October 19, 2012
Amazon Goes to School on Growing Kindle Sales
It’s clear that Jeff Bezos learned something from Steve Jobs. Amazon rival Apple had a long history, well before the successes of the iPod, iPhone and iPad, of keeping its products in the conversation through partnerships with school systems across the U.S. Many Americans had their first computing experience in classrooms on an Apple or Mac.
In recent years, Amazon has been introducing Kindles into American classrooms from kindergarten through twelfth grade. The company, which recently confirmed it was selling Kindles at cost, makes the devices available to schools at a bulk discount and helps them provide e-books to students.
On Wednesday, Amazon announced that it was making Whispercast, a free self-service tool for supporting large purchases and distribution of e-books and documents for Kindle devices, available to schools.
"We want to make it as easy as possible for everyone to own a Kindle device. Any time we can make that easier, we do that," Jay Marine, vice president of Kindle product management, told Reuters. "And we have a particular mission to increase reading, especially among kids."
"We started with 2,000 Kindle e-readers at our school and the program has been so successful that we have expanded it beyond our school and now more than 122 schools in the district are using Kindles," said Keith Mastroides, principal at Clearwater High School, in an Amazon press release. "Whispercast gives us the ability to better streamline the process to manage our Kindles and content, so we can continue to grow the program."
- Amazon makes push to get Kindles into U.S. schools – Reuters/Chicago Tribune
- Announcing Whispercast for Kindle – A Free Self-Service Tool for Schools and Businesses to Manage Large Deployments of Kindles and Support Purchase and Distribution of Kindle Books and Documents Across Kindle E-Readers, Kindle Fires and Free Kindle Reading Apps – Amazon.com, Inc./Business Wire
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Recent Discussions
Discussion Questions
How important is Amazon’s school program to the short and long-term growth of the Kindle brand? Are there any potential pitfalls? What lessons are in this for other retailers and consumer brand marketers?
Poll
Get something (anything!) in the kids hands at schools early enough and they’ll nag Mom and Dad so often they’ll end up with one at home. Apple computers starting showing up in our kids classrooms a couple of years ago and presto! We now have them in our home too.
So, it’s a good move for Kindle. And, one that other brands should look at adopting as well.
People have a tendency to stick with what they know. Getting children used to a Kindle will likely lead to many of them asking their parents for one for non-school use.
While it is possible to move eBooks in Amazon’s format to a Nook or other devise, once they have enough books on their Kindle they are unlikely to be willing to move to another devise and lose easy access to their library. The lesson is that if you can get consumers using your products or services early in life they will likely continue to use it.
This is a great move by Amazon. Put Kindles in the hands of students and build a long-term base of users. Apple has successfully done this for years. Few products can be successfully integrated into classrooms, while offering innovative, fun and potentially better ways to learn.
This is exactly what Amazon should be doing. With kids carrying backpacks that are heavier than they are, I’ve been wondering for years, why schools haven’t been spearheading this. This tactic is not only similar to the one Apple took, it’s similar to the plan Gillette had to give soldiers free razors. In turn, they needed to buy refills over time and Gillette earned themselves loyal customers for years to come.
Giving Kindles at cost and streamlining downloads via Whispercast is a great idea. They not only get sales today, but they will create a generation of people who grew up familiar with the Kindle.
The model worked for Apple. Jobs built a young passionate user base that stuck with the brand far beyond their school years. Granted, if Jobs and his team at Apple made poor products, they eventually would have left the platform, but as we know they didn’t.
I think the move by Amazon is brilliant. Teach the youth of America how to read books, buy stuff and watch videos on your platform and as they mature and their purchasing power grows, they will be more likely to use your platform. This assumes Amazon continues to innovate to stay ahead of the competition.
Brands too often neglect the youth of America because they don’t have purchasing power today. What they forget is they someday will, so why not build that relationship early?
Other categories where the nurturing of young adults could help brand loyalty long term: Mobile phone manufacturers (Motorola), Investment houses (Merrill Lynch) and Car manufactures (Ford) to name a few.
Pitfall of the approach is someone comes in and completely changes the model and you aren’t prepared. Example, Kodak. They spent millions in schools preparing children to love the Kodak Brand. Digital images changed the model and as we know the story did not end well for Kodak.
Very important! Kindle has been a boon for “book readers” who are dying much faster than they can be replaced. To get these devices in schools where reading is kind of mandatory is a must. If kids see kindle as THE way to read a book and Amazon makes books cheap, easy to access, and FUN, then Kindle will become the Kleenex of the tablet world. And it would seem this is fine with Bezos, who isn’t interested in hardware profits because he knows the e-book profit potential is huge. This is his way of sneaking by Apple, who’s iPad is an economic loser compared to Kindle at a cost under $150 compared to a school version of the iPad at $300. This will be very interesting to watch!
Amazon.com is making a brilliant move to get the young generation using Kindle. They want the kids to grow up with a Kindle, making it a part of their lives and culture.
Introducing technology and processes through education channels is an extremely effective strategy. High technology companies such as Hewlett Packard used this strategy very effectively back in the late ’70s when I was an engineering student. They ‘placed’ their analyzers into these research incubators. I knew several graduate students that were hired in large part because of the fact they knew how to use an HP analyzer.
Implementing easy access to both the device (Kindle) and content will be a very effective marketing and sales strategy. There is no doubt that select consumer brand marketers should explore this strategy with keen diligence. This is obviously not for everyone, but with the need (and expectation) for new technology for our future generations along with the need to revolution and inspire our out-of-date education system, innovative brands should be exploring this strategy as a meaningful way to inspire and develop ‘customers-for-life’.
This is a great idea/program. Anything we, as a country, can do to improve reading among the young students will go a long way to making them productive leaders in the future. This will help us regain some of the educational losses we have suffered.
Very important move for Amazon! Hit the kids early and often. The first experience of technology for most kids may be at school and if they like it….
Okay kids, instead of buying all these books that can’t fit in your backpack anyway, here is a free or subsidized Kindle.
I love this move!
Smart move! This continues the effort to get Kindles in front of young people, helps literacy using modern technology and provides schools with a benefit. Win-win-win.
What a great idea! Companies have long tried to get their products into the hands of kids to get them “hooked.” But when the product is reading, a lot of folks will help rather than standing in the way!
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Get something (anything!) in the kids hands at schools early enough and they’ll nag Mom and Dad so often they’ll end up with one at home. Apple computers starting showing up in our kids classrooms a couple of years ago and presto! We now have them in our home too.
So, it’s a good move for Kindle. And, one that other brands should look at adopting as well.
People have a tendency to stick with what they know. Getting children used to a Kindle will likely lead to many of them asking their parents for one for non-school use.
While it is possible to move eBooks in Amazon’s format to a Nook or other devise, once they have enough books on their Kindle they are unlikely to be willing to move to another devise and lose easy access to their library. The lesson is that if you can get consumers using your products or services early in life they will likely continue to use it.
This is a great move by Amazon. Put Kindles in the hands of students and build a long-term base of users. Apple has successfully done this for years. Few products can be successfully integrated into classrooms, while offering innovative, fun and potentially better ways to learn.
This is exactly what Amazon should be doing. With kids carrying backpacks that are heavier than they are, I’ve been wondering for years, why schools haven’t been spearheading this. This tactic is not only similar to the one Apple took, it’s similar to the plan Gillette had to give soldiers free razors. In turn, they needed to buy refills over time and Gillette earned themselves loyal customers for years to come.
Giving Kindles at cost and streamlining downloads via Whispercast is a great idea. They not only get sales today, but they will create a generation of people who grew up familiar with the Kindle.
The model worked for Apple. Jobs built a young passionate user base that stuck with the brand far beyond their school years. Granted, if Jobs and his team at Apple made poor products, they eventually would have left the platform, but as we know they didn’t.
I think the move by Amazon is brilliant. Teach the youth of America how to read books, buy stuff and watch videos on your platform and as they mature and their purchasing power grows, they will be more likely to use your platform. This assumes Amazon continues to innovate to stay ahead of the competition.
Brands too often neglect the youth of America because they don’t have purchasing power today. What they forget is they someday will, so why not build that relationship early?
Other categories where the nurturing of young adults could help brand loyalty long term: Mobile phone manufacturers (Motorola), Investment houses (Merrill Lynch) and Car manufactures (Ford) to name a few.
Pitfall of the approach is someone comes in and completely changes the model and you aren’t prepared. Example, Kodak. They spent millions in schools preparing children to love the Kodak Brand. Digital images changed the model and as we know the story did not end well for Kodak.
Very important! Kindle has been a boon for “book readers” who are dying much faster than they can be replaced. To get these devices in schools where reading is kind of mandatory is a must. If kids see kindle as THE way to read a book and Amazon makes books cheap, easy to access, and FUN, then Kindle will become the Kleenex of the tablet world. And it would seem this is fine with Bezos, who isn’t interested in hardware profits because he knows the e-book profit potential is huge. This is his way of sneaking by Apple, who’s iPad is an economic loser compared to Kindle at a cost under $150 compared to a school version of the iPad at $300. This will be very interesting to watch!
Amazon.com is making a brilliant move to get the young generation using Kindle. They want the kids to grow up with a Kindle, making it a part of their lives and culture.
Introducing technology and processes through education channels is an extremely effective strategy. High technology companies such as Hewlett Packard used this strategy very effectively back in the late ’70s when I was an engineering student. They ‘placed’ their analyzers into these research incubators. I knew several graduate students that were hired in large part because of the fact they knew how to use an HP analyzer.
Implementing easy access to both the device (Kindle) and content will be a very effective marketing and sales strategy. There is no doubt that select consumer brand marketers should explore this strategy with keen diligence. This is obviously not for everyone, but with the need (and expectation) for new technology for our future generations along with the need to revolution and inspire our out-of-date education system, innovative brands should be exploring this strategy as a meaningful way to inspire and develop ‘customers-for-life’.
This is a great idea/program. Anything we, as a country, can do to improve reading among the young students will go a long way to making them productive leaders in the future. This will help us regain some of the educational losses we have suffered.
Very important move for Amazon! Hit the kids early and often. The first experience of technology for most kids may be at school and if they like it….
Okay kids, instead of buying all these books that can’t fit in your backpack anyway, here is a free or subsidized Kindle.
I love this move!
Smart move! This continues the effort to get Kindles in front of young people, helps literacy using modern technology and provides schools with a benefit. Win-win-win.
What a great idea! Companies have long tried to get their products into the hands of kids to get them “hooked.” But when the product is reading, a lot of folks will help rather than standing in the way!