Today Is the Second Annual Amazon Prime Day

Partial screen shot of Amazon Prime Day home page

Today is Amazon's second annual Prime Day--a shopping day designed to rival Black Friday with low prices and speedy shipping exclusively for members of the retailer's Prime program.

One goal is to attract new Prime members, who pay an annual fee for benefits such as free two-day shipping, access to audio and video entertainment, early notification of bargains, and more. As always, consumers are invited to enroll in Prime for free to try it for 30 days. The more people who try, the more who are likely to remain members after the free trial.

Another goal is to increase interest in and usage of other Amazon offerings such as Alexa, the virtual shopping assistant who's the voice of the Echo speaker. This year, the retailer is offering a number of Alexa-related specials.

Of course, Walmart is taking aim at Amazon by offering its own special deals today. Actually, some of the deals began yesterday and will continue for the week, with free shipping thrown in to combat Amazon's shipping deals for Prime members. Like Amazon, Walmart is relying on sale-priced electronics to catch the eye of shoppers, mixed in with other low-priced products.

How will Walmart do? Will Amazon Prime Day surpass the 2015 sales record? How many new Prime members will sign up--and how many will stay after the free period is over?

The Marketing Force in Marketing the Force

Hundreds of thousands of brand fans worldwide were involved in Force Friday on September 4th, a day devoted to marketing Star Wars movies and merchandise.

From Disney and Hasbro to Toys 'R' Us, Target, and beyond, retail and manufacturing partners jumped on the Force Friday marketing bandwagon to market merchandise tied to the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens, due for release in December.

Mattel, which is making Hot Wheels tie-ins, worked with Uber to send out Dodge Charger cars decorated like Storm Troopers so fans could ride in brand style. Even Major League Baseball got involved, with a light-saber duel after the first pitch in a NY Mets/Florida Marlins game on Friday.

Disney began its movie promotion a year in advance, and promoted #ForceFriday as only one in a series of marketing activities leading up to the new movie's debut. Social media was a huge element in Force Friday, including a coordinated multi-city "unboxing" event for YouTube.

Many stores (and websites) planned for midnight promotions, building buzz by including guest appearances and other special events tied to Force Friday. The stars of the show: New merchandise keyed to new characters and new technology to be fully revealed in the new movie. Brand community was a major part of the appeal to customers, with costumes and entertainment and photos and more. In short, the marketing force is strong for this new Star Wars movie and its merchandise.

Public Buildings as Promotional Vehicles

The Discovery Channel implemented a large-scale video projection promotion yesterday to highlight an upcoming series on endangered species. Using dozens of video projectors aimed at the world-famous Empire State Building, it showed a rotating series of 400-foot-high images of endangered animals over a three-hour period. This promotion drew the attention of passers-by and made news internationally.

You can see a video about a similar projection on the United Nations building in New York City here.

The Discovery Channel has projected images and video onto public buildings for some time as it seeks to engage the public in its programming. One promotion in 2013 drew criticism because it showed flames seeming to engulf Battersea Power Station in London--prompting onlookers to call firefighters.

In general, such large-scale promotions on public buildings illustrate the power of understanding consumer behavior: The images catch the eye and generate comment because they are unexpected, vivid, and colorful. For example, to promote Shark Week, Discovery Channel projected shark fins moving atop New York City skyscrapers.

The Discovery Channel also promoted Shark Week using 3D fins and other shark parts attached to its headquarter building in Silver Spring, MD. What could be more incongruous--and therefore attract attention?

Viral Movie Marketing: The Power of Earned Media

This month, two movie publicity stunts have gone viral, showing the power of earned media--meaning buzz gained for free through consumer-shared social media mentions of a promotion or product. Paid media is the norm for most movie promotions but earned media is increasingly vital for the kind of word-of-mouth frenzy that will build anticipation about a movie's debut.

Last Friday, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson walked the runway for Valentino as a promo to introduce Zoolander 2, which will be in movie theaters next year. The buzz swept through Twitter and other social media with the #Zoolander2 hashtag trending high for hours due to retweets. The promo worked not only because it was a surprise but also because the actors walked the runway in character, the way they would in the movie.

Earlier this month, Vince Vaughn and his co-stars were posed in stock photos that can be downloaded for free to be shared and reshared and re-reshared. This promotion is for their new movie Unfinished Business and it pokes fun at the way many businesses use bland, sometimes cheesy corporate-type stock photos available for free or mere pennies. Media coverage of this promo agreed it was brilliant because of the close tie with the movie's business themes. In other words, these marketing moves earned media for the movies.

Marketing Linked to Pi Day

March 14 is Pi Day (3.14, get it?). In fact, it's quite an accurate pi day.

And it's more than a mathematical celebration.

Yes, it's a marketing opportunity for mugs, T-shirts, and much, much more. Just do an Internet search and you'll find lots of marketing linked to Pi Day. Here are 3 examples:

• Museums are promoting Pi Day celebrations.
• Pizza pies and fruit pies are being promoted.
• Geocaching is using Pi Day to attract attention.

Tax Day's Marketing Allure

April 15th means tax day to Americans . . . but to many food marketers, it's also a good hook for marketing. Here are a few of the fun food promotions linked to today's deadline for filing U.S. tax returns:

• Cinnabon (with nearly 1 million Facebook likes) is making the day sweeter with two free bun bites.
• Bruegger's has a $10.40 special on a baker's dozen of bagels, with a coupon downloaded from its Facebook page. In 2012, the bagel chain sold 10,000 of these special deals--quite a good response.
• Arby's has a giveaway of free curly fries (with downloadable coupon) plus a cash prize drawing to take the sting out of tax day.
• Boston Market's "We Love the IRS" campaign includes cash giveaways until April 30th. Plus today only, it's offering a $10.40 special on two rib meals.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts residents are celebrating Patriots' Day with a parade, the Boston Marathon, and more.

One week from today is Earth Day, an entirely different kind of marketing occasion!

Leap Day Promotions

Once every four years--that's how often February 29th rolls around, and some marketers are using Leap Day as a leaping-off point for promotions. Here are a few:

• Zappos says that anything purchased on Leap Day can be returned at any time during the next four years (see top image).
• Staples has 29 special deals for the 29 days of February (see purple-background image, above).
• Disneyland will be open 24 hours on Leap Day, the culmination of a two-month sweepstakes promotion called "One More Disney Day" (see blue-background image, above).

Happy Leap Day. And that's it for four more years!