eBay Buys a Pair of Celebrities for the Holidays

[mandy]

***A Message from Gary Briggs – Holiday Marketing News*** 

Hi everyone...The holidays are in full swing, and that means it's a busy time for many of you who sell on eBay. Our Marketing organization has been busy, too, working to get the message out to buyers that "whatever it is, you can get IT on eBay." I wanted to share a few updates with you before the year ends.

Holiday Public Relations and Ad Campaigns
I'm pleased to share that our holiday PR campaigns have been very effective at making eBay "top-of-mind" for buyers this year. Over 870 stories have been run about eBay this holiday season across newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio, reaching more than 185 million people!

To name a few highlights, we recently worked with USA Today and The Wall Street Journal on articles where eBay was featured as a place to find hot gifts for the holidays. Our veteran Style Director Constance White appeared on the TODAY show a few days ago to talk about holiday fashion makeovers on a budget. This was on the heels of a previous TODAY Show story in November that highlighted eBay as one of the few places to pick up this season's coveted gifts – the TMX Elmo and PlayStation 3.

eBay Express is also getting a lot of coverage. Rosie O'Donnell spread the eBay Express message on The View recently, and she gave Nikon cameras to her lucky audience, courtesy of eBay Express. Similarly, Tyra Banks sent her audience home with iPods last Monday on behalf of eBay Express. On December 10th, our own Griff was interviewed in a USA Today Article about Holiday shopping where he had the opportunity to talk about Buyer Protection on eBay Express.

To complement all these celebrity spots, we continue to have a heavy presence in television to drive demand. Following our brand TV spots that began earlier in the fall, our holiday TV ads have been running on all major networks, including FOX, NBC, CBS, and ABC. These holiday-specific commercials have aired so far this season to the tune of 683 million impressions. If you haven’t seen them yet, go to www.whatisit.com.

Online and Off - Rich Media and Printed Gift Guides
We continue to use online advertising as an effective way to reach buyers. This season, we'e been running rich media ads across several major portals as part of our integrated "IT" campaign. The ads tie into the "IT" TV ads, as a powerful complement to eBay’s message this holiday season. As our sellers know, this time of year it's important to have a winning marketing strategy, so we invested additional marketing dollars around key shopping days this season to ensure eBay owned all the ad placements on important portals like Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, and Hotmail.

Also shortly after Thanksgiving, 4 million households received Gift Guides in the mail. These printed catalogs are a great supplement to all the online marketing we're doing, and highlight gifting ideas across a variety of product categories.

Promotions and Features That Drive Buying
We had a great response to the November promotion we ran with Disney, and we just recently kicked off a new one to coincide with the release of the Rocky Balboa movie. I love that these promotions combine fun and entertainment with a strong incentive to buy on eBay. Participants get an automatic entry into a sweepstakes for daily prizes each time they win an Auction-style listing or purchase an item via Buy It Now.

Tools to Help Buyers Find the Right Gift or the Best Deal
We've also made tools to make it easier for shoppers to find that perfect gift this year. Check out our eBay Gift Finder which can take some of the stress out of finding that perfect item. For those buyers who enjoy the thrill of getting a great deal, we've created eBay Deal Finder so they can easily see items that have no bids and are ending soon.

These are just a few of the things we've been working on to help make your holiday selling season a success. On behalf of everyone here at eBay, I'd like to wish you Happy Holidays and here's to a great New Year in 2007!

Sincerely,

Gary Briggs
Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer
eBay North America