Jeff Bennett's Blog

Yesterday we announced to the members of Swaptree that we have acquired Swap.com.  This is an important development for a lot of reasons.

First, the essence of what our members do when they are on our site is very simple, they “swap.” We are committed to continuing to grow our platform for books, music, movies and games.  Swap.com is the root of our current brand…and will help enable this.

Second, Swaptree has emerged as the leading media swapping site and we have plans to expand into other swap categories.  Swapping is a mass market activity.  This is a multibillion dollar market.  Swap.com will enable this.

Third, brand building is very challenging and can be very expensive.  Gone are the “Mad Men” days of creating a positioning and spending lots of dough to reinforce it.  Today it is about combining incredible customer experience, domain name and branding activity…that can efficiently be positioned in many channels.  The experience and brand have to be memorable to enable success breaking through the clutter in the media.  The holy grail is creaiting a chance at viral or word of mouth.  Swap.com will enable this.

Lastly, there are several factors that are driving consumers to more sensible and collaborative consumption.  The Swap Movement is powered by these forces.  We are committed to thought leadership in this important area of our economy.  Swap.com will enable this.

It always comes down to execution.  Branding is a key to expansion though.  I am a firm believer that short, descriptive and action oriented words…can be great brands.   So we are thrilled to embark on the process of transitioning to Swap.com.  More on this as we move forward.

Read the full post from “Swapping Ideas” Blog here.