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Tag Archive for: community
Dear Montréal, We’re Stealing Mural Festival. Sincerely, The City of Regina.
Dearest Montréal,
We here on the prairies have grown quite fond of some of the pleasantries your fine cultured citizens have the pleasure of enjoying year on year. We feel it is our duty to inform you that we will be politely (and with the utmost respect) be stealing your Mural Festival as well as a few other ideas from your wildly addictive city.
Your streets are nothing short of beautiful. We intend to do the same to our fair city in due time. Not only do I want to steal the idea of the Mural Festival, I want to take back to Regina a few other parts of Montréal.
Thank you Montréal for your cooperation and willingness to share in your Mural Festival. We from the City of Regina (unofficially), thank you in advance for your consideration of this request.
A Regina citizen that appreciates your fine city.
First of all Montréal is 375 years old, yeah that’s older than our country! So you can assume Montréal is doing something right, otherwise it wouldn’t be around. There’s a lot of history there, a lot of history this author had no idea about. The people are proud of their rich cultural heritage, far more than I witness on the prairies. It’s about time to start that rich, cultural, artistic, prairie heritage.
If we want to become a major destination in Canada we need to believe we can be a major destination in Canada.
What you want? CHEESEBURGER!! CHEESEBURGER!!
They Get Hospitality and Customer Service – fast service is a win-win
You don’t wait for meals very long at all. Be it crêpes, burgers, or a famous smoked meat sandwich, the service in most places in Montréal was remarkable. They are FAST! Sometimes you are served literally in minutes after ordering. This is a huge win-win! The restaurants like to have more people through their doors and customers don’t want to stay in one place too long. Serving meals fast is a way to impress customers and help your bottom line!
The “cooler” the dining experience the better your odds of success
Montréal really gets outdoor dining. Patios, terraces, tables in the middle of nowhere, some of the most romantic places to share a meal with someone are in the most unique places. We can easily steal this idea. We just need to talk to the City of Regina about allowing dining establishments more leniency on “where” they can setup tables to serve you. “Creating Instagramable Moments”.
Does It Cost To Get In? Nope.
Never short on fun (free) things to do
We went on a Tuesday till a Saturday and there was the Mural Festival, The Francofolies Festival, as well as a beer fest going on near by. They were all free to attend. That means the organizers must have some great funding to be able to put on acts like that throughout the week. The Mural Festival was an entire street blocked off and shops, restaurants, and artistic acts lining the way. Amazing art pieces now cover the not so boring concrete jungle most cities become.
There’s a free app called Cite Memoire that tells the history of old Montréal in 22 different projections telling the history of Montréal. Some of these projections were literally hundreds of feet in the air and you could only see them after a certain at night (had to check the app). They were breathtaking. Talk about “creating Instagramable moments” what a smart idea!
Got street art?
It’s beautiful just to walk around, the Street Art is amazing
Many of the most spectacular ones were from last year and 2015, Mural Festival is a way to keep making your city more artistically beautiful. The amount of tourists walking around snapping pictures of the Murals was also amazing (guilty!). What a brilliant way to make your city more beautiful, once a year hold a “mural fest” invite famous artists from around the world, and BOOM, every year there are more places with stunning art for everyone to enjoy.
The New Age Marketing Rap | Edgar Alan Poems Vol 1
Everyone thinks they understand the marketing game.
But when you see their work, they’re so afraid to go against the grain.
“It doesn’t work on me”, everyone thinks they understand advertising.
Then they only buy pop-culture products by name brands, to me that’s not surprising.
The marketing world has been based on selling more eye balls, I need more exposure, more impressions, more branding!
The smart companies know that if they spend more on Customer service and making a better product, when the smoke clears they will be the ones left standing.
We’re about to enter the marketing war, you have no choice in this matter.
But it’s not about a bigger megaphone to try and create more useless banter.
That’s what we don’t like, your boring message that’s supposedly tailored to my “demographic”.
Really you don’t care about my opinion of your product, you’re making a feeble attempt at increasing your website traffic.
The war of traditional versus the future, we’ve seen this battle before.
Older people don’t like to change but the younger generation can hardly wait for what’s in store.
Agencies have ruled over the marketing world for long enough, I wonder how they’re going to adapt.
When you work for one and offer an idea outside TV, radio, or print, you’re bound to get your hand slapped.
“Recommend billboards or TV, we make a quick 15% off every ad we sell!”
It’s this mentality at agencies that makes me think their business model is about to go through hell.
Monetize the website, monetize the Facebook, monetize our blog!
Figure how much profit we can make, heck put our logo on that dog!
You think I hate mass media, commercials are bad and have no use for the newspaper.
It’s not the medium, it never was, it’s your attitude I have a problem with, you sound like Don Draper.
You assume people want to hear about what your company has to say.
But for 98% of us we could care less about your company while going about our day to day.
Stop trying to get more exposure and stop interrupting me while I listen, watch and read.
Focus on the 2% and make sure you’re there the second your service is in need.
Have a conversation with your customers and realize you need feedback to grow.
Your other option is to listen to no one and change nothing, this last opportunity you will inevitably blow.
As marketing budgets get slashed and business models turned upside down, bankruptcy is no longer the “unthinkable”.
If you don’t want to adapt, if you don’t change the course. Always remember the titanic was touted as being unsinkable.
Experience will tells us it’s too risky to change, “focus on your strengths, don’t follow fads”.
Instagram and Snapchat seem like effort, it’s much easier just to buy ads.
Now here’s your warning, I’m delighted to let you know.
If you ignore the conversation and keep interrupting us, it’ll start to show.
You’ll alienate your loudest customers and they’ll be sure to let everyone know,
what an ignorant company you are and to your competition they’ll go.
The companies that will win have something you can’t get from an agency.
A dedicated tribe of people who care dearly about your company.
So fire the marketing department and hire a philanthropist or nine.
Begin your tribe by telling your story to the world online.
Written in January 27, 2012. Originally titled “The Marketing Rap”.
FREE Downloadable Business Stock Photography Vol 2
“Didn’t we bet you couldn’t go a week without wearing suspenders?”
“Guilty!”
Stock photography is cluttered with people wearing things that no one in their right mind would ever wear to the office. The ol Jean and suspenders combination? Ain’t nobody got time for that!
What Do You When You Have a Bad Day? // eps 46 #InTheLab
We had a really intense discussion in our office the other day and the question was asked, what do you do when you have a bad day?
(Other than play that catchy Daniel Powter song by the same name)
We had varied answers but what was interesting was that everyone could relate, everyone has bad days. No one is immune from bad days, EVERYONE has them. Everybody. So to figure out what to do about a bad day seems like something we all should talk about.
How The Golden Rule Applies To Your Social Media Strategy // eps 45 #InTheLab
How The Golden Rule Applies To Your Social Media Strategy
Common sense is not so common when it comes to social media. “Businesses act too much like businesses online” – Conrad Hewitt
Conrad shares with us why he thinks a lot of companies get it wrong with it comes to social media and their online marketing presence. Running accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram he sees it all right now and from the sounds of it he’s not happy! It’s easy to sound professional and to echo “business jargon”, it’s hard to create a personality that people come to like and trust.
It’s hard to argue against developing a personality online with so many local examples (@ReginaPolice, @KiltedBroker, @Eric_Dillon, @BradWall, @Nenshi). All these folks don’t exactly “follow the rules” when it comes to social and their fans absolutely adore it. Don’t take yourself (or your business) to seriously online.
With the amount of options we all have to buy what you are selling from someone else, you have to figure out a way to cut through the clutter. Being different is now the safest thing your brand can be.
The Big Idea Camp Aftermath!!! || eps 27 #InTheLab
We did it. A summer camp for one day, 5 challenges, six students competed in the craziest, widlest, most fun business challenges. In the end we had to crown one winning team.
Caring as a Business Strategy – #InTheLab Episode #4
As I step up onto my soap box, disgusted with the way some folks are running their business, I look to the future of our world where we support the companies who are growing our community and we avoid like the plague businesses just out to make money.