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As an active eBay seller I am very interested in
the success of eBay’s advertising campaigns. eBay charges sellers fees in
exchange for access to the platform. Although eBay receives a lot of
organic traffic, they also engage in advertising and promotional communications
designed to attract buyers to the platform, convince buyers that they can find
what they are looking for on eBay and hopefully convince buyers that eBay is a
safe –and fun place to trade. These efforts are one of the things we pay
for with our eBay listing and selling fees –and I think we have a right to
expect excellence, or at least competence in this area.
eBay’s promotional efforts take several
forms:
1. SEO optimization to insure eBay listings
come up in search results
2. Submitting eBay listings to shopping sites
like Froogle and others
3. Pay Per Click Advertising with Yahoo, Google
and other sites
4. Public and press relations to get positive stories in
the press
5. Online advertising (banners) on popular web
sites
6. Print advertising
7. Radio, TV and cable
advertising
eBay does a pretty good job with the first five
items on this list, but in my opinion they need a lot of help with number 6 and
7.
I don’t know if you have seen the latest campaign
based on something called Windorphins. Meg Whitman introduced the
Windorphins campaign at eBay Live and it was received with a big yawn. I
remember looking at the folks next to me and we all had these quizzical looks on
our faces that said: “What in the world is this?”
If you go to http://windorphins.ebay.com/special/index.html
you can see some short videos that attempt to explain the concept. I
watched the videos, and sorry –I just don’t get it and I don’t think the
American people will either. I searched the term on the eBay message boards and
most of the posts seem to be taking it as a joke. Maybe I missed it, but i
did not see one enthusiastic or complimentary post.
The Windorphins campaign follows the Get IT on eBay
campaign that was loved by all of the big corporate sellers on eBay but disliked
by most small sellers because it focused on all of the brand name consumer
products sold by eBay’s largest sellers and ignored small home-business and
niche sellers. It was also a case of the left hand not knowing what the
right hand was doing. eBay's TV ads were featuring famous brand name
products at the same time eBay was cracking down on sellers of these products to
remove fake and unauthorized products from the platform.
I can’t even figure out who eBay’s advertising
agency is these days. eBay abandoned Goodby, Silverstein & Partners of San
Francisco back in March 2005 in favor of BBD&O –a huge New York
agency. But a Google search brings up a Chicago-based advertising agency
called Starcom Mediavest Group. I looked up this company and it looks like
they represent companies like Kellogg’s Cereals, Kraft Foods, Allstate Insurance
and Miller Highlight beer but I don't see eBay on their client list although
there are news stories they represent eBay.
I don’t know if someone at one of these agencies,
or someone in eBay, thought up the Windorphins campaign –but whoever is
responsible for this joke of an ad campaign should be sent back to the minor
leagues.
eBay knows it has a problem. It is not
attracting buyers to the platform and sellers are looking to other platforms
like Amazon and their own web sites to sell product. A really great
advertising campaign could help turn this around. | 
