FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Monday, October 24th, 2011
I was fortunate enough to sit down with Oliver Cockcroft, Product Manager for eBay Tablet Web, to discuss the new tablet experience currently in Beta testing from eBay. You can sign up as a Beta tester today at touch.ebay.com/tablet. Here, we chat about the experience and the features involved with the tablet-specific experience.
Cheers!
RBH
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Sunday, October 2nd, 2011
Robert Scoble visited the eBay campus recently and had another candid conversation with one of Silicon Valley’s leading execs… this time with eBay’s own CEO, John Donahoe. I’ve always loved the direct questions from @scobleizer – I’m just bummed I was home sick when the video happened because it would have been great to be a fly on the wall. Glad I got to see the resulting conversation though. Superb stuff.
I’m looking forward to covering the X.Commerce Innovate conference later this month for Ink readers. Be sure to shoot me questions or topics you’d like me to address when I sit down with folks in San Francisco, October 12-13.
Cheers!
RBH
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Thursday, September 15th, 2011
Here is part 2 of my behind-the-scenes conversations with folks regarding our new integrated advertising campaign that kicked off this week on U.S. National TV. I was fortunate enough to visit members of the creative team at Venables Bell & Partners – the advertising firm responsible for creating the ads – up in San Francisco earlier this week.
In addition to capturing some of their “creative walls” where I could see the journey that the ad campaign had taken, I also interviewed two of the creative directors for the campaign. Here is our resulting conversation…
Part 2: A Conversation with Venables Bell & Partners
Cheers,
RBH
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Thursday, September 15th, 2011
We kicked off our integrated advertising campaign yesterday and, as promised, I sat down with a few folks instrumental in making it all happen. Up first is Deirdre Findley, Sr. Director of Consumer Marketing for eBay, who sat down with me to chat about the campaign in greater detail and how it differs from previous marketing efforts.
Cheers,
RBH
Part 1: A Conversation with Deirdre Findlay
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Wednesday, September 14th, 2011
For the first time since 2009, eBay is coming to your television screen. The “When it’s on your mind, it’s on eBay” advertising campaign kicked off today with the first of six 30-second TV spots on national cable network shows including Top Gear, ESPN Sportscenter, The Daily Show, Top Chef and The Rachel Zoe Project. The spots emphasize the emergence of mobile helping consumers shop anywhere, anytime, whenever they want.
The campaign is focused on mobile shoppers and shopping enthusiasts. One of the key messages coming out of the spots I’ve seen is that they position eBay as the shopping destination for new items at buy-it-now prices.
I was fortunate enough to spend time earlier this week with members of the creative team at Venables Bell & Partners – the advertising firm responsible for creating the ads – and with Deirdre Findlay, Sr. Director eBay Consumer Marketing – to chat about the campaign in more detail. Look for the behind-the-scenes video with them over the next couple of days.
In addition to the TV spots, street-level outdoor environments will be created and will use custom QR codes that can be accessed using eBay’s RedLaser technology letting consumers shop for products on the spot. These will be seen in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles starting October 17.
In the meantime, enjoy the three spots I’ve included in this post.
Cheers,
RBH
Related Read:
eBay Targets Mobile Users…
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Friday, July 22nd, 2011
It has been a busy week here at eBay HQ, San Jose. I was fortunate enough to spend time with a number of visitors in just a 5-day span… the eBay Partner Network TV crew were here interviewing a number of folks (yours truly included); Cindy Sorley and other eBay Voices members were in the house for eBay Customer Connect; I started a regular Thursday appearance on eBay Radio; eBay announced Q2 earnings for 2011 that we covered – for the first time ever – using automated disclosure links in short form posts via StockTwits; and our new eBay Stories blog launched from ebay.com. And, if that weren’t enough, CNBC joined us in the house yesterday to interview CEO John Donahoe. Here is that video interview direct from CNBC.
Have a great weekend everyone. See you Monday!
Cheers,
RBH
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Wednesday, July 6th, 2011
Earlier today, Fast Company’s Co.Design blog featured the eBay Design team today in a blog post entitled, “Six Bite-Sized Innovation Lessons from eBay’s New Design Think Tank.” The post talks about eBay’s internal design and consulting group called PreVIZ and also unveils the all-new Design at eBay website aimed at telling the stories behind designers here at eBay and represents an immersive recruiting tool for potential new designers wanting to join the team.
From Co.Design:
eBay is leaning on design with Previz, a new internal consulting business staffed by its cracker-jack designers. In addition to lending their creative juices to whomever needs them, the hope is that they’ll spread a process for innovation. “The real challenge is to get out from under the tactical, day-to-day stuff,” says Dane Howard, who heads the Previz team. “So our designers had the idea of creating workshops to imagine the near term future.”
I was fortunate enough to sit down with two people instrumental in launching the new Design at eBay website for an exclusive conversation about the genesis of the project and the goals moving forward. I must confess, I was thrilled to see the visual concept of literally “showing the people behind the company/stories” theme running throughout the site (as you can see from the welcome screen shot above, there are more than just one pair of eyes now looking back at you when we’re sharing our stories) and the site is definitely another evolution in our quest to emphasize the people behind the products and solutions we create here at eBay. I’m excited to see where this goes. For now, enjoy this look behind the curtain…
Cheers,
RBH
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Tuesday, June 7th, 2011
Warren Buffett, legendary investor and philanthropist, will host his 12th annual power lunch with the winning bidder of eBay’s charity auction to benefit San Francisco’s GLIDE. The annual power lunch – and the only one Buffett offers – has raised nearly $9 million for GLIDE’s programs to help San Francisco’s neediest residents. Last year’s winning bid by an anonymous individual set a world-record at $2,626,300.00.
The auction is currently in full swing and ends on June 10 at 7:30pm PDT.
Find out more at http://ebay.com/glidefoundation.
Cheers,
RBH
FEATURED POSTRichard Brewer-Hay / Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
As some of you know, I was fortunate enough to attend SXSW earlier this year and during my time at the conference I managed to go to the Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 event that included a live eBay integration demo from my friend and colleague, Jonathon Gabbai. The below video was captured at the SXSW event and is now featured on Bytes by MSDN.
Cheers,
RBH
Clark Sell, Microsoft Senior Developer Evangelist, and Jonathon Gabbai, from eBay, discuss Internet Explorer 9. Jonathan, Senior Global Innovations Manager at eBay, reveals how he drives traffic to eBay sites through Internet Explorer 9 browser integration, leveraging IE9 features such as dynamic jump lists and pinned sites.
