Marketing Pilgrim

I usually don’t like 20 minute videos but this one was interesting. Considering the recent outing with Stephen Colbert, I suspect that Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt welcomed the straight business talk afforded by this WSJ interview (hat tip to Business Insider).

Sure it’s corporate speak but it’s interesting. Schmidt even calls bing Google’s biggest competitor. He also speaks politics and his opinion about that game as well.

Have a great weekend.

Retailers have been using social media to their benefit. It seems, however, as if they took this path not because they could lure more people to them but because that’s where the people were already. Not exactly cutting edge thinking (since reacting to a situation rather than creating a need is less desirable) but it is what it is.

eMarketer reports on a study conducted by the Aberdeen Group that gives some insight into retailers and their use of social media. First, a look at why they are there in the first place.

Back-to-school and the approaching football season helped books, sports and apparel gain a foothold in August says comScore Media Metrics. The new report takes a look at US web activity in the month leading to a list of the top 50 web properties and the top ten categories.

Retail book sites were the biggest winners in August with an 11% percent increase of July as folks left the beaches and went back-to-school. While Barnes & Noble continues to close brick and mortar stores, their online site was the most visited in this category. 8.3 million people stopped by, up 13% from July.

Staples.com rose 5% which they attribute to school supply shopping. Office Depot rose 20% and OfficeMax rose 32% but is still well behind in total shoppers.

What would you say is the Worst Commercial in America? Consumerist.com asked their readers that very question and, after receiving responses that numbered higher than their credit score from FreeCreditReport.com, they put together a ballot for a vote.

Bad spokespeople and annoying icons filled out most of the list and the insurance industry took the hardest hit with seven nominations. Thankfully, my favorite Gecko escaped unharmed but that deliriously cheerful woman from the Progressive commercials made it into the top five overall worst commercials on TV.

The online space and its obsession with reviews have been mostly relegated to the B2C space. LinkedIn, which is the networking / social media place for ‘professionals’ (whatever that means) is seeing that their audience needs some review help as well. It makes sense. If you want someone’s opinion about a restaurant then why not seek it out for an accountant?

LinkedIn has purchased the start up ChoiceVendor as reported by Bloomberg Businessweek.

ChoiceVendor, a San Francisco startup founded in 2008 by two former Google (GOOG) employees, provides customer reviews about accountants, call centers, payroll services, and other vendors. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed in a LinkedIn statement on Sept. 23.

The online space continues to provide businesses a needed boost as we slog through this economy. Of course, in case you didn’t know, the recession ended last year. I don’t know about you but I missed that event. At any rate, businesses must continue to work through this and in the B2C space online lead generation has been key. Whether you are on the client (corporate), agency or publisher side of this valuable business activity this is a critical component for overall business success.

Econsultancy and Clash Media have released a report that shows just how that impact has happened. The chart below suggests that publishers are seeing success.