Half.com hopes fortune cookies will make its fortunes rise
Half.com, an online fixed-price marketplace owned by eBay, is taking its message to Chinese restaurants. In April, Half.com began advertising on the backs of fortunes in fortune cookies. Fortune cookie manufacturer Wonton Food Inc. bakes the Half.com messages into 1 million of the 2 million fortune cookies it makes each day to distribute to restaurants nationwide. The message says “Save a fortune at Half.com” and it includes a $5 coupons.
Half.com says it uses such innovative methods to keep marketing costs low as well as to make an impact on consumers. “We market like a retailer because we focus on the price points but we don’t really market like anyone else,” says Mark Hughes, vice president of marketing. “We can’t afford to pay Time magazine what they want for advertising so we have to think of creative ways to get our message out. The chances of consumers
reacting to a newspaper ad is low, but people are definitely going to open a fortune cookie, read it and take notice.”
In the past, Half.com has gotten message across by persuading a town called Halfway, Ore., to change its name to Half.com for a year and by printing the message “Why pay full price when you can get it for peanuts,” on bags of nuts sold by New York City sidewalk vendors.
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