Misplaced Marketing
Earlier this week, my favorite publisher, Fran Gallagher, discussed Hawaii’s questionable marketing strategies. It is a bit surprising that marketing for something as important and big as Hawaii would be so misguided, but I have seen many inept plans on a smaller scale.
When I worked at (the now defunct) Lerner Newspapers, one of my responsibilities was the distribution of Visitor Guides for certain areas. These guides were jointly produced by Lerner and various Chambers of Commerce or Tourism/Visitors Bureaus.
I would think these guides were meant to attract others to these areas. Instead, most times, The Powers That Be felt the guides should be distributed only in the areas covered. This certainly made distribution easier and quicker, but I doubt it did anything for the economy of the area. Ironically, The Powers That Be would often complain afterward that they didn’t receive any response from the guides, nor did they see any spike in tourism.
Another failed project involved a shopper publication. The newspaper consisted entirely of ads for local stores, many including coupons. I was shocked to learn that The Powers That Be wanted the entire run of the publication to be delivered to local businesses. After a few minutes of this pointless exercise, the project was abandoned based on the lack of consumer response.
How does this happen? I understand there are knuckleheads in every walk of life, but why didn’t someone see the silliness in these two examples?
Of course, on their resumes and in their minds, these projects were probably classified as successes. They probably bragged about their brilliance in promotion and marketing. They might even have parlayed these experiences into better jobs, like maybe at the Hawaiian Visitors Bureau.
– John Wroblewski, distribution specialist
January 6th, 2010 at 11:50 am
Yours and Fran’s are great examples of poor strategies. You’re right, someone should be checking them. Someone should be questioning the logic. Too many people are afraid to speak up and too many powers that be (as you say) like to surround themselves with YES people. I would rather my people question my logic than to have a project failed due to my oversights.
January 6th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Doesn’t it seem as if some companies simply need to spend money to appear that they are doing something, even if the money spent is wasted? Your examples and Fran’s from the other day are typical of pointless marketing of some companies. You’re right, because they either wonder why the project failed or they deem it a success no matter what.
January 6th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
It’s like that everywhere. I worked for a CVB down in Florida. We had 100K guides done. About 25K went to businesses in our area and the rest sat in a warehouse. Ohhh they were precious. We couldn’t use them unless absolutely necessary. Then in December, we still had about 72K in that darn warehouse. Of course, the GM went crazy on us to get them out ASAP, as if it mattered. Of course the next year, the insanity repeated itself.
January 7th, 2010 at 8:42 am
More examples of MGT. doing stuff just to do stuff without thinking it all through.