NONE: Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Angela Kapp, Estee Lauder session at Ad Tech
Re: ONLINE-ADS>> Angela Kapp, Estee Lauder session at Ad Tech
deborah_henriksen_at_alny.com
Tue, 27 Jan 1998 13:49:54 -0500
I have to disagree with Danny Sullivan, who wrote the following in response
to Estee Lauder's attempt to increase their online market back in 1995:
>It seems to make no sense to decide the site needed to succeed by
>getting women online. It's like saying Estee Lauder should give away
>television sets, so that more women could see its ads.
I see two major flaws in this argument:
1.) It's a basic tenet of marketing that there are two ways to sell more
of your product. One is to gain a larger share of the existing market.
The other is to try to increase the size of the market itself. The latter
approach benefits your competitors as well as your own company, but when
it's done well, no one loses. The money that Estee Lauder spent in getting
more women online benefited Avon and plenty of other cosmetic competitors,
no doubt. But someone has to take the lead in educating the population
when a new technology is born. Did they get their money's worth? Well,
judging from personal experience, I've heard more about the Clinique site
over the past years than any other cosmetic site. So it seems that the PR
payoffs of being a leader have been great. I've visited, registered and
returned a few times. I can't say that about any other cosmetic site.
2.) Mr. Sullivan's comment about giving away TVs so more people could see
the ads would be better grounded if Estee Lauder was only interested in
communicating an advertising message. In that case, I'd be more inclined
to agree that you should serve the existing market. But a product web site
should be so much more than just another ad medium. It's a rich
informational medium; it's a branding tool; it's a new revenue channel (or
is heading that way); it allows Clinique to know more about their customer,
demo- and psychographically than ever before; it's an entirely new business
model. So why not help to drive the market to it?
Add to this the "feel-good" community service aspect that Estee Lauder has
helped many women understand how to get on line and use the web; I would
conclude that their strategy was almost perfect. Their results seem to say
so too.
Debbie Henriksen
Interactive Account Executive
Anderson & Lembke
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