Black Friday is in the Red as Cyber Monday posts 21% growth

Cyber Monday turns black with 21% growth-StratoServeBlack Friday is the day that traditional retailers turn a profit (i.e. numbers turn black from red) after being in the red throughout the year. For the last few years with the growth of Internet and online buying Monday has been named Cyber Monday.This year seems to be a decisive turning point.

According to Shopper Trak, Black Friday sales in Brick and Mortar stores declined by 13.2% compared to last year even as Cyber Monday sales rose 20.6 % according to IBM's figures in the same CNN report.

Brick retailers had guessed that there was no way that one day  i.e."Black Friday" would be able to compete with one day of online sales on " Cyber Monday" when everyone returns to work after the Thanksgiving holiday and take to the office computer to start online shopping. In response, Brick retailers had started discounting early in November. The Shopper Trak infographic provides interesting granular data for  the last Thanksgiving weekend retail sales:

  • Overall the estimates are of a 1% total growth over last year when the Thursday to Sunday weekend is considered
  • Retail traffic is down 4% despite some reports that indicated that people were window shopping more than buying
  • Apparel traffic was up by 9.4% and its not clear if sales were up as well. Since apparel requires a fit and feel, perhaps consumers were checking out apparel and then exploring better deals online.
  • Shockingly foot traffic in electronics was down by 6.5% . It appears that shoppers did not even walk into electronics stores as they could easily evaluate many products online from specifications, reviews and prices.

On Cyber Monday, consumers did not wait to get to the office computer. Mobile device purchases zoomed by 55.4% over last year  and 17% of online sales came from mobile devices according to IBM estimates. Mobile friendly websites are thus no longer optional.

The shift in consumer behavior in the US seems complete and traditional retailers will have to do more than just deep discounts from Halloween to January. For many consumers seem to be just becoming more comfortable in completely skipping the chance to do at least window shopping even if they bought online in the practice called showrooming, where retailers end up becoming showrooms for Amazon. Additionally, the news that Amazon is considering delivery by drones on the same day, erodes the "immediacy" advantage of  traditional retailers. All in all, food for thought this holiday season as more data becomes available. Contact StratoServe. 

Michigan to start online lottery sales: what effect on consumers and retailers?

Michigan Lottery- online effects on consumers and retailersEver since Detroit, Michigan declared bankruptcy – one tends to feel concerned about Michigan and its finances. The recent announcement that Michigan will start selling lottery tickets online by 2014,seems like a good move from a state revenue point of view. In fact, states like Illinois and New York also want to move lotteries online in a bid to increase state revenues and most states might eventually follow suit. 

For Michigan, the online move was not without dissent from Michigan legislators who raised concerns about the increased  possibility of gaming addiction , increased credit card debt and a lowering of customer footfalls into brick and retailer lotto stores.  As all states start to grapple with these important public policy issues- here are some thoughts:

  • Lottery research: Lottery related research has picked up over the last decade under the categories of gambling and gaming research. This as research suggests  that most people don't think of lottery ticket buying as gambling simply because lottery stores are everywhere and the state is involved in running the lottery worldwide. A nice review of lottery research appears in the Journal of Gambling Studies by Thai scholar V. Ariyabuddhiphongs.
  • Lotteries justification: Public policy justifies lotteries as follows:
    • The State is able to raise money  from the public through lottery sales without raising income or property  taxes
    •  Funding for worthy causes like public school education is achieved through lotteries. Thus, Michigan Lottery has contributed over $17 Billion to the school system since 1972
    • Helps decrease illegal gambling 
    • Compared to taxes that are mandatory, lottery ticket buying is voluntary
  • Lottery Addiction and Internet: Economists  Jonathan Guryan and Melissa Kearney define lottery ticket buying as an addiction when ticket purchases increase over time. You buy one ticket today and keep increasing your ticket buying just to improve your chances without realizing what Ariyabuddhiphongs concludes:if you bought a ticket every day from birth and lived to be 100 it would take you 383 life times to win a lotto!  Prior research suggests that parents playing lotto is a good predicter of their  children playing lotto as they grow up. Whether Internet will accelerate lotto playing among the more tech savvy younger people will need to be studied. 
  • Credit cards and online lotto tickets: When you buy a lotto ticket you have to pay cash at a retailer. How purchases, credit card debt and addiction might be affected will be interesting to watch as Michigan and other states adopt online lottery ticket sales.
  • Retailers will be adversely affected: Currently retailers in the lottery business are the distribution channel for tickets . There are about 11,000 retailers in Michigan who collectively make about $172 million in commissions according to the annual reports of Michigan Lottery.  While the per retailer commissions are modest at about $15,000 per year- the question of loss of footfalls will need careful study. Eventually if retailers lose too much income they might get out of lottery retailing. Keep in mind, that the enormous point of sale publicity including the "we had a winner" posters have changed public perceptions about lottery being more "fun" than "gambling."

Online selling of lottery tickets seems like an obvious thing to do today. But just as the upcoming  "Black Friday" is about brick retailers having their day – there is great charm in buying a lottery ticket at the convenience store along with the milk and some light conversation with the retailer. This as various other customers hang out reading the newspaper (yes. the paper version) and sipping coffee that cannot be done online, as yet.Contact StratoServe.

We wish our readers a Very Happy Thanksgiving !

B2B suppliers tell you: Do you listen? Obamacare website and the BP oil spill

The B2B blame game between contractors and BP during the oil spill and the blame game between the IT contractors and the Federal HHS is eerily similar. B2B suppliers tell you- but do you listen? is the question to ask.

The prepared remarks of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for her testimony tomorrow (October 30) are available and the last para on page 2 gives a sense of B2B and Supply chain relationship déjà vu:

"To build the Marketplace, CMS used private sector contractors, just as it does to
administer aspects of Medicare. CMS has a track record of successfully overseeing
the many contractors our programs depend on to function. Unfortunately, a
subset of those contracts for HealthCare.gov have not met expectations…." 

Contrast this to what the Obamacare website contractors said (watch the CNN video alongside) as they
gave testimony last week. The contractors are trying as best as they can to not
directly blame CMS and say "we told you so."After all, they need to get the work done eventually, and will have to work with many of the now beleaguered folks at CMS.

The BP oil leak parallel from 2010 involved the Government as regulator, BP as the buyer and several contractors that supplied to BP who were similarly grilled at a senate hearing. Since there was no going back to the sad accident, contractors were more forthcoming in blaming each other and particularly the B2B buyer BP.

The core characteristic of B2B markets is that the buyer (BP for the Oil well and the Federal CMS/HHS for the Obamacare website) is buying something to achieve an organizational objective. Suppliers that get contracts, tend to be the ones who are competent in the services/goods they are expected to supply. These suppliers also have a good sense of the client's organizational objectives for what they are buying.

In the case of BP it was to get the oil out safely from the off-shore well. And for CMS/HHS it was to get everyone enrolled smoothly through the healthcare.gov website. Most good contractors do speak up with concerns but repeated research in B2B markets including distribution channels,  indicate that big buying organizations like BP or the Government are perceived as enormously powerful by suppliers. So the poor suppliers, who are really experts in their fields, talk respectfully and softly as they want to be on the "right side" of the powerful B2B customer. So long there is no oil well blow-out or a website fiasco, things work.

It is during committee hearings that suppliers are forced to speak up. The fundamental problem is that most big organizations have a junior level manager handling the supplier on a day to day basis and there are no clear processes to convey supplier perceptions of risk up the buyers organization.

The adage that "bad news does not travel up organizations easily" applies very much to supplier feedback. And you can be sure that supplier employees show more deference than your own employees. Thus  a serious concern is expressed so softly by a supplier , that it does not register. Hence the President did not know about the the website problems that the contractors had pointed out, ahead of the launch  and it is very likely that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius did not either. In fact, even CMS chief Marilyn Tavenner, did not register the warnings in the contractor CGI reports.

The public hears about the BP oil spill and the Obamacare website but there are probably hundreds of minor fiascos, every day, because B2B suppliers tell you and you are not listening seriously and reporting up your organization for easy actions that can avert disasters.Contact StratoServe.

Digital Expectations: being Government,non-profit or a small business is no excuse

The problems with the Obamacare website forced the President himself to address the issues yesterday  of… a website? Just a few years ago- organizations including Government, non-profit and small businesses used to wonder if they should have a website. In teaching and learning, students would complain loudly about the problems of online learning platforms and senior faculty would talk about the "feel of real chalk" when explaining advanced calculus on a traditional blackboard instead of a virtual Blackboard. All this incredible change in the last 5-7 years.

The problems with the Obamacare website is centerstage today and this blog empathizes with Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in the video above, the entire IT team including the contractors involved because everyone missed the biggest change of all :

Digital Expectations

Digital expectations is the real "flat world" where a person with an Internet connection in Sub-Saharan Africa has the same access as a Boston Brahmin contemplating the New England fall colors. Denizens of both these diametrically opposite places know that a) Twitter works and they both use Twitter and b) Facebook works beautifully and c) Google is always there for what you do not know .. and it works.They have high digital expectations!

The Bostonian, with more disposable income, uses Amazon.com more frequently than Amazon.com  customers in sub- Saharan Africa but both understand the "quality" of the digital experience. 

The problems with the Obamacare website is a wake-up call to all manner of software developers including:

Enterprise software : The famous ERP program SAP has been called Slow and Painful. Because of its excellent quality folks have endured , but digital expectations are rising.

Non-Profit Websites: Non profit websites always got kinder treatment from the public including beneficiaries,donors and volunteers, but here too digital expectations are on the rise.

Small Business Websites: Small businesses would console themselves that after all they were "small" but being small is no longer an excuse for a poor web visitor experience.

Naturally the lesson from the Obamacare website performance is a great message for Governments worldwide whether local,state or national that merely declaring an e-governance initiative or an e-service is not enough. The public,worldwide, expects at least a near  "Facebook" type experience (and by the way Facebook is free). Writing clean software code and simple programs that are repeatedly beta tested early in new  software development  is something the public assumes. Similarly, even if your software is an "internal" one for your customer like ERP systems, you cannot continue to provide a clunky experience because a competitor will come up with an easy working friendly cloud solution and displace you. If you have existing clients inside organizations, its a good idea to innovate faster because just listen, your users are already comparing your software to the dismal healthcare.gov initial launch experience. Contact StratoServe.

Fitch warning : why B2C and B2B would react differently to a 100 point credit score drop

If you got a message, in the US, from one of the B2C  credit scoring agencies like Experian, TransUnion or Equifax- that you needed to pay some bills else your credit score would decline by 100 points… you will take take notice. You'd be even more  alarmed if you had a perfect 850 credit score. It is therefore intriguing why Washington DC does not take the Fitch warning of a downgrade of US sovereign debt from AAA as an absolute emergency. For credit rating for Businesses and Governments,is very similar to individual credit scoring.

In some part the answer lies in the very personal nature of B2C (Experian) and the sort of diffuse nature of B2B (Fitch).Experian is trying to put a credit score number on an individual's credit worthiness with other businesses (the individual being the C in B2C) and Fitch is trying to put a credit rating on the USA for its commitments to other organizations (B2B where one B is the US Government).

A   perfect credit individual has worked hard over the years by:

  • Not taking on excessive credit
  • Meticulously paying off bills on time
  • Spending within her/his means
  • Finding ways to earn enough to pay the bills

Such an individual has a lot of  personal "sunk cost" in building that perfect credit score.Any threat to that wonderful reputation would be vigorously addressed by the individual.Similarly, countries like the USA (already rated as AA by Standard and Poor) have taken decades to build the reputation for a AAA at Fitch.

Now contrast an individual with an organization, where there are several people involved, and things get complicated as in the buying center. Just as it is difficult to precisely predict how buying center  members will respond to a marketer's offering, so it is difficult to predict how organizational leaders react to imminent default and definite credit downgrade. The organizational leaders in this case include the President,Senate and Congress in Washington. Unlike individuals faced with a very personal credit downgrade ,Washington DC has leaders that are trying to appease their constituencies that might win elections in the future,but will be bad for America and the world financial system. This when the new Zogby poll has the President at a 45% approval rating and Congress has 13% approval and 85% disapproval.

If there is a some learning, although perverse, for B2B marketers in all of this – it is this:

  • B2B marketing and organizational behavior will be always complex.
  • Even with real time news,social media and the most accurate of polls and feedback.

So if you hear marketers say that B2C and B2B marketing is becoming similar, think back to the Fall 2013 US Government Shutdown and the Fitch warning and you can safely disagree. Contact StratoServe.

Not all Government websites down: is it the Federal Procurement System?

The US Federal Government is the world's largest B2B buyer and given that (a)  not all Federal websites are down and (b) the healthcare.gov (Obamacare) website is having problems suggests that there is a supply chain and specifically a Federal procurement system problem at work.

As the unbelievable drama in Washington DC plays out and the stock market takes a 160 points drop, one wonders : is this really happening? For example, you cannot access the US census data for anything you might be working on. The mystery is that not all websites are down, a phenomenon that Julian Sanchez of the CATO Institute calls "weird" that is not entirely explained by the Washington Monument Syndrome, where the Government of the day just shuts down the visible monuments when faced with prospects of budget cuts.

Consider also that the healthcare.gov (Obamacare) website is unable to cope with the traffic due to the architecture of the software design, done by a contractor. What does the contractor specialize in? Certainly not the web design skills that the folks at  Amazon.com have, who will not let you leave the website without buying something with numerous persuasive and relevant offerings.Why did the Federal Government not ask folks at Amazon or one of the large software development firms like IBM to do the Obamacare website? The answer may lie in the Federal procurement system.

Indeed the bigger software folks like IBM might have bidded for the job, but certainly the contractor CGI Group Inc. was better at simply navigating the Federal procurement process. And the Federal Contracting process is so mind-numbing that any business interested in doing work for the Federal Government must first figure out the process that involves thousands of pages and systems that ensure that due process is followed in procurement. This due process keeps Government officials above reproach, and no one expects an Amazon or Facebook experience, anyway. Caught up in the procurement process the Government spends more money on a website, than brain injury research according to the video alongside.

Naturally once a contract is awarded, the Government buying Department and supplier are so exhausted that they don't think of making changes in the contract, and the contractor becomes like a permanent Government employee. The suppliers do not make much margin in Federal contracts , its just that once you are able to get in, its more or less stable and long term work that keeps getting renewed. Competion is sparse because new entrants find the processes and documents to be so onerous, and the margins so modest, that its just not worth the effort of bidding etc.

The website, and probably other supplies get really tested when there are sudden demands like the traffic on the Obamacare website. Other cases like the "weird situation" of some Government websites being up or down during the Government shutdown, could also be due to contractors maintaining the website.  There might be different contractual clauses at work and some apathy that does not allow easy access to existing web content like the Census data. 

Not allowing access to the existing Federal web content, is a bit like putting drapes on the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument because the Government is shutdown. Contact StratoServe.

Best Global Brands 2013: Coca Cola replaced by Apple but should Google be no. 1?

Interbrand Best Global Brands 2013-StratoServeAs a Coca Cola  fan this blog feels bad that the Coca Cola brand has slipped to the no. 3 spot in the 2013 Interbrand rankings after reigning for 13 years as the top brand in the world. If you think about it , it is in these 13 years that the Internet has taken off and with it, the mobile smart phone (yes the Apple iPhone) and the ubiquitous Google that serves as the great equalizer for anyone with access to the Internet. Interbrand has ranked Apple as no. 1 and Google as no. 2  in this new age and we feel that that Google should be probably ranked No. 1  (full disclosure: StratoServe is a  Google Partner) but perhaps this has something to do with the Interbrand ranking methodology which is as follows.

Interbrand methodology considers three variables:

  1. Financial power of the brand: The publicly available financial performance of major firms is the starting point of this component. A brand needs platforms to operate. These could be production type of facilities like Apple needs factories to produce iPhones, Coca Cola needs bottlers and Google needs servers. In addition there could be distribution strengths that that made Coca Cola great following 1950's Chairman Robert Woodruff's dictum of being available within an "arm's reach of desire." The brand also involves intellectual property like the secret formula of Coke and Google's algorithms. The Interbrand method accounts for the cost of capital used and apportions the after tax profit to the brand. 
  2. Brand makes you decide:  This is the role of the brand among the criteria a consumer would use to choose between brands in the industry. This measure separates the contribution of the brand from other variables like price,design, usability etc. that drive consumer choice. Thus if you bought an iPhove ( from no. 1 brand Apple) instead of a Samsung Android phone (from Samsung at Brand no No. 8 )   that had similar prices,features -then there is something in the Apple brand that was working for you.
  3. Brand's  Strength to sustain profits: There are 10 key proprietary factors that Interbrand uses to score a brand between 0-100 with respect to its competition. It then tries to predict how well the brand will be able to sustain profits and growth in competitive markets.

Given the huge focus on profits that relate to the brand one can understand why Apple is no. 1. Notably the Mac grew at 15% when other PC makers struggled at 3% growth. In addition, the excitement around the iPhone has helped the business of wireless carriers like AT&T a great deal.

Our reason for supporting Google as no. 1 brand is based on its availability to everyone with Internet access and that it  touches far more lives, worldwide,  than Apple. You can use Google for free and it's absolutely a game changer in the information and knowledge age. Although Google does access your behavior data for tailoring Ads and content, it does not seem to be a big price given that the content is great and always getting better. iPhone and Macs have their own ecosystem and unless you buy the hardware you are excluded from the Apple magic except for iTunes.  A bit like Coca Cola that you have to buy. To Coke's credit,  it's hard to be the top Global Brand  if you have 3000 brands that are not called Coca Cola.  And you are competing with trucks for distribution of Coca Cola while Apple and Google  use Wireless and the Internet.

Whether or not you agree that Google should be the no. 1 brand, the fact is that technology , Internet and mobile has taken over the top two brand spots and that is a sign of changed times for brands and branding. Contact StratoServe.

Why did Grand Theft Auto V Video Game sell over $1Billion in 3 days?

The runaway success of Grand Theft Auto  V (GTA-V) as the biggest ever entertainment product begs the question why ? An earlier post on Entertainment:video game industry three times music and double movie industry, had proved popular, but the potential role of video games in promoting violence had reduced the enthusiasm of this blog from the video game topic. But an estimated 17 million units sold in the first few days being about double of the 9 million new iPhones deserves some serious attention from all types of business folks.  A deeper look at the "Why" of video game success is necessary because you hear the despairing refrain of "we are in the wrong business" from main stream media folks on television. Our logic is that if video games are so popular, its really important to understand why so that we can use some of the recipe of the video game industry   in our own businesses. 

  • 160 Million consoles install base: Having a large install base gives sharp segment focus to the marketer.The GTA V is only available for the 160 million owners of Xbox 360 and Playstation  3. If the current sales are about 17 million, we can expect that this number will rise. The install base is like  a captive market. Most people with the consoles play some video game as heavy or light users and will certainly think of getting the GTA V. While install base gives a clean segment for the marketer to focus (like brand printer cartridges to brand printers , proprietary  packaging materials to proprietary packaging machines)-if your product is spectacular like the GTA then the install equipment makers are willing to pay. For example, for GTA IV , Microsoft had paid $50 Million to have the first two episodes exclusively on the Xbox 360.
  • Psychological Needs: The psychological needs that video games fulfill are interesting. These include:
    • A Feeling of Competence:   Players get a feeling of competence. Instead of being told that "you lost ," the game allows you to become better. Quite unlike the constant "you are a loser" judgements people face at school, at work and even among friends and family.
    • Feeling in Control: Video games give the player a feeling of control and autonomy. You make choices,suffer virtual consequences both good and bad, but you can overcome adversity and succeed.
    • Virtual Social Relatedness: Altruism and being connected with society gives happiness. But according to research on the motivational pull of video games by Ryan,Rigby and Przybylski,video game players feel connected to players with whom they play online. And what is truly stunning is that video game players feel connected to the characters in the video game who are entirely fictional and virtual!
  • Escape that is safe: According to Cassie Gotto at Games Beat, the escape offered by video games is safe and the virtual violence is a way of getting your anger out, a bit like punching a bag in boxing. Given that three fourth of American hosehold buys game products and the installed base of game consoles is in hundreds of millions worldwide, its difficult to establish that actual violent behavior is caused by violent video games. This as most people  who play violent games  seem to be quite peaceful.
  • Branding as a sequel: Like movies and books that are successful sequels, GTA V uses the branding as a sequel strategy. Ever since the failure of "New" Coke, consumer marketers worry about sequel branding and maybe its time to re-think.

The success of video games is food for thought for all kinds of innovators and marketers because some elements of the success of GTA-V are probably applicable to most businesses. Contact StratoServe.

US poverty rises: a focus on “good jobs” is needed

US poverty has risen from 46.2 million in 2011 to 46.5 million in 2012 and is at 15% of the population. Poverty in 2012 was defined as a family income of $23,494 for a family of four. Clearly, the bottom of the pyramid in the US is growing and is not enjoying the benefits of the stock market boom simply because they do not own shares to begin with. Since the recession, a disturbing trend is that many in the suburbs have become poor. A focus on what Jim Clifton of Gallup calls "Good jobs" is needed. Something that Ben and Sue Harback of Illinois need after coming down in family income from $150,000 to $ 30,000 according to the NBC video above. Ben Harback is packing ties in his new job which gives great value to his employer but deprives a less educated poorer worker who might have done the job , before the recession.

While poverty is at 15%,unemployment among the poor is estimated at 21%, which is at the level of average unemployment during the 1930's depression. The underemployment among the poor is a staggering 40%. And the situation is not expected to improve in the short term given that the poor are less educated, there is more competition for low skilled jobs from folks who have some college and are willing to do jobs that did not require college earlier. For example, you will find middle aged college educated folks working at McDonald,retail and factory (as the above video shows)  simply because the jobs they held before the great recession simply disappeared to either overseas outsourcing or to younger cheaper qualified  domestic workers. 

The trouble is that such recession  hit  middle aged folks, displace younger workers who have some high school, who can actually do the factory labor or food service minimum wage job fairly well. These younger folks who do not have a college education or trade skills are now poor and in danger of becoming a permanent underclass in the US,  forever unfit for the "knowledge" economy.

Perhaps it is time to sharply focus on:  at risk poorer high school students, so that they can pick up appropriate trade and technology skills for "good jobs" in the new knowledge economy.Contact StratoServe.

Evoked Brand Set: The easy way of surrogate branding through better search ranking

In the pre-Internet days every marketer and advertiser -had one goal:

to get into the evoked set of the consumer or B2B buying center member

It was that you had to have a big budget to be in the evoked set. No longer so with better SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay per click).  But first the evoked set concept.

The “evoked set” is the set of brands you think of when you have a buying need. If you are in the market for a car it’s very likely that you have 3-4 car brands (Ford,GM,Toyota etc.) in mind as you start checking them out. In the old days, well let’s say till 1990’s, only big brands could afford to spend those millions on TV and traditional media advertising to build up a particular brand. So if you were Ford Motor Company , your goal was to get into the evoked set and have the customer visit the dealer showroom. To achieve this goal all kinds of advertising including sports sponsorships, community events, newspaper and magazine advertising, radio and billboards was supposed to help. In fact, car dealers have their own radio jingles and billboards that advertised their brand. So the logic of buyer behavior was:

The Internet has completely changed the notion of the evoked set. The evoked set involves memory that we might be losing to search engines like Google according to research. Instead of entirely relying on memory and the evoked set,the consumer or  a B2B buying center member is likely to do an Internet search using Google, Yahoo or Bing. Here is how the search results become the surrogate brand in the US:

  • Searching is easy at home and work: A student or employee has easy access to computers and  the Internet both at work and home. If you have a question (buy a car) the Internet has answers.
  • Searching is easy on mobile smart phones: There are an estimated 138.5 million smart phones in the US according to Comscore in April 2013. These smart phone users visit malls and do showrooming as they compare prices online,  as discussed in an earlier post about Best Buy.

Are you in the market for a car?—>Consider Ford—> Consider particular Ford Dealer…..once you arrive at the dealers’ and see the offerings maybe you want to go from buying a sedan to the more rugged Ford 150 truck!

Every time someone searches for something, like “buy a car” in the pictured screenshot, something comes up in organic search results and ads- as shown.And the searcher checks out the results in a receptive sort of mood. So if you had searched “buy a car” your evoked set  would now perhaps include Hyundai,Dodge, Nissan and also cars.com and autotrader.com apart from financing options from Chase bank. This way , as a consumer, you are now considering brands and providers – you had not thought about. Since you did the searching, you’d be quite likely to check out autotrader and cars.com, at least online,because they are at the top of SEO and also feature in the PPC ads.  Moreover, once you search online your mood is comparatively  more receptive, than when you see a TV ad from the same brand, that interrupts your favorite show.

[ Note: This post is from September 10, 2013. We did an update on the screenshot by searching “buy a car” to support a recent updated post on AIDA sales funnel .The search result shows “Carvana” in top spot on March 5, 2021. TV watchers in 2021 would be aware of Carvana but the ad helps it come into consideration.]

You’ll notice that big brands keep up an active presence in internet advertising at least through paid search ads.The great thing is  that even smaller brands can become part of the evoked brand set by consistently running search ads in their target markets. Running pay per click ads is also affordable because you do not pay for showing the ads (like TV, direct mail or radio)but only pay for clicks.Being shown and clicked through allows your brand to get into the evoked brand set as the search results feature your brand. About StratoServe.