Groupon and Gilt Groupe, LivingSocial and One Kings Lane: No, there still aren't enough of you guys
Print media is dying because no one reads print media anymore. Because no one reads print media anymore, companies don’t advertise there anymore. So where are they advertising? Online, of course. Specifically, daily deals sites like Groupon and Gilt Groupe are rapidly becoming the prime hubs for marketing business’ names and wares. So, if old media wants to survive, why don’t they get into the daily deals space? Duh. The New York Times is set to launch TimesLimited, a daily deals service built exclusively for New York Times advertisers. When it comes to daily deals, there are a couple formats. Some are group buying sites like Groupon where a select number of people must purchase the deal before it goes into effect. (As a side note, I’ve never seen a Groupon deal where the deal wasn’t “on,” so maybe it’s just a tradition thing at this point.) Other services, like Gilt Groupe and One Kings Lane, provide private sales of luxury items, heavilymarked down for site members. Like the Groupon format, however, these luxury sales sites only offer their items for a limited time, usually 24 hours or less. TimesLimited looks like it will be more akin to the latter, with the site offering exclusive products and experiences for a limited time and in limited quantities. Interested customers need only submit their email on the TimesLimited site to sign up for the deals.
How will TimesLimited be different from all the other ten thousand daily deals sites? I wanted to know too, and received the following reply from Eileen Murphy, VP of Corporate Communications:
"TimesLimited is a New York Times experience, with New York Times advertisers and New York Times customers. We are using a white label solution for the e-commerce portion of the product. We are excited about the product because it is a natural extension of what The Times already does, connecting advertisers with The Times’s highly desirable audience. This is not entirely new for us, though. We have had success with our existing e-mail based advertising programs like Sophisticated Shopper and Great Getaways."
The New York Times isn’t the first news organization to get into Groupon-like daily deals, but it’s definitely trying something new by operating the service entirely internally. “We looked at partner options when we began looking at the space a few months ago,” said Denise Warren, SVP/chief advertising officer for the NYT Media Group and the NYTimes.com’s GM, in an interview with paidContent. “But we realized that we have the assets, the consumer reach and the relationships with the advertisers to do this on our own.” Other organizations that have gone on to daily deals include Tribune, McClatchy and Media General, according to paidContent. I’m only left wondering how much space there is for all these different luxury and daily deals site. Should we add daily deals to the growing startup bubble, already bursting with social media management, social gaming, social everything startups?
Steven Loeb
