Jack Denneboom, president and founder of Adbargains, is an experienced marketing executive and entrepreneur.
Prior to establishing his own businesses in 1988, Jack spent ten years at Union Carbide where he developed and globally introduced the Linde branding program. When Linde changed its name to Praxair in 1996, the Linde name was sold for US $60 million, demonstrating that brand equity means exactly that.
Now Jack is the president and founder of Adbargains, and online seller of offline media. Below are our Five Questions, and Jack’s answers.
One Degree: What was the original inspiration for Adbargains?
In 2000, I was doing marketing consulting for a dot com start-up that was wildly successful. With that experience on top of my marketing background, the idea evolved. The writing was on the wall with respect to the internet being used for as highly time-consuming, inefficient process as media planning and buying.
One Degree: How willing are people to buy offline media online?
Early indications are, very. People are now buying travel, cars and just about everything else online and the fear is long gone. People enjoy that they can quickly put an advertising plan together. And then effortlessly request pricing from a number of suppliers with just a few clicks.
Adbargains.com is just ‘Expedia for media’. Communications via email, fax and phone used to take weeks in order to provide a buyer with sufficient information to actually place a media buy. Now an advertiser can in minutes price a variety of scenarios with differing costs, timing and creative specs for as many newspapers and radio stations as they wish.
One Degree: Google has been making inroads into both radio and print in the US. Do you have concerns about competing against the biggest of all gorillas?
Not at all. We welcome the publicity they create for this new way to buy media.
The advertising universe is greater than $700 billion US annually, and that number is made up of an incredible assortment of advertisers with varying budgets, and a large number of media alternatives. For some, an auction-based system like Google’s may make sense. For most, a web based system that mirrors existing processes will make more sense. Many advertisers want a website where they can plan, compare and experiment with alternatives, without any pressure, whenever and wherever convenient for them. Adbargains will fit their needs to a tee.
Also, having the big guys get so much press creates legitimacy for our business model and drives traffic to our website. The thinking is, if Google communicates that offline media can be purchased online, why shouldn’t Adbargains be able to deliver similar benefits, just in an easier way.
One Degree: How do YOU market Adbargains itself?
Anytime you are introducing a new process and going against longstanding traditions, an education process is needed to reassure people that the end result will be equally as good as with the previous process it is intended to replace. Therefore, PR and word-of-mouth are key and since we’re a web-based application, online tools like search and email are a must. Overall, we’re marketing a simple, quick and easy service, so we want to ensure that all Adbargains communications are in line with that positioning.
Stay tuned; we also have a few other ideas up our sleeves.
One Degree: What challenges are you finding in bringing good help on board?
Fit is the most important thing for us as we’re a small organization, consisting predominantly of senior staff. Having said that, given how exciting the business model, Adbargains is consistently being approached with great talent interested in coming on board.