Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Urgent: DealChicken officially launches nationally; GCI sees 50-plus daily deal sites by end of this year

In a statement, Corporate just said:

Gannett announced today the national launch of DealChicken, "a new and unique daily deals business," which will be available in more than 50 markets across the U.S. by the end of 2011. DealChicken is now available in 10 markets: Cincinnati; Detroit; Indianapolis; Knoxville, Tenn.; Nashville, Tenn.; Phoenix; Reno, Nev.; Rochester, N.Y.; St. Louis; and Washington.

DealChicken was initially developed at The Arizona Republic, where it debuted in September. In taking the service national, Corporate is spending millions in hiring dozens of new employees in a risky gambit to take on industry leaders Groupon and DailySocial, even as hundreds of similar start-ups are crowding the market.

Short iPhone post; more later.

23 comments:

  1. Couple questions.

    DealChicken is now one word?

    Just what is new and unique about it, compared to all the others?

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  2. Also, Jim, the word launches is misspelled in the hed.

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  3. I'm prone to typos when writing on my little iPhone keyboard.

    Also, I'm now adopting Corporate's spelling of DealChicken as one word.

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  4. God help us, another bad idea and sign Gannett is P-lucked.

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  5. Understood, Jim; just trying to help out.

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  6. Unfortunately, Corporate's statement does not detail any of DealChicken's unique features. Instead, it focuses on Gannett's claims of local market expertise and presence.

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  7. 10:34 Thank you. I can always benefit from an extra set of eyes!

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  8. May I just call "first" on the future headline of the story announcing Gannett's shuttering of these daily deal sites in 16 months:

    "GCI chokes its DealChicken."

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  9. I wonder what corporate sales expectations will be? My crystal ball foresees "ad packages" that give away other (read less tracked) forms of advertising in order for the paper to show up on the spreadsheet for this latest metric of "success." pfft

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  10. Phoenix was very successful with DealChicken and most days it was the #2 or #3 deal site in Phoenix. Corporate was jealous of the success if Phoenix and has changed just about everything Phoenix did except the name. This will go down as another in a long list of great ideas from the newspapers mismanaged by corporate.

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  11. As with Shop Local, the newspapers will probably force a buy into the chicken when print ads are sold. This is the way the knee-jerk sales management reacts to corporate mandated programs which have no chance to succeed on their own because they are such "chicken shit."

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  12. I'm way out of my expertise here, but I remember someone saying a while back that one of the big differences between Chicken and other sites was that retailers got some of their money faster. Wonder if they'll actually be able to do that after they've cut back all the finance jobs. I'm thinking that delays in payments will certainly not engender good will among the Chicken clients.

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  13. ShopLocal is still a viable website and I visit every day.

    No wait, I still get emails every day saying that packages have failed for every reason under the sun. At least it's still being marketed on the back of our TV Weekly!

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  14. FriggenChicken will be a huge boondoggle.
    Nothing unique about it.

    Gannett has no moats in this.

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  15. Sorry LTs but we are off to a good start. You can pee on it all you want but the Chicken is off to a great start. So go Cluck yourself!!!!!!!!

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  16. I've gotta admit - when ever I go to an online Gannett News site and that damn DealChicken Ad does a F-F-F-F-F-F cluckin' drive by, taking up most of the screen, I immediately click off and go elsewhere! That ad is SOOOO annoying!

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  17. I swear they are all a bunch of idiots at that corporate office.

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  18. Nashville's first DealChicken deal -- LITERALLY it's inaugural deal -- was half off a...

    Star Trek convention.

    Someone needs to cock-block this cockamamie scheme.

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  19. Seems appropriate. I've been feeling like a red-shirt at work for some time now.

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  20. DealChicken launched in Knoxville today with a 50 percent off deal at a nail salon. As Groupon subscribers know, nail salon deals arrive in your email inbox at least twice a week. They must be the easiest merchants to hook in. Unimpressive launch to say the least.

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  21. @4:1!2 p.m. Beam me up, Scotty!

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  22. You Clucks crack me up. Deal Chicken is off to a smokin start around the country. Dump on it all you want but the Chicken has left the coop!

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  23. Where is the newspaper? It no longer delivers news to your door by 5 am. It no longer focuses on Advertiser goals. It no longer sends reporters to discover and expose crooked people. It no longer focuses on readership and single copy sales. No, it has abandoned all that boring news stuff in favor of copying someone else's good idea with high hopes it can swindle half of a half of some poor schmuck's operating budget.

    Gannett knows its readership is eroding away at an alarming pace. It's making what hay it can with what light it has left. "Deal Chicken is off to a great start" is meaningless if all you wanted was news from a former news organization.

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Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."

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