Stupid Advertising (eBay)

Anyone seen the current eBay ad (musical "Do you know the way to use eBay...")? It seems like a dotcom Superbowl throwback - all glitz, nothing about the site, really; a quarter flash and three parts foolish, as it were.

In fact, the latest Earthlink ad shows more of eBay than the eBay ad does.

Do these ads really work at all?

Philo

Philo
Sunday, October 26, 2003

I wonder if we'll see a google puppet before the ipo

Mike
Sunday, October 26, 2003

Isn't most advertising stupid though?

I cringe whenever I see the Microsoft Windows 2003 Server advertising.

"I saved a nickel on our XML transactions..."

Guy Incognito
Sunday, October 26, 2003

Philo, I think you should have called the topic:

L@@k! - Stupid Advertising (eBay)

AJS
Monday, October 27, 2003

You mean:

L@@k! - Stupid idiotic dumb Advertising marketing selling (eBay ebay.com www.ebay.com)

www.MarkTAW.com
Monday, October 27, 2003

It would be $$tupid, and not stupid :)

Tapiwa
Monday, October 27, 2003

I must be working if we are talking about it....

apw
Monday, October 27, 2003

Philo: great transaction, would do business with again. A+++++++++++++++

Chris Winters
Monday, October 27, 2003

Anyone know how to make money on Ebay? any links? any ideas for my leisure time?

Microsoft all time fan, yeah right!
Monday, October 27, 2003

If you want to learn how someone has successfully made a business with eBay, check out Don Lancaster's
"The Guru's Lair" (at http://www.tinaja.com/).

Don  is the same guy who wrote "The Incredible Secret Money Machine" about on-demand publishing.He also has plenty of other interesting material on his site.

If you search around, he has several articles about how he makes money off of eBay. The first one he did is at: http://www.tinaja.com/glib/myebays.pdf (note: 90+% of the articles on his site are .pdf files).

RocketJeff
Monday, October 27, 2003

I thought the ebay ad was funny and entertaining. I think that is the point. If the ad was some squidgy nerd type wearing dockers and a polo shirt describing what ebay actually was, people would just turn the channel. However, a weird-ass song and dance number keeps people watching it , just to figure out what on earth is going on.

Now, whether or not ebay actually NEEDs to advertise on TV is another story. They have already achieved the holy grail of internet businesses, i.e. people pay money just to insert records into their database. I guess the TV ad might pick up certain members of the couch potato set who somehow haven't yet heard of ebay.

rz
Monday, October 27, 2003

There's a "For Dummies..." book on running eBay businesses too.

Walter Rumsby
Monday, October 27, 2003

eBay is a for-profit, publically traded company.  If they didn't do anything to foster growth (as opposed to sitting there, raking in the cash, and solidifying their position like a private company might do), their shareholders would revolt.

The market is saturated.  eBay already owns 99% of the auction market.  This market is populated by tech-comfortable people who know what an online auction is. 

The only way for eBay to grow, therefore, is to bring new demographics into the market.  Hence, advertising to sunday football watchers, mom's watching Oprah, and whoever they think might be watching Spongebob Squarepants.

Richard Ponton
Tuesday, October 28, 2003

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