cct356-a1

= ** Critique 1 - Groupon ** =

**The Company** Groupon is an online social buying platform that aggregates local deals in a city from various businesses such as service providers, retailers, and restaurants. Groupon works with the business, encouraging it to offer a significant discount on its products (generally between 50 and 70-percent off its products and services). In return, Groupon assures the business a significant increase in sales through its social media as well as traditional email marketing tactics. As for valuation, with an upcoming I.P.O., the company is said to be valued at $15 billion according to Groupon’s founder, Andrew Mason (New York Times).

**The Campaign** As the inventors of social buying, Groupon spends quite a lot on innovative marketing tactics. It’s spend on social media marketing is quite high as well. Anyone with a Facebook account can recall the often reoccurring Groupon ads titled “Half of Toronto” or “Up to 90% off” (Figure 1). The image below the title depicts a delicious ice cream sundae or a girl at the spa – using temptation to generate a click.

While Groupon currently targets a city, its new campaign aims to target customers further to specific neighbourhoods. Groupon currently uses IP location tools to figure out what city a specific internet user is from. As a result, when an internet user in Vancouver ends up on Groupon’s website, they are shown deals that are local to Vancouver. However, with its new partnership with Wi-Fi hotspot provider JiWire, Groupon will be able to advertise deals from businesses in specific neighbourhoods, to people who reside or work in that specific neighbourhood.

It is quite ingenious for them to partner with JiWire in order to accomplish this. JiWire is a wireless hotspot provider providing wireless internet access to coffee shops, airports, and college campuses. Currently, JiWire operates over 300,000 free and paid Wi-Fi hotspots around the world. As an ad network, JiWire is unique because it can target users within a specific area of a city. When a user connects to a JiWire hotspot, they are shown ads from businesses in their neighbourhood – a tactic known as geo-fencing.

Groupon plans to use JiWire’s advertising network to deliver location-based deals to people who connect to a JiWire hotspot. Their strategy however is not as simple as a banner ad or a pop-up. When a user connects to a JiWire hotspot and opens their browser window, they are shown a Groupon-branded splash screen titled “Great Deals Nearby” (Figure 2). A map shows their current location as well as the multiple Groupon deals in their neighbourhood. To the left of the map, the deals are listed in order of proximity to the user’s current location. What’s particularly interesting (and new to Groupon) is the “distance” information, which shows how far the business is from the user’s location.

**Groupon Benefits** Currently, Groupon gets paid for showcasing the product of one business in an entire city. That means that if 100,000 people subscribe to Groupon’s Toronto offers, then the business gets advertised to all 100,000 people. With the new advertising partnership with JiWire, Groupon will be able to sign up multiple businesses in a city instead of just one. As a result, it increases its revenue while giving customers highly targeted deals based on their location.

**What would I do different** As a social buying platform, I think it is vital for the consumer to know how many people have purchased a specific deal. Based on this figure, the consumer would be able to decide whether the offer is worthwhile to pursue. Hence, I think Groupon needs to add the “XXX people have bought this deal” to each deal in Figure 1. When a consumer sees that there are actually other people who were interested in the deal, they would be more likely to click on the deal to learn more about it. Groupon currently does that on the deal’s information page, but it is vital to have it on the initial entry page as well in order to attract clicks.

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=** Critique 2 - Maynards' Most Wanted **=



**About the Campaign**
====Maynards was facing a branding issue – people were linking the Maynards brand to just its famous wine gums. Maynards wanted to show that it is the parent brand for other popular candies as well – and strengthening the parent brand as a result. By having a stronger parent brand, consumers are able to associate a specific candy to a popular parent brand – and increasing the candy’s brand value through brand association. This tactic must have probably been suggested by its parent company, Cadbury, who has been very successful linking itself to its sub-brand Dairy Milk.====

====In Canada, it is considered unethical to advertise directly to children. Additionally, any candy-related advertising that targets children will most likely be unsuccessful because kids don’t have a constant source of revenue. Parents won’t buy anything for their children unless it is healthy, so it is not viable to target candy at them either. Hence, Maynards chose a different audience – young adults with cell phones.====

====Using a mobile-based campaign, Maynards plastered ads all around Toronto and Montreal. Its major venues were subway stations, subway trains, bus shelters, and transit terminals. Its entire campaign was interaction-based requiring people to pull out their phone and either scan the QR code or send an SMS to a short code number. Alternatively, consumers could log into the internet, go to a website (MaynardsMostWanted.ca) and enter the code. The process was simple: the consumer simply had to pull out their phone (or log into the internet) and enter or scan the code displayed in the advertisement. There were 5 variations of the ad, each ad representing a different “character”. For instance, the ad in Figure 1 is for the character “Fuzzy Malone”, who is wanted for “disturbing the peach”. The consumer is supposed to scan, text, or enter, Fuzzy’s ID into their cell phone (or computer) to “capture” this criminal. Like Fuzzy, there are 4 other gum-based criminals that they need to capture in order to win the grand prize of $25,000.====

**Maynards Benefits**
====By targeting young adults, Maynards is able to use unique mobile marketing strategies to increase its brand awareness. Additionally, it is able to target an age group that is cell phone-equipped and social network-savvy. As a result of the campaign, Maynards Canada was able to increase its Facebook Likes to over 14,000 people. In comparison, its global Facebook page, Maynards, has just fewer than 3,000 likes. Facebook Likes is an important marketing analytic because it shows how many social network-savvy people enjoy a particular brand, while letting a company advertise its latest products, contests, and offers directly to its followers via their newsfeed. While it may be hard to directly co-relate Maynards’ campaign success to its future sales, it can be said that the campaign could have had only a positive impact on the Maynards brand.====

**What would I do different**
====There is one major thing I would change about Maynards’ campaign – its poor ability to determine where to put ads. Almost everyone in Toronto realizes that it is virtually impossible to get reception underground. Yet Maynards aggressively used their ads in subway trains and stations. As stated, the ad has 3 forms of interaction – scanning the QR code, sending a text message, or accessing the internet. All these forms of interaction require a carrier signal and/or internet access. As a result, the subway train-based ads could be deemed as completely ineffective in generating a consumer response. Another thing I would do different would be to link every QR code with a location – that way I know which ads are being scanned frequently at which locations. This will help me analyze which ads work, where they work, and how much response they receive.====