Unlock document.
This document is partially blurred.
Unlock all pages and 1 million more documents.
Get Access
CHAPTER 11: IWON.COM
SUMMARY
iWon.com is an online search engine portal with a difference. The difference is users of this site
have the opportunity to win $10,000 a day and $10 million on tax day. The business model was
built on the idea that people habitually respond to giveaways, as demonstrated with the many
book and magazine sweepstakes. The company started during the height of dot.coms with major
funding from CBS. It launched in 1999 with a big media blitz by giving away $10 million. The
buzz was continued as the company worked with major TV shows and magazines to profile and
announce sweepstakes winners. Profitability was reached in 2001, or three years after inception.
iWon.com uses big money to attract potential customers and it has proven successful to date.
But nothing is totally free, as one of the founders emphasizes. Users have the chance to win
money in exchange for demographic and psychographic information. Once users give iWon.com
the permission to use their information, iWon tailors content such as news, movies, weather, and
horoscopes to the user. Additionally, iWon allows marketers to directly market to this same group
of people based on preferences. Several Fortune 100 companies are clients and buy this data
from iWon, which allows them to permission market. The site has roughly 250 different ads per
month. Because the site can be customized both on the content and the advertising side, people
stay longer at iWon than any other site on the web. Further, the company purchased Excite last
year and these two sites combined are the 7th most trafficked sites. iWon is competing fiercely
against MSN and Yahoo!, which forces the company to reach customers more effectively,
understand its customers’ needs – both users and advertisers – meet them with content and
prizes.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
1. What type of consumer promotion outlined in the chapter is primarily used by iWon.com?
2. The chapter states that response rates to contests and sweepstakes are often low. Despite this
trend, why do you think that iWon’s initial launch was met with so much excitement and
success?
3. The video stresses the importance of iWon’s permission marketing attempts. What is this
strategy, and how does it differ from traditional marketing communications? What are the
advantages to marketers and consumers?
1. iWon.com has since shifted its product from a search engine portal to a games site. Have
students research recent changes and development in the company’s marketing strategy. Visit
the website.
2. Ask the class to trace the basic concepts and principles of sales promotion. What are some
classic successes and failures that have lessons for iWon.com, and how might those lessons
have been instrumental in changing its product from a search engine portal to a games Web
site?
