Perreault−McCarthy: Basic
Marketing: A
Global−Managerial
Approach, 14/e
Back Matter Cases © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2002work and have it handled by an outside contractor. After
negotiating a three-year contract to do IBM’s work, several
IBM employees quit their jobs and started the business. IBM
was a good client, and all indications were that IBM could give
the firm as much work as it could handle as it hired new peo-
ple and prospected for additional accounts over the next few
years. Gray especially liked the creative aspects of designing
the “look” of a website, and technical specialists handled a lot
of the subtle details.
Before joining this new company, Gray had several
marketing-related jobs—but none had been the glamorous ad
agency job she dreamed of in college as an advertising major.
Her first job as a college graduate was with an ad agency, but she
was in a backroom operation handling a lot of the arrangements
for printing and mailing large-scale direct-mail promotions. In
spite of promises that it was a path to other jobs at the agency,
the pay was bad, the work was always pressured, and every aspect
of what she had to do was boring. After six punishing months,
she quit and went looking for something else.
When a number of job applications didn’t turn up some-
thing quickly, she took a part-time job doing telemarketing
calls for a life insurance company. Gray’s boss told her that she
was doing a great job reeling in prospects—but she hated dis-
turbing people at night and just didn’t like making sales
pitches. Fortunately for her, that pain didn’t last long. A
neighbor in Gray’s apartment complex got Gray an interview
for a receptionist position at an ad agency. That, at least, got
her foot in the door. Her job description wasn’t very interest-
ing, but in a small agency she had the opportunity to learn a
lot about all aspects of the business—ranging from working on
client proposals and media plans to creative sessions for new
campaigns. In fact, it was from a technician at that agency that
she learned to work with the graphics software used to create
ad layouts and website pages. When the website design job
came open at the new firm, her boss gave her a glowing rec-
ommendation, and in two days she was off on her new career.
Although Gray’s jobs had not been high-profile positions,
they did give her some experience in sales promotion, personal
selling, and advertising. Those skills were complemented by
the technical computer skills of her fiancé (now husband),
who made a living as a database programmer for a large soft-
ware consulting firm. Taking everything as a whole, they
thought that they could get a wedding-related website up and
running and make it profitable.
There were a number of different facets to the original plan
for myWedding.com. One part focused on recruiting local ad-
vertisers and “sponsors” who would pay to be listed at the
website and be allocated a web page (which Gray would de-
sign) describing their services, giving contact information, and
links to their own websites. Another facet focused on services
for people who were planning to be married. In addition to an
online wedding gift registry, sections of the website provided
information about typical wedding costs, planning checklists,
details about how to get a required marriage license, and other
helpful information (including a discussion forum with com-
ments about the strengths and weaknesses of various local
suppliers). A man and woman could sign up for the service on-
line and could pay the modest $20 “membership” fee for a year
by credit card. Friends, family, and invited guests could visit
the website at no charge and get information about weddingpreferences, local hotels, discounts on local car rentals, and
even printable maps to all of the churches and synagogues in
the area.
When Gray told friends about her plan they all thought it
sounded like a great idea. In fact, each time she discussed it
someone came up with another idea for a locally oriented fea-
ture to add to the website. Several friends said that they had
tried national websites but that the information was often too
general. But generating more new ideas was not the problem.
The problem was generating revenue. Gray had already con-
tracted for space from an Internet service provider and created
some of the initial content for the website, but she only had four
paying sponsors—two of whom happened to be family friends.
Gray started by creating a colorful flyer describing the web-
site and sent it to most of the firms that had participated in the
bridal fair. When no one sent back the reply coupon for more
information, Gray started to make calls (mainly during her
lunch hour at her full-time job). Some stores seemed intrigued
by the concept, but no one seemed ready to sign up. One rea-
son was that they all seemed surprised at the cost to participate
and get ad space at the website—$2,400 a year (about the
same as a^1 ⁄ 16 -page display ad in the Raleigh Yellow Pages).
Another problem was that no one wanted to be the first to sign
up. As one florist shop owner put it, “If you pull this off and
other florists sign up, then come back and I will too.”
Getting couples to sign up went slowly too. Gray paid for
four display ads in local Sunday newspapers in the society sec-
tion, sent information sheets about the website to clergy in the
area, listed the website with about 25 Internet search engines,
and sent carefully crafted press releases announcing the service
to almost every publication in the area. One article that re-
sulted from a press release got some attention, and for a few
weeks there was a flurry of e-mail inquiries about her web page.
But after that it slowed to a trickle again.
Gray’s diagnosis of the problem was simple. Most people
thought it was a great idea, but few couples knew to look on
the Internet for such a service. Similarly, potential
advertisers—many of them small local businesses—were not
accustomed to the idea of paying for Internet advertising.
They didn’t know if the cost was reasonable or if her site would
be effective in generating business.
Gray’s life as a married person was going great and her job
as a web page designer kept her very busy. Her free time out-
side of work was always in short supply because the young
crowd at her office always had some scheme for how to keep
entertained. So she wasn’t about to quit her job to devote full
time to her business idea. Further, she thought that once it got
rolling she would only have to devote 10 hours a week to it to
earn an extra $30,000 a year. She didn’t have delusions of be-
coming a “dot-com millionaire.” She just wanted a good
locally oriented business.
However, it still wasn’t clear how to get it rolling. After a
year of trying on and off, she only had four paying ad sponsors,
and one of them had already notified her that he didn’t plan to
sign up again because it wasn’t clear that the website had gen-
erated any direct leads or sales. Further, it looked like anything
she could do to attract more “members” would end up being
expensive and inefficient.
Gray thinks the idea has real potential, and she’s willing to
do the work. But she’s not certain if she can make it pay off.Cases 729