SuperPages Advertising SuperGuarantee Everywhere

A couple days ago, on his blog, Greg Sterling showed one of the new TV ads that Idearc has debuted. Today, in a story completely unrelated to local and YPs, TechCrunch posts a huge screenshot talking about how instant messaging service Meebo has turned their entire wallpaper into an ad. And who bought that ad space? SuperPages, to promote their SuperGuarantee product. Apparently, they are seeing that as the growth engine for their company, or at least a tool they can use to differentiate themselves for branding and advertising purposes. As I said before, I doubt any percentage of their users will register for this, send a lead form for it, or collect money on it, but they are at least being very aggressive trying to get the message out there.



Meebo Turns Into One Big Ad, But Users Seem To Like It

SuperPages will be guaranteeing some advertisers' work

This is interesting. In around 300 categories (they don't mention which here, but I would imagine most are service-based categories like plumbers, locksmiths, etc - but ones where success or failure are fairly clear-cut), SuperPages will be insuring work done by specific advertisers who have opted in. If there is a dispute that can't be resolved by SP, they will pay the user up to $500 to make up for it. There's also some mention of potentially "punishing" the advertiser if they misbehave on this plan.

It's an interesting move, and a potential differentiator in the market. SP may have some issues getting advertisers to opt-in, but nonetheless, it could work (and I doubt they'd end up paying much out, though I don't know if they're prepared for the volume of problem resolution they might be dealing with). To me, though, the whole point of this is getting users engaged. SP is using this as a way to get users to register and leave reviews, which is becoming more and more important in the space (especially given the success of Yelp).

Superpages’ New ‘SuperGuarantee’ a Bold Move « Screenwerk