Are You Experienced?
I think I’m supposed to talk about the Experience Columbus blogger thing that a bunch of us local bloggers were invited to the other night. The event was put together in order to show us big-mouth bloggers the new ad campaign designed to bring more leisure travelers to Columbus. We’re supposed to love it and then use our super-human blogging powers to get the word out to everybody in a 3-hour away radius that Cols is swingin’, baby! It was pretty fun except for the part where somebody without a nametag, read my very fancy pre-printed nametag and said, “So Abby, tell me about Sundays With Stretchy Pants,” and then I peed a little in my pants and said, “Der…I like dis here ice creams.” I didn’t know what to say about SWSP. I’m not a legitimate blogger; they told me there would be ice cream, so I showed up. Also, the lady didn’t have a nametag on and I felt that was rude. Was she above having a nametag? Did she not want strangers walking up to her and calling her by name because that’s just a little bit disconcerting? Uh, yeah, it is. Everybody knows that.
Ok, here are my thoughts on the campaign: I get the joke, and I liked it a lot at first, but now I just think there isn’t enough pointing to what Columbus has to offer. Look at the sidebar ad here. I like that because it makes you wonder where the hell the ad is going and then it pays off with a lot of pretty pictures of some fun things you can do here. The print ads are good, too. The videos? I’m not a fan. I like the premise and I get the joke, but there needs to be more indication of what we can do here. We like flashy, pretty pictures of stuff. Without flashy, pretty pictures of stuff, we find ourselves wondering, “Hm. Where do you suppose that cheese rolling festival is? Is it far from here?” Everybody at the shindig pretty much said all that, but I doubt the ads will change at all. But, we all got free t-shirts and ice cream and brownies (oops, I don’t know where the brownies came from) and mouse pads, so whatevs. And I really love Columbus, even if their youtube channel is kind of lame.
August 2nd, 2008 at 9:49 am
I avoided blogging about it. Maybe I should blog about it. Dang you and Kristen for being all good about blogging about it!!
August 2nd, 2008 at 10:59 am
I ditto pretty much everything you said (though I haven’t blogged about it yet). That woman did the same thing to me, and I pretty much fumbled all over myself telling her that I just started my new blog 5 minutes ago and blah blah blah. I can tell you, though, that her name was also Patti (”with an i”).
August 2nd, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Hmm…now I’m starting to wonder if anyone liked the campaign…
I mean we all liked the t-shirts (which do rock…) but the campaign itself…really not reading much positive about it.
Here’s hoping they practice social media in the truest sense. Listen to the feedback on social media channels and make adjustments accordingly.
August 2nd, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Well I’m ready to come and visit, is the inn full?
August 5th, 2008 at 9:29 am
[...] Elephants on Bicycles This Woman’s Work Green Columbus (Which has a photo of the web site) Sundays with Stretchy Pants Greatest City of All [...]
August 12th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Thank you so much Abby for coming to the blogger event and for providing your honest feedback. It is much appreciated. It was nice to meet you as well. Happy blogging!
August 15th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
Stretchy pants have power. I’m over here by the way of your blog’s mention in The Other Paper and how everyone thought the videos were lame. I toodle on over to YouTube to check them out and they took them down. They “decided to make some changes.” Sad for me. I wanted to post a couple on my blog.
But the good news is you got free ice cream! and brownies!
August 16th, 2008 at 8:48 am
@condo blues Something you should know about me: I would go anywhere for free ice cream and brownies. Anywhere. It sucks that you didn’t get to see the videos, but hopefully they’ll re-work them and you’ll get to see new and improved videos.
Thanks for stopping by.