Amazon Zigs and Zags Again
Even though Amazon may be hurting retail stores, Amazon opens its own stores. Now Amazon is going to invade your home with catalogs. 
Toy catalogs will be mailed this holiday season to U.S. households and will be available in Whole Foods Markets (which Amazon owns), according to Bloomberg. With Toys-R-Us closing, it is time for Amazon to go for the market. Last year, Toys-R-Us did more than $6 billion in sales. That is enough upside potential that Amazon is trying every marketing effort to capture a larger share of that market.
Print continues to be an enigma for most in this digital age. The U.S. Postal Service research shows that 46% of U.S. consumers read catalogs last year. It would seem that people experience print in a different mindset than when they are on digital portals. Engaging with print is different and should be used for the right kind of product or service. For many, print is a sign of luxury products such as the Restoration Hardware catalog. Yet it still needs to be highly targeted to the audience, just like a digital ad.
Amazon is looking to expand its brand and exploit a marketing opportunity. We need to watch what this digital giant does in the traditional space. Amazon seems to do a great job of zagging while everyone else is zigging.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.