Advertising through your competitors may seem like a backwards way to market your product or service, but Yahoo isn't the only company doing so. Many of Google's competitors advertise through Google. Bing, a Microsoft owned search engine advertises through Google/Google's sources. I think that this kind of advertisement is a very smart way for companies to advertise. Yahoo for example, isn't a direct competitor of Facebook. Yahoo offers services that Facebook doesn't, and likewise, Facebook offers services that Yahoo doesn't.
Right now, Facebook is the single largest social-networking service online. Although Yahoo was around first, Facebook has managed to tap into a whole new network of consumers that may not have been online before. If Yahoo can get just a few of those new consumers to join their service too - than the advertisement is successful and it will be. My Nana never had a computer until Facebook came out. She wanted a way to see what her children and grandchildren were up to, and Facebook was a very easy way for her to do that. Now that she has a computer she has been learning how to surf the web and use things like e-mail and follow the stock exchange online. Her e-mail is through Yahoo's free e-mail service. I have no way to prove that Facebook is how she found out about Yahoo, but I can be sure that Facebook is the reason she was interested in getting an e-mail at all.
Does anyone else know of companies who have succeeded in advertisement through competitors?
International marketing for ESPN actually began accidentally, according to a novel called International Marketingby Michael R. Czinkota, Ilkka A. Ronkainen. A sports broadcaster purchased satellite time and a building in order to broadcast Connecticut area sports. Later, the broadcaster came to find out that the satellite coverage was national and his idea to broadcast to New England began to grow.
Eventually, ESPN sports was born. Today, ESPN covers sports in countries all over the world, and broadcasts to them as well. However, global/international marketing isn't as easy as accidentally purchasing a global coverage satellite. Although ESPN wants to reach as many global households as possible, there are two huge obstacles that are stopping them. First, competition. ESPN is still currently the biggest international sports broadcaster. However, other broadcasters are beginning to tap into the market as well, which gives consumers more options and may cause ESPN to be in less households than it previously could have been based on what sports they are covering, and consumer's personal preference. The second big obstacle is creating a market for the broadcasting service in less developed parts of the world. For example, India has a very large middle-class population, but India's middle-class population makes significantly less than the American middle-class. Many other under-developed countries also have multiple languages within the country. This type of issue is tough to overcome, ESPN would need to own many channels and broadcast the same thing, in all sorts of different languages. Even though they would like to reach every household, it will not be financially realistic to broadcast in too many languages.
McDonald's Restaurant markets it's products in countries all over the world as well. The video to the right talks about the Price, Product, Place, and Promotion of McDonald's Restaurants in 7 different countries. Why do you think that McDonald's has been so successful in it's International Marketing? How do they adapt to the cultural differences in all the different countries?
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