Shopping.com Spreads "No Buyer's Remorse" Message

In a bid to win customers, and, through them, advertisers, during the important holiday season, comparison shopping site Shopping.com has launched its first TV ad campaign.

The ads, developed by San Francisco-based Publicis & Hal Riney, aim to educate consumers about online price comparison services and to inspire them to try Shopping.com.

The campaign’s initial 30-second broadcast spot began airing today in New York, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon. Shopping.com said it is part of a test it is conducting to gauge the effectiveness of offline media in driving consumer behavior online. The company hopes to use TV advertising to reach a group of consumers who may not have heard of price comparison on the Web.

“Our market research revealed that the vast majority of consumers are simply unaware of comparison shopping sites,” said Nirav Tolia, Shopping.com’s chief operating officer.

The initial spot, which targets consumers aged 25 to 49, will air on local evening and morning broadcasts as well as news and primetime cable channels throughout the holiday season. The company declined to name specific channels or programming, nor did it divulge its media spend.

The creative depicts two scenarios in which a shopper learns too late the Internet offered a better value on a product he just bought. The spot then provides a demonstration of Shopping.com’s interface.

Kirk Souder, president and executive creative director at Publicis & Hal Riney, said the agency tried to advance the notion that shoppers need never again feel buyer’s remorse.

“That’s a very powerful idea,” he said.

Shopping.com was formed this year after established shopping search site DealTime merged with customer review platform Epinions and took a new name. It has faced an increasingly crowded field of online price comparison sites, including NexTag, BizRate, Pricegrabber, and most recently, a company called Priceflo, which launched last week. Additionally, Yahoo recently integrated its shopping area with product search. Google also offers a version of the service, though its Froogle.com site.