Will Textbook Rental be a Flash in the Pan?

admin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:30:06 +0000

What a difference a week makes. Last week, the buzz was all about the rental textbook market. How Barnes & Noble’s entry into this sector legitimized it’s business model and how Chegg.com ramped up it’s efforts to capture market share and solidify itself as the leader through a sizable advertising expenditure. However, on Wednesday, Apple revealed the iPad that promises to breath life back into traditional media such as newspapers, magazines and books, but only in doing so by moving it into the digital space. So how long will it take for textbooks to be offered through Apple’s App Store? How long will it take for students to adopt the iPad? How much longer will the textbook (rental and purchase) market even exist? Where will Chegg, Follet, Barnes & Noble and the like find themselves in 3, 5, or 10 years? After all, as digital stragetist Michael Leis states, “the iPad literally takes twenty pounds off the backs of high school and college kids if their textbooks are all available through the app store. And why wouldn’t publishers put their books in the App store? The audience is already there and ready to one-click all the bookstore hassle away.” Will this textbook rental business model be a flash-in-the-pan?

New Ad Campaign for Chegg

admin — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 18:49:58 +0000

Textbook rental website Chegg.com is betting big to win big this time. They’re launching an animated video ad campaign for TV, radio, and online. The plan is to purchase spots in 31 college markets “on network and cable television, such as Comedy Central and MTV, as well as online on Hulu and YouTube. The radio spots will run on terrestrial stations and Pandora,” according to Laurie Sullivan in her MediaPost.com article. As you’ll see, the animation is making headlines due to it’s cheeky, ‘flip the bird’ response to the high costs of textbooks.

Paying “tenfold” for this campaign marks a large gamble relative to what Chegg has done in the past by using low cost solutions such as affiliate marketing and airing their own chegg of the week videos typically produced by just a couple of staff members at their offices.

A new extension of their affiliate program is the launch of so-called “Chegg Champions” or online brand ambassadors that promote and spread videos. Each video has a special promo code that when used will earn the “Chegg Champion” a $5 commission and a $5 discount for the renter.

Chegg has become a favorite of college students in the past few years along with Amazon.com and Ebay’s Half.com as alternatives to the outrageously priced textbooks found in campus bookstores. If it’s back to school time you might just get some yolk on your face as their mascot, Shelly, has been known to frequent a campus or two passing out free burritos to hungry students.

In 2008, Chegg boasted student savings in excess of $16 million.

As part of their social entrepreneurship Chegg plants a tree for every textbook that is rented through their service and claims to have planted roughly 1.5 million trees with the American Forest Foundation, their not-for profit partner.

Message: “Give the high cost of textbooks the bird. Don’t buy it. Don’t buy it. Rent all your books at Chegg.com. Save $500 or more every year. Visit Chegg.com”

Medium: TV: MTV, Comedy Central; Radio: Terresterial stations, Pandora; Online: Hulu, YouTube

Audience: 31 College Markets

Big Brand On Campus » Advertising

Will Textbook Rental be a Flash in the Pan?

New Ad Campaign for Chegg