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Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Co-Branding Without Adding Value...

Come on! I just received an email from Corel (I subscribe to the weekly newsletter). They are really stretching now! In the newsletter one of the primary offers they had as a value to customers was a new and exciting Corel/Yahoo toolbar. Now you might say, "that is cool". But when you really understand what it is you will say "What the Hell?"

Well here is the deal, what you get is the Yahoo! toolbar along with some links to the Corel website. Why would anyone want to download this tool rather than the Yahoo! or Google toolbars without ad links?


Companies need to start really thinking about offering true value when co-branding with the big portals and search engines, rather than just advertising.

And, by the way, Yahoo! needs to be careful about how they sell advertising on these tools as the consumer soon will see the cost higher than the benefit and move on to new ways to research, interact, and transact online. If Yahoo! is looking at this as a distribution channel, there are better ways to make a compelling download for the Corel target. By downloading this toolbar I now have all the great Yahoo! tools, but also some links to 'Great Corel Products!'

All for free? Must be my birthday! I think I will stay with the Google Toolbar for now.

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