marketing

Archived Posts from this Category

September 23, 2010

Got Dairy?

Posted by Grendel's Mother under marketing, travel, Uncategorized
Leave a Comment 

Last week I travelled to Dallas, Texas to attend the International Dairy Show. I spent the last nine months working on promoting the show and got to see it come to fruition. My clients are really fun, smart people so it’s been a great experience working with them and learning about the dairy industry. And while this show is targeted to processors and packagers, there was plenty of food tasting to be had. The ingredients folks are there—giving away samples of new flavors. I was loving the funnel cake ice cream.

I felt like a kid walking the show floor. I got to meet Chester Cheetah and the Nestle Quick Bunny. I got my picture taken at the Got Milk? booth. Yup, I’ve got a milk mustache photo of me on the fridge now. Then there was the flipbook booth. I donned some silly glasses and hat and danced with maracas while holding a sign that says “single and looking.” It was turned into a book where you flip the pages quickly making it look like a movie clip. Got to get that for my other clients!

What’s that you say? Did I work? Yes, and I’ve got blisters to prove it. I interviewed lots and lots of people for a video I’ll be working on later. I got an extensive tour of a cold delivery truck, and detailed lectures about a clean seal bottling machine-thingy, a new kind of packaging machine, a cow-milking type machine, and some food-safety technology. I also ran some focus groups (that can be another topic altogether), tried some funky tea, and heard President Bush speak.  

So, lots of fun was had at the Dairy Show. Next year we’ll be combining some peaches and cream and heading to Atlanta. Oh, and as my long-delayed flight neared home I looked out the window and saw a view of the Big Dipper that I’ve never seen before. It was so low on the horizon that it looked like it was even with the plane. Cool. Irrelevant to this post (except maybe I was dreaming of a big ice cream scooper), but cool.

I’m back now and going to try to lose the weight I gained. The new thing now is yogurt. Not quite as good as strawberry milk, yummy cheese cubes on forks, ice cream samples, and cream cheese, but it’ll have to do. Off to work on my other clients—just as important, I just wish they had cooking demonstrations in their exhibit halls!

Yummy cheese samples

 

Chester Cheetah

 

Yogurt samples

 

The milking machine

 

January 16, 2010

Did you hear the one about…?

Posted by Grendel's Mother under God, marketing, travel
Leave a Comment 
It’s so easy to put something out there on the Internet and have people believe it. On Facebook for example, there have been a number of times I’ve seen people put in their status, a comment that had been said by someone else. They just copied and pasted and passed it along. There is a name for that. It’s called gossip. And not just gossip but opinions, reviews, travel descriptions—all based on someone’s perspective. I’ve been guilty of passing those Facebook status things along. How about you?

 

I was thinking about the trip my parents and I took last summer to Canada. And recently I found some comments online about this place we visited—Frontier Village in Sault Ste. Marie. If you read my post on it, I stated that it was a couple of shops, a fry stand, and ice cream place with some wooden statues of Wild West characters scattered around. We missed it several times (it was right on the side of the big highway) and even asked for directions to it from a local who gave us a weird look. But, here is how two Web sites describe it.
  • Frontier Village vividly recreates life in the nineteenth century. 
  • Visit Frontier Village and catch a glimpse of what Sault Ste. Marie looked like in the 1800s. There is a collection of stores, restaurants, and craft shops associated with the era. Life-size woodcarvings depict scenes from the Old West.

Nice. Makes me want to seek out this place. Oh wait. I did. Was it fun? Yes. But only because of how the reality of it compared to the descriptions. See below and you tell me.

I remember once I was writing some marketing copy for an upcoming conference and found a great quote about San Diego on some Web site. My boss asked me to confirm it and after looking for the source, found that the source of the quote had gone out of business long ago and the quote had been used over and over again by various organizations such as mine. We had each found something online and took it for granted that it was the truth because it was posted on some Web site.

I find it interesting that it’s so easy for us to believe rumors or what the media tells us and yet so many doubt or even refute the truth of Jesus. Why do we put blinders on to something so wonderful and yet accept lies and deceit so easily? It’s sad but I guess it’s just human nature. I often pray to God to help me stop and pull the plank out of my eye before telling another about their splinter.

I am a professional marketer and it’s my job to persuade people to purchase products or register for events. But I have found that I can be successful by telling the truth. If you feel like you have to stretch the truth or lie in order to sell something, then why are you standing behind it? Just a thought.

Well, I’m off to read some travel brochures. They say this place in Nova Scotia has great whale watching and that it’s the most beautiful scenery in the world. Hmmmm. 

the Wild West at Frontier Village

Characters at Frontier Village

The trading post at Frontier Village

Frontier Village depicts what life was like in the 1800s

The totem pole at Frontier Village

The Old West dudes and the fry stand

Canadian humor

 

November 21, 2009

People all over the world, join hands.

Posted by Grendel's Mother under God, kindness, Love, marketing
Leave a Comment 

I have a topic today that’s really kind of an amalgam of several observations that come together in a theme. It’s what I like to do—see patterns and try to make sense of them. So the other day I saw the latest Gap commercial on TV and I thought back to my grad school days when I (and my group) wrote a paper and gave a presentation on the GAP commercials for our advertising class. I really do love seeing the new commercials GAP comes up with each year. They are so creative and fun and I think they do a fantastic job of creating positive awareness of the brand. And I’m sure they have helped increase revenue.

This year’s commercial is about cheer—and the commercial is kind of like a cheerleading song and dance. There have been a few favorites over the years. I loved the Gap Khaki Country and the one that initiated a revival of swing dancing. But I think my favorite is the one that uses the Love Train song. You can see the commercial below.

So the Love Train thing led me to think about the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. My friend posted a challenge on Facebook which I then forwarded to my friends whom I am sure forwarded on to their friends. The challenge was to update your status every day with something you are thankful for. It’s a beautiful way to live, really. It’s easy to get caught up in misery or the stressful parts of our life, especially now. To make it a point to think about the wonderful gifts God gives us and to praise Him for it makes you think about how good our lives are.

This also got me thinking about how wonderful these social media sites are and how much good we can accomplish through them. We can spread positive messages, help people in need, educate people about important issues, and share our love for each other all through the social media love trains.

See, I told you I was going to pull a bunch of things out of the air and come up with a theme. Spreading love, gratitude, happiness, and goodwill. That’s a pretty good theme. Today I am thankful that all of you are reading this and that I can voice my opinion without the fear of oppression.

 

 

 

« Previous Page — Next Page »