I was just recently away on a road trip with my soccer team to Regina and Saskatoon. While on these road trips, we aren’t really able to do too much other than rest in our rooms, do our school work, and play the games we came to play. However, on the first night there a teammate and I got bored and decided to walk to a gas station to get some snacks and water. I was pretty efficient and got what I wanted quickly, but my friend took awhile to make her decisions so I wandered the store just browsing while I waited for her to make her selections. Who knew boredom would turn up something interesting…

Found at a 7Eleven in Regina

I was looking at all the gift cards you can buy for various companies through 7Eleven and I came across a gift card for Facebook apps! I had no idea this existed. These gift cards looked similar to the ones iTunes sells except these were to purchase apps within Facebook. What first got me was that I thought everything on Facebook was free, but seeing these cards told me differently.

I find this super interesting following Facebook’s performance in the Nasdaq since it’s IPO last year. When it opened at 38$ back in May, Facebook thought it was at a good competitive price, but investors quickly realized that it’s revenue stream wasn’t strong enough to support it and the stock quickly dropped more than 50% in the first 3 months. Since its IPO disaster, Facebook’s stock climbed up to an all time high of 40$ in August  and is currently at $49.46. This massive recovery is due to Facebook finding alternate sources of revenue to support the company and I am now wondering if this is one of those revenue strategies. Its seems very out of Facebook’s character and I wonder how people are reacting to it, or even if Facebook is selling any of these gift cards. The money on these gift cards doesn’t go towards buying an app, but it gives you money to use inside of an app (if that makes any sense). It’s kind of like if you were playing SIMS and spent money, but it isn’t fake money, it’s your real money. This seems weird, and the option to buy these cards are only in certain regions, but I don’t think I as a consumer would ever have the desire to purchase one of these. I’d be interested to hear from someone who has bought one and how they used it.

All in all, this post is just voicing my curiosity surrounding Facebook’s big turnaround, and I wonder how much this alternative type of revenue strategy is actually helping them. Many digital start-ups, and social media platforms have struggled with finding sustainable revenue streams, could this be one of them? And are consumers going to buy in?

The job of a marketer in a nutshell is basically to get people to listen to what they are selling. Whether it is a product, a service, or a message, they are trying to find the best channel to reach the most consumers. The marketing industry today is forever changing with marketers finding and using new ways to get consumers to listen or engage in what they are saying. In my opinion, selling a product or a service seems easy when compared to trying to sell an idea or a message.

There are many organizations in todays world trying to make the Earth a better place to live whether it be supporting environmental initiatives or battling world hunger or supporting peace in places of war. These organizations have the toughest job of getting people to listen and act because it takes more effort for consumers to buy into the message rather than just going out to purchase a product or a service. The campaign that got me thinking about this is the WWF/ Vancouver Aquarium Campaign which is targeting shoreline cleanups across Canada but specifically along the West Coast. This is just one way that we as human beings, and consumers, are negatively effecting the environment by dumping waste into our oceans. WWF and the Vancouver Aquarium, with help from an agency, have creatively tackled this issue in an effort to get people to listen and help the cause. My concern is are people actually going to listen and do something about it? When I look at the ad I see an effort to shock people into realizing that it actually could get as bad as seen in the clip. They use a shock or scare tactic to get people to clue into the real issue, then finish with the URL to visit for more information.

To me I see this campaign as half way there. I feel that there are other marketing tactics that could be used to further engage consumers and actually get people believing in this cause. As I stated at the beginning, trying to sell a message is the hardest thing to sell because people have to choose to take initiative. With any campaign that has a social message or is promoting a cause, it should include a digital channel that directly engages the consumer. When a message is just being broadcast to consumers, it allows people to engage in social loafing because they’ve heard the message but can hide in a crowd of people and not act. If I were to be working on this campaign, I would set up an online conversation through Twitter or Facebook to spread the word through sharing the video across these channels that would directly engage consumers. This would minimize their ability to hide and basically call them to action. Furthermore, I would organize an event on one day and make it a gathering of people from across Vancouver, bringing them together for one day of cleaning the coast line. The event would be spread across the Lower Mainland coastline basically have one big celebration up the west coast. WWF Canada has links for where you can sign up for a coast cleanup in your area, however, making a large event and bringing people, businesses, and entertainment out to one place would help spread the word and give people an even bigger incentive to join the initiative.

I could ramble on but to get to an all around point, basically I think those organizations wanting to spread a social message, cause or initiative have one of the hardest jobs. Having images and videos that share the message are a good place to start, but engaging consumers encourages people to not only listen, but to act.