Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

This is a fundamental shift not only for the TV channels, which will have to completely rethink their revenue model, but also for brands, which find it incredibly, and increasingly, difficult to capture the attention of empowered, impatient consumers.

An obvious solution is product placement, a company paying for its product to be featured prominently in a film or television program as a form of advertising. According to PQMedia, the U.S. product placement market grew by 12.8% in 2014, to over $6 billion, and is set to reach over $11 billion by 2019.

The trouble is that the huge success of product placement is causing a dip in its credibility and effectiveness as a marketing channel. Audiences are increasingly skeptical. Research by Eva A. van Reijmersdal of the University of Amsterdam suggests that when product placement becomes too prominent, it affects attitudes negatively because viewers become aware of a deliberate selling attempt.

Product placement can also lower audiences’ evaluations of the focal entertainment product (the film or the show), as recently demonstrated by Andre Marchand and colleagues. And it’s particularly true when audiences like the film or show....

Survey offers empirical evidence that, despite perceived popularity of discount-based promotions, reward-based promotions actually result in higher purchase intention (short-term) as well as greater brand equity (long-term).

Palo Alto, September 1st– Ifeelgoods, the leading platform for setting up turn-key reward promotions and campaigns, announced today the results of a new study that measures the impact of reward-based promotions against traditional discount-based promotions with regard to brand equity and purchase intention.

With over 1,000 consumers surveyed worldwide, one of the study’s most compelling findings was the fact that reward-based promotions outperform discount-based promotions in both brand equity and purchase intention. The study shows that reward-based promotions are even more efficient compared to discount-based promotions from brands whose consumer base is mostly composed of frequent shoppers and/or utilitarian shoppers....

There was flash sales, which, with a few exceptions, are dead as a model that can sustain a huge, profitable standalone business. There was the daily-deal phase, which is also essentially dead as a standalone business, outside of Groupon. The rise and fall of LivingSocial is a good cautionary tale.

And then there is subscription commerce: Products delivered in a box to you on a regular basis. This model has experienced a bit of a renaissance in recent years, with companies like Honest Company, JustFab and Blue Apron landing valuations of $1 billion or more. But there have been flameouts, too, and I think there is the potential for many more.

It’s been fun, but the party could be over
Together, these categories have been responsible for a significant portion of breakout commerce companies during this time. The first two categories are built on the back of impulse-driven purchases, with the help of a time-sensitive offer that seems too good to...