Skype On A GiveAway Craze

Earlier in the week I mentioned a Skype and CrunchGear promotion. Now it seems that Skype and Laptop Magazine are doing something similar.

What does this tell me? Well for starters it means that Skype is getting around to tying in their partners like SMC and FON, bringing that to media partners for trade or maybe some cash and some trade, and all the while doing a better job at boosting awareness.

Having been in the tie-in promotions business, it was called Sales Promotions back in the 80's and 90, but what I was doing was already tabbed Integrated Marketing, this is a logical step for Skype. Last year they did a ton of PR and have led off with more (and it's being done tons better with the NY shop, leading me to believe some of the problems I blamed Henry Gomez for weren't his doing). Now the second wave begins: Promotion. And there's no better promotion than tie-in promotion using OPM (other people money/other properties media.) Next will come consumer advertising. It's a very simple, proven marketing/promotions operations model of how you make a product or service mainstream, and actually one that I think will really work.