Bye-bye, Frustration!

November 4, 2008 at 8:14 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Tags: Amazon, Christmas, Elmo Live, shopping, WalMart

No, this isn’t a post about saying good riddance to political ads. It is a post about marketers already looking ahead to the Christmas shopping season and trying to introduce something great enough to entice shoppers to part with some hard-to-come-by funds.

Amazon is trying to follow up Kindle and establish itself as a first-to-market leader with Frustration-Free Packaging this year, as seen on its home page and in this entertaining video. If you’ve ever been driven to inventing new four-letter word substitutes as the small fry watch you open their toys for them, you’ll appreciate this packaging strategy. Environmental benefits are also mentioned, but the focus is on saving sanity from the blight of blister packs.

If your primary Christmas shopping frustration is getting the hard-to-find toy, then WalMart has a great option for you: online Elmo Live reservations! No more dismembered Elmos at the hands of desperate shopper tugs of war.

We still have a few weeks before the Thanksgiving holiday (for readers in the U.S.), but with forecasts predicting dire decreases in holiday spending, marketers are already making an effort to get their stories out to draw shoppers in.