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In this session, we will discuss the key take aways from the Big Skinny case

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Let’s set the stage … I don’t know how many of you are familiar with Big Skinny. I personally have a friend who swears by these wallets and I did experience their in-person distribution approach in Hong Kong. Imagine you’re at a street fair, or if you’ve ever been to Hong Kong, you’re at the Ladies Market. There are lots of vendors and most of them are selling typical wares – shirts, souvenirs, etc. But, there is one vendor who is continually engaging the crowd. It’s Kiril and he’s shouting “You’re wallet could be a full inch thinner” – any of you with a bulging wallet might just stop and want to learn more. And when you do stop, you are allowed to put your stuff in a Big Skinny wallet – so that you can experience just how much thinner your wallet can be. With this sort of hands-on experience, who can say no? But the question is – can this be replicated in the online environment? How, exactly, do you attract ‘passersby’ online?

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So, let’s walk through some possible approaches to attracting customers in an online environment. The first one we might consider is display ads. There are a number of challenges associated with display ads. First, they have a very low click through rate of just .1% (at the time of the case) – or just one click for every 1000 displayed. Given that costs are based on the display and not the click-through, display ads have a very low return. These campaigns are also difficult to manage as the market for handling them is stratified: some publishers sell ads directly, while others partner with networks and exchanges. So the marketing manager has limited control over the distribution of these ads. Finally, the design of the ads can be tricky. There are substantial fixed costs associated with the designing of the ads, especially animated ads. These costs would be borne regardless of the outcome. But, can you think of situations where Big Skinny might...