Rogers Media is the latest Canadian media company to delve into group buying with Tuesday’s launch of R Deals.
In a market already busy with similar services from Torstar (WagJag), Postmedia (SwarmJam) and others, Rogers is positioning its group buying brand around “quality.”
“We’re going to differentiate around more personalized, higher quality deals and merchants,” said Jason Tafler, chief digital officer for Rogers Digital Media. “We have a high-quality audience… To be able to leverage the audience of Chatelaine, Flare, Maclean’s and SweetSpot.ca, building our deals based on those customer databases, is a big deal for the [partnering] merchants.”
R Deals, which offers national and local deals, launched with a number of product package deals, including a $32 national sale for a $25 Chapters gift card and two Rogers magazine subscriptions, and a Toronto sale for a 65% discount on GreenShag menswear.
Tafler said R Deals will also make it service more “experiential” over time, possibly working in conjunction with content from other Rogers properties. “It’s not necessarily going to be an editorial product, but say if someone reads an article in Lou Lou on clothing, we’ll smartly tie-in a deal.” Tafler noted, however, that deals will be clearly marked as advertising as opposed to editorial product.
The service has been promoted through Rogers’ various online properties and directly to its media audiences with some social media outreach as well. After launching at midnight, the number of sign-ups has reached “well into the tens of thousands,” according to Tafler. “We’re tracking well ahead of plan.”
Rogers Digital Media, the division through which R Deals operates, is planning a rebranding for late in 2012’s first quarter. After acquiring a digital network in 2010, expanding its online inventory and audiences and with the launch of R Deals, the company has been skewing its branding towards “local digital,” Tafler said, and the rebranding will create a new identity around that idea.
“It [will be] a more holistic approach about how we lead the market in providing local merchants with opportunities to attract customers. Discovery and curation is how we will differentiate.”
