser commercial. It also shows how commercials can at times have the power to transcend into pop culture. The actors from the original, infamous “Whassup†campaign have taken a hard line at McCain in this updated version.
Original Whassup Bud Ad:
Obama Whassup Ad:
This also becomes an issue of branding. Could Budweiser’s brand be somewhat tarnished for Republicans? Did all the references of Teresa Heinz Kerry harm the Heinz brand in 2004? I can tell you this much, my college roommate ordered “W- America’s Ketchup†off the Internet after refusing to buy Heinz products. A lot of Americans wouldn’t buy it, regardless of the fact that her role at the company is limited to philanthropy projects and that her former husband was an admired Republican senator. The same could be true for die-hard democrats that declined to buy Coors products while republican Pete Coors was running for the Senate in Colorado.
According to The Wall Street Journal, “But the video is causing a ripple in industry circles, because Budweiser—which clearly has no interest in backing a presidential candidate—is powerless to stop it. In a departure from normal industry practice, neither Anheuser Busch nor its ad firm, Omnicom’s DDB Chicago, own the Whassup slogan or concept. Instead, the brewer paid Charles Stone III, who created and starred in the ads, roughly $37,000 to license the idea for five years. That deal expired three years ago.â€
But, regardless of this particular political ad’s positive or negative impact, it does further prove that advertising campaigns can have a long-standing impact in American culture. Having already received well over 2 million views, they’ve taken something straight from the ad world to create an organic, viral marketing phenomenon.
It seems everywhere you turn there’s another video that someone wants you to view. As the election season continues to heat up, people seem to spending less time watching the “tube†and more time on YouTube. BusinessWeek recently released its list of the 25 most influential people on the web. Of course you had your usual suspects, like Google’s Eric Schmidt, Apple’s Steve Jobs, MySpace’s Rupert Murdoch, Craigslist’s Craig Newmark, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Wordpress’ Matt Mullenweg.
However, some of the more unlikely choices justify the importance that the Internet is playing in the election, including Electronic Retailer’sJuly 2006 cover subject Arianna Huffington and Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart. According to the BusinessWeekarticle:
In the days after Sarah Palin was nominated as the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, the web was rife with content focused on the Alaska governor. One of the most piquant—and widely viewed—video clips came from “The Daily Show.†In it, host Jon Stewart highlighted Palin doublespeak by conservative pundits. He showed, for instance, a clip of Bill O’Reilly calling the pregnancy of Palin’s teen daughter a private issue just months after the Fox News commentator had lambasted actress Jamie Lynn Spears’ parents for allowing their 16-year-old to get pregnant. “See, see what happens with the opinions on teen pregnancy is that they gestate over a period of a few months,†Stewart quipped. The video took off online, racking up 4.2 million views, a record for “The Daily Show’s†site.
I too, played a small part in this when I posted this same clip to my Facebook profile a few weeks back. NBC’s “Saturday Night Live†is seeing similar results as TVWeekrecently reported that about 51 percent of viewers of the Tina Fey/Palin skits viewed them on the web and not on television.
Have you been viewing these videos on the web? Do you think television is losing its influence? Given last night’s Vice Presidential debate, one thing is for sure—it will be interesting to see what impact the polls will have on the election.
I recently heard a statistic that 76 percent of consumers don’t trust advertising. Ouch, that’s gotta hurt. This means that your industry’s credibility is only slightly more viable than Hillary’s sinking odds at snagging the Democratic nomination.
There’s a reason why “Saturday Night Live†has consistently come up with relevant material to ridicule the ad industry…we practically spoon-feed it to them.
All jokes aside, enough is enough! Join ERA and Electronic Retailer at our upcoming events, where you have the power to learn about and change the course of your industry.
The seminar will shed light on the most recent FTC developments and offer practical insights and in-depth legal solutions in the area of emerging technologies, notably behavioral advertising.
Discover the fate of paid programming at our Executive Media Summit, followed by a day of relevant sessions geared to keep your business ahead of the game and afloat in times of economic uncertainty.
Finally, if you truly want to be involved and have your voice heard on behalf of the industry, join with your colleagues as we teach you the legislative issues facing your business. You’ll then be paired into groups with a seasoned lobbyist to meet with your elected representatives in Congress on Capitol Hill to voice your concerns.
It’s your industry; perhaps it’s time to take some ownership.
In addition to its upcoming D2C Convention in Las Vegas Sept. 13-15, ERA has also announced an October 19th networking reception in San Diego! 
I’ll admit it- I’m single. My friends and I have debated at great length the notion of taking our relationship aspirations to the web. But isn’t online dating creepy and weird? Well, maybe…but how is it any more creepy than meeting someone random at a bar? Regardless of your online dating opinions, from a business standpoint, we can at least all agree that these sites serve as an interesting, optimized e-commerce model!
Mock commercials have been 
It seems everywhere you turn there’s another video that someone wants you to view. As the election season continues to heat up, people seem to spending less time watching the “tube†and more time on YouTube. BusinessWeek recently released its list of the 
I recently heard a statistic that 76 percent of consumers don’t trust advertising. Ouch, that’s gotta hurt. This means that your industry’s credibility is only slightly more viable than Hillary’s sinking odds at snagging the Democratic nomination.
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