Drugstore.com's 'green' product push: Reality TV or marketing? |
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Drugstore.com has created a pseudo reality TV-style program on its Web site in order to boost sales of natural toilet bowl cleaners, trash bags and other green products.
The show -- dubbed Green This House and featuring green living expert Raina Gardner -- is extremely promotional in that it directly touts drugstore.com's products and shipping policies.
That takes away some of the power of the reality TV style, especially when Gardner says things like "when I went onto drugstore.com I ordered you these green bags" or "the greatest part about drugstore.com are their options."
The comments are meant to be said in casual conversation, but come across as promotional (which they are). I guess that's to be expected given that the video is hosted on the retailer's Web site. At the bottom of the page, the company provides links to some of the products featured in the video. And at the end of each episode, products are displayed with their prices.
The "shows" range from three to five minutes.
"The idea was to give (drugstore) some compelling branded content that they could use to engage their audience and hopefully sell more products," said Scott Weiss of zpop/media, which produced the segments.
Is this the future of media and marketing, taking product placements to a new level on a retailer's Web site?
UPDATE: Drugstore.com has taken the videos down, with spokeswoman Anne Marshall saying they were published by mistake during the "early part of the review process."
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