Speechless

I heard the following in a recent conversation with a marketing exec. I would have laughed had the potential consequences not meant that people will probably lose their jobs. I'm going to be a little vague on the details because I don't want to risk the exec's job anymore than it's already at risk.

Here's the story.

A new Chairman had decided he thought the current advertising was old fashioned. He proposed a contest where people would be offered a chance to win thousands of dollars if they visited the website.

Traffic went from 5,000 hits a month to 50,000 hits per month.

Sales however are dropping.

When the exec explained that the traffic was (1) due to the chance at the money, not interest in their product and (2) the contest did not communicate with the brand's target market the Chair's response was some of those 50,000 have to be interested.

This kind of ignorance is so absurd that if you saw it on an episode of The Office you'd think, they went too far.

I am truly at a loss for words.


><(("> Gayle Turner


Gayle is a ><((“> Team Member at Catch Your Limit Consulting, a management and marketing firm with offices in Tallahassee, Florida and Richmond, Virginia. He is a keynote speaker, facilitator, blogger and contributing author for international, national and regional publications. To learn more, visit http://www.catchyourlimit.com/ .