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Good News From Sears and AOL? Probably Not

By Ian Ritter | Jun 10, 2009

Sears Holdings and AOL — two companies that haven’t been bearers of much great news lately — are tired of too much negative press out there. So they’ve come up with their own solution, GNN.com (an abbreviation for Good News Network) which will “foray into delivering ‘good news’ at a time when Americans need it most.”

The ironic thing here is that GNN.com probably won’t run many favorable headlines about either of its parent companies. Sears’ sales have been in the basement for a while, it just settled an FTC suit that claimed it put spyware on consumers’ computers and there are more and more reports about store closures.

Thinks aren’t exactly rosy over at AOL either. An MSN Money survey just ranked gave it basement-level customer-service rankings, Yahoo Inc. wants nothing to do with the company and reports of layoffs are coming from the Internet firm after its split with Time Warner.

Instead, what readers get at GNN.com are feel-good stories not related to either company. There is a story about a gunshot victim able to walk during his graduation. Another piece reports on an American tourist surviving a train accident in Australia. Household pets saving the lives of toddlers are sure to follow.

GNN.com also has a lot of ways to get to Sears’ Web site. A store locater is featured prominently on the the site’s upper right hand corner. My BNET Retail colleague Mike Duff calls these aspects of the site money well spent on Sears’ part. This could be the case if the site is able to draw traffic to Sears; apparently a test of the site performed well over the holiday season.

And sure, there is a lot of bad news out there nowadays, and it can get tiring. But it seems strange that a Web site devoted to the cause of good news is run by two companies that for the most part generate unfavorable headlines.

Tags: Sears Roebuck & Co., America Online Inc., Store Locater, Web Site Development, Product Marketing, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Web Technology, Policies And Procedures, Channel Management, Internet, Marketing, Enterprise Software, Software, Human Resources, Ian Ritter

Ian Ritter is the national online editor of commercial real estate news site GlobeSt.com and author of its Counter Culture retail blog.

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  •  
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    bardmike

    06/10/09 | Report as spam

    RE: Good News From Sears and AOL? Probably Not

    Actually, the interpretation of my post is misinformed. The slogan for Sears new marketing campaign is: Life. Well Spent.

    My blog post wasn't a prognostication about GNN, rather it detailed how the AOL campaign fit into the context of an evolving Sears Holding strategy focused on alternative media marketing. I'm not sure that it is money well spent nor did I imply that it was. Sears has been involved in debt reduction rather than substantial reinvestment in its retail business in recent years. The marketing effort kicked off by the GNN launch is, at least, an attempt by Sears to reach out to its customers. The company might want to follow up by spending some money on its stores. If it does so, and builds upon its recent initiatives involving brands, hybrid shopping as with its MyGofer concept and alternative media marketing to generate some consumer interest in anticipation of substantial renovation and remerchandising, it might be money well spent. Without reinvestment in stores, those efforts aren't likely to drive long-term growth at the retailer.

    However, and to the larger point of the above post, companies that have been performing poorly certainly aren't going to improve their prospects by doing the same old thing. It's fair to say that Sears and AOL are not exactly the champs of their respective sectors, but they aren't going to get anywhere until they try some new tricks. Any good news that flows from the Sears camp is going to have to come from new initiatives even if, like GNN, they are a little corny. If corn sells, Sears profits.

    -- Mike

  •  
    2

    jacbiloct09

    10/21/09 | Report as spam

    RE: Good News From Sears and AOL? Probably Not

    I like the idea & think that there are a niche of people that are always saying that news agencies only cover sad news stories, this will appeal to them will it mean anything to AOL, i think probably not.
    Tesco Cashback

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