Run For The Hills?

In recessions you typically see a migration of ad spend from brand awareness to performance.  This has been true in the online world before and it will be true this time.  In fact, great companies emerge from recessions.  John Battelle's book Search chronicles Google's rise as a search provider during the bubble burst in 2001.  The good news is that you as a startup company have options. You've done the right things by now and have raised money (if not look at this post and this post).

Advertising is not dead and display advertising is not dead.  Nielsen reported recently that display advertising is down 6% Y0Y.  This is a great time for you to sell the value of your unique audience.  Again, I don't believe that display adveritisng is dead.  Adotas did a nice post on this recently.

For you consumer Internet folks reading this blog, now is the time for you to focus in your core proposition as a consumer internet brand.  If your team is solid, you'll come up with some exciting new ideas, products, and come out stronger next year.  Look to companies from the last recession for inspiration like Google and Specific Media (they invited the pop-under ad during the Web 1.0 bust).

Comments

[Matt Hulett]

Jade -

I care a lot about customer service and this sounds like an awful situation. I have fond memories of Harvard. They were one of Expedia's first business clients and I spent a lot of time visiting the university. I have not worked at Expedia for about three years. However, I will reach out to the exec team directly in hopes of getting your situation resolved.

[Jade D'alpoim Guedes]

Please do get in contact if you care at jguedes@fas.harvard.edu

[Terrible Customer Service at Expedia]

Dear Mr. Hulett,
Do you care about how customers are treated at Expedia? I am a customer who was reserving a ticket for a conference we are organizing at Harvard University and called to inquire about making changes to the traveler's itinerary. I then found out that my ticket was not confirmed by Hainan airlines, I could not make changes(which was fine....) but now I am left with two participants in this conference who are very important professors without an airline ticket!!! I have spent a total of 10+ hours on the phone with agents of expedia all of whom have not been able to resolve this problem, and managers have not returned any of my calls.
If there is anyway where this kind of treatment is OK in the world of business travel, I would like to know because I have never in all my years of travel had to waste such inordinate amounts of time, money and potentially our airline tickets following an inquiry about changing!!!!
If you don't care about losing Harvard as a client, then please ignore this email, however if you do, pay attention to this case and give us some compensation for this mistake or I'll personally be organizing a campaign to make sure that no-one at this university uses your company again.
Sincerely,