eBay
Omnicom's BBDO
"It's better when you win it" by shopping at eBay. The "Shop Victoriously" campaign replaces the two-year "Whatever it is, you can get it on eBay" campaign introduced in 2005.
September 14, 2007
The online shopper in general with an Email marketing blitz aimed toward its current registered users.
Everyone's in a race to win an item up for auction. Even though you're buying the item when you're the high bidder at auction close, you still feel like you've won the product.
There are five 30-second commercials in the new campaign. Each spotlights an item and a group of people's race to win it and be the victor.
Three ads marked the debut of the campaign. These ads include a group of people racing like greyhounds toward the finish line to win an old radio. Another features a group of people in a fox hunt for an Evil Knievel lunch box. A third commercial shows a man winning a state fair game and choosing a "red one." The "red one" is a red Mustang convertible.
• Like DirecTV's campaign featuring celebrities, eBay can get a lot of use out of these types of ads. There are a lot of variations eBay can use to keep the spots fresh.
• They're funny. They get your attention. Once you see one "Shop Victoriously" ad, you know immediately when another one from the campaign comes on.
• Anyone who's ever bid on an item and watched the auction countdown to the very last second, knows it really does feel like you're in a race to win. The campaign capitalizes on that feeling and does a good job of planting the idea that you've won an item instead of bought it.
• Some eBay users dislike the ads. They say they've lost items at the last second and don't find this an exciting race as the ads suggest.
• eBay wants consumers to shop for new and used items but with the use of an old radio and lunch box as two of the ad's stars, people aren't getting the message that eBay is a one-stop shop for whatever they're buying.
• eBay spent two years telling consumers you could buy "It" on the site, no matter what it was. The campaign's goal was to market eBay as a place to buy anything, not just oddball items. But the oddball items up for grabs are popping up in this new campaign.
• The "Shop Victoriously" campaign consists of five 30-second spots, banner ads, E-mail marketing, movie theater advertising, print, personalized catalogs and branded entertainment.
• Direct mail for the campaign will be sent to 4.1 million eBay users, spotlighting auctions of interest based on the user's profile.
• The commercials debuted in 23,000 movie theaters across the U.S. on September 14, 2007.
• The prime time launch of the campaign began with NBC's Sunday Night Football, Deal or No Deal, Heroes and ABC's Grey's Anatomy.
• The online advertising campaign includes ads on AOL, Facebook, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo.
• eBay launched a special Web site for the campaign at ShopVictoriously.eBay.com. A $50,000 shopping spree and 1,000 instant win prizes are part of the launch. Signature Creative Inc. created the Web site for eBay.
• The "State Fair" commercial uses the song, "I Was Made for Loving You Baby" by Kiss.
• A seven-episode Web series called, "The Winner's Guide to Winning Everything" will appear on the "Shop Victoriously" site. The series stars Andy Richter and Paul F. Tompkins traveling the West Coast in a Winnebago and talking about the strategies behind winning on eBay.
• eBay dismissed Omnicom's Goodby, Silverstein & Partners in 2005 and took its $70 million account to Omnicom's BBDO Worldwide in New York.
• Goodby, Silverstein & Partners had been eBay's ad agency since 1999 and was responsible for the "Do It eBay" campaign featuring the Frank Sinatra song, "My Way."
• eBay has 241 million registered users.
• eBay spent $161 million on advertising in 2006, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.