|
| |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dell, eBay, Sephora Offer Virtual Gifts
on Facebook
A New Frontier in Social Network
Ads?
Maxwell Lakin
Advertising Age
November 26, 2008
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Digital gifts used to mean iPods
and GPS devices. Call it a product of a flagging
economy, or maybe even eco-conscious guilt, but the term
has come to entail something entirely different -- not
to mention weightless and wholly pixilated.
Virtual gifts -- tiny icons displayed on user profiles,
pioneered by Facebook as the intangible present of
choice -- are being employed by several major companies
this season.
Facebook's current holiday promotion, which officially
went live at midnight, features gifts sponsored by Dell,
eBay and Sephora. Each company is offering one of its
250,000 allotted virtual incarnations for free through
the holiday weekend in hopes of drumming up conversation
and a little zeal for actual products should it come
time to leave the computer.
Going fast
Since the three shopping virtual gifts launched
overnight, Facebook already had more than 30,000 given
by users, and that's "growing now that it's daytime,"
e-mailed Matt Hicks, a Facebook corporate communications
exec.
Each of the companies' gifts is part of a broader
Facebook marketing campaign, which entail engagement
ads, personalized e-cards and community fan bases.
According to Tom Arrix, VP-sales for Facebook, the gift
promotion is designed to drive fan usage of brand names
and, ultimately, retail decisions.
"They certainly bring the brand to life," he said.
This certainly isn't the first time a company has been
digitized as a Facebook keepsake. Ben & Jerry's promoted
their free Election Day scoop with a virtual ice cream
cone. The day after, while there was a run on newspaper
hard copies, a digital New York Times proclaimed Barack
Obama's victory neatly from thousands of profiles. Even
movie releases like "Indiana Jones" and "Sex and the
City" got their virtual due in the social marketplace.
Priced to move
And while many of the site's gifts are free, including
those in this weekend's promotion, plenty others go for
$1. And users buy. More than 60 million gifts have been
given since Facebook's Gift Shop launched in February
2007, which includes free gifts, sponsored gifts and
paid gifts.
Jeremy Liew, a venture capitalist with the international
firm Lightspeed Venture Partners, places Facebook's
virtual gifts at a $35 million run rate. And, not unlike
the physical retail climate, where around 40% of sales
come in the last eight weeks of the year, Facebook gifts
see a run in the same time frame, with year-end
holiday-themed gifts getting the most paid traction
annually. |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
This article is copyrighted material, the use of
which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We
are making such material available in our efforts to advance
understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic,
democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this
constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided
for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17
U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational purposes. For more
information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml If
you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your
own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the
copyright owner |
|
|
|
|
Website Designed & Maintained By:
AfterFive by Design, Inc.
CCFC Logo And Fact Sheets By:
MonicaGraphicDesign.com
Copyright 2004 Commercial Free
Childhood. All rights reserved
|
| |
|
