Would you pay $1.68 million for a steak lunch? What if the lunch is with the mercurial investor Warren Buffet! And what if the money goes to a charity and not to the billionaire’s vault or for the restaurant!

I would jump up and say ‘yes’ if I have as much… that is! The additional incentive is that you could also take up to seven friends of yours to dine with the world’s best brain on investing. 

Global recession has an impact on charity events too. This year’s winning bid fell almost 40% short of last year’s record, which is $2.11 million. Record courtesy – Zhao Danyang, an investor from Hong Kong. The previous 9 auctions had raised more than $4.2 million for Glide Foundation, a nonprofit in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district.

News apart, my point of contention is that the past data shows winning bids dramatically improved after Glide moved the bidding process online in 2003. The auctions began in 2000 and the first 3 auctions that were held live didn’t gather big dollars.

Does online event staging poses a serious threat to live events? From the marketing front, is there a big trend that marketers can spot and experiment? What are the conventional marketing activities that you do can be taken online? Get outside the box, compare and contrast the ROIs. You may get as lucky as Glide Foundation!