The Marketing Fail at the Mall

Hello wonderful people!

Hope you all are well. I wanted to inform you of what not to do when marketing a store launch!

So I was wondering through the mall trying to get my phone fixed and I came across this…

Now I am a very curious person so I walked around the ENTIRE wrap looking for a name and well guess what I found.

NOTHING.

Not a single name anywhere!

I am sorry but if I have to go to the help desk in the mall to find out who you are then well the strategy is not working. At all.

I did a little digging and apparently this company, Hyba is owned by Reitmans. You can check out their collection here. You’d think with the success Reitmans had with their funny marketing campaign from a few years back they would know how to market properly but I guess I was wrong. Sigh.

Anyway! It is time for yoga. Enjoy your day!

-M

Experience Friday

Hey everyone,

This week has been long and draining. Emotions ran high and stress levels jumped through the roof as the work load begins to increase. Here is what I learned.

No matter how awful the week is carve out some ‘you’ time. Do what you need to do to stay happy, calm and healthy. For me that is yoga. The biggest thing I learned this week is that no matter how awful the world is, you will always be welcome in child’s pose for as long as you need. Big shout out to Studio 330 for being awesome!

Yoga itself has taught me a lot about life and myself. For one, breathe. Breathe through the stretch, breathe through life and the challenges you face and remember that all stretches should be felt and there is nothing wrong with pushing deeper if that is what you need.

School work is an amazing distraction from real life. Sometimes I am just tired of people and all the emotions surrounding me right now and my school work is the best place to hide. Word documents don’t talk back.

There will always be people you lean on and then there will be the people who have no idea what is going on in your life but their presence alone will make the day better and the challenges seem smaller. For me that is my Ambassador’s team. No matter what we face in our lives, for an hour a week all that matters are the 5 people in that board room working to better our program and there is something very magical about that time. We are a family.

Also, Tide to Go is an amazing life saving device that EVERY human needs.

Go out and do something good for YOU today. Ill be at yoga if anyone needs me.

-M

Something Special!

So I know I had 2 posts promised for this weekend but seeing as this weekend is well an important weekend to me and WordPress I will delay the posts a day or two! Check back tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday for 3 new posts!

Anyway the exciting news is this!

I have been apart of the WordPress family for a whole year now! I could not be more excited for that! I have grown a lot over the past year and well I am so excited to be able to see what this next year brings.

Thank you all for a fantastic year and here is to another one.

-M

The Magic of the Data Base

Hey y’all!

This week in my direct marketing class we have been learning all about data base software and the important service they provide. Yes, I tried very hard to not fall asleep. But it is important stuff. I swear I won’t bore you with the details I will however talk about something really cool that happened to me.

I am getting some awful cold and whenever I feel it coming on I dash to my tea shelf and pull out Cold 911. It is this amazing tea from David’s Tea that is full of awesome stuff including peppermint and juniper berries and trust me this is amazing. I had 2 cups yesterday and I feel almost back to normal today. That being said I did call it a night pretty early yesterday but that is not the point.

Anyway, when I went to find some on Monday I realized I was fresh out of my little savior as was Skipper so off I went to David’s Tea to stock us both up. I used my super handy Frequent Steeper loyalty card during my purchase a carried on my merry way.

Side note: Anyone who shops at David’s Tea NEEDS one of these cards. They are amazing!

Today I opened my email to find a little surprise. An email from David’s Tea letting me know about their Cold Season package full of all kinds of good things for those of us who are all stuffed up. Yes it could be a coincidence but I would like to blame our friend the Data Base.

Because I used my lovely loyalty card that tracks my purchase history and all that information is likely sent into a data base that helps David’s Tea target specific messages to specific customers. So thanks to my recent purchase at their store I received my lovely informative email!

So there my friends is the magic of the Data Base!

No, my teacher did not assign or pay me for this post, I swear!

-M

Experience Friday. The Summer Time Edition.

It has been a ride. I have done so much in 4 short months. I have grown and changed. I had an amazing time and truthfully I can’t wait to get back to school and learn more this year. This program has done so much for me and I made the best decision to come to SLC.

To start I am going to do a quick numbers recap. Hold on

In 4 months…

2 jobs
4 provinces
6 cities
2 campgrounds
5 trails (hiked to many times to count)
4 beaches
4 ‘hellos’
6 ‘goodbyes’
1 social media meltdown
and 1 unforgettable Kenny Chesney concert

I have really done it all. But what have I learned?

Disconnecting is important

I am the person who will/would spend every second I could working but that is not healthy. PEI, Camping, Hiking, and Skipper have shown me that I do my best work when I have had time away from the work. I hope I can add that into my school year and become more successful because of it.

Social Media will make you honest

This summer I saw how fantastic social media can be but I also saw the dark side of it and how as much as it is fantastic, it also gives people power. It lets them be faceless. All of a sudden they can say whatever they want from behind a computer and feel invincible regardless of how horrible/hurtful their words can be. So my advice? Don’t give people the chance to hurt you. Stay honest and stay true to you. And always always always be aware of the things you are posting online.

Work hard and good things will come your way.

At the beginning of the summer I was worried about where I would be working in the fall. I was told this was a summer job only and then well the web designer left us and all the responsibility fell onto my small shoulders. I am now happy to say that my hard work and ability to adjust and wear many hats has lead to me keeping my job for the school year and as long as I would like to.

Be kind and patient.

Being 19 in a world that is still young with computes means that well I was not an old dog needing to learn new tricks. I was the puppy, eager and wanting to play with them and that has meant that I am the most fluent in my office where everyone is 20+ years my senior. This means that I get a lot of what I would consider basic questions and you can’t get annoyed or put them down because they can’t convert a PDF or reset passwords because I don’t know a lot about the business world or have the deep experience they do. The best way to tap into that knowledge is to form a partnership and be patient.

Be professional.

This is my last point and I cannot stress this enough. You MUST be professional. At 19 many of my peers and occasionally me as well have been known to have a lot of fun being young, which is fine and expected but you have to clean up your act in the office the next day. Act mature. Act like  grown up and present yourself in a way that well makes you reliable and a needed addition to any team. Don’t be the co worker who was caught smoking pot in the washroom. No one wants to hire that guy.

Trying something new!

Hey all!

So Skipper and I went camping last weekend and well I am trying my hand at a campsite review for work! And well because Bon Echo is amazing.

Wanna read it? Click here

-M

Serena Williams: Why I Love her Momentum.

This past week we have seen a lot of Miss Williams, not in a tennis match (although maybe she had one, I could not tell you) but in two new ad campaigns. One by Gatorade and the other by Beats By Dre. Now before I get into why I love Serena and why these ads are so perfect I want to say, I know sweet all about tennis. Sure I did the gym unit in high school that I was required to but to be honest its an all girls gym class in the tenth grade. How much do you think I actually learned? So this post will be about Serena as a person and someone I admire.

I have a lot of respect for her, she is a powerful women both on and off the court. I love it. I love her confidence and the fact that she does not give a flying crap what anyone else thinks about her and her body. At least that’s what it looks like to me.

In the Gatorade spot we see her growing up and her rise to success in the tennis world. It talks about her power and well just how much of a roll model she is. This one wins the match in my humble opinion by showing such a positive power.

Then we flip over to the Beats By Dre spot. This one in my opinion has missed the mark. It isn’t believable. We hear the haters talking about Serena in a way that just doesn’t match her current success. It feels force. That being said I really love her outfit so…

Take a look for yourself!

Experience Wednesday…

It has been a while dear readers. I am sorry for that but a lot has gone on. This will be one of my last experience posts of the summer. I am sure I will continue this into the fall as I am staying on at my “summer job”!

But I will first catch you up on the wild and crazy experiences of this old soul!

So! We had a slight social media melt down 2 weeks ago regarding a comment my boss had made that was blown wickedly out of proportion. Now, on top of many things like how awful people can really be when sitting behind a key board, I also learned that I will NEVER work in PR. It is a very hard job and no matter what you do people are going to be screaming for your head to be on a spike. Many I’ve been watching to much Reign lately but it’s true. They all come running with torches and pitch forks while safely sitting behind their key boards.

An old friend of mine came to visit this past week and that taught me a lot about myself and life in general. I have changed a lot since moving to Ontario. I guess moving when you’re 16 while in your developmental years means that you will change and grow. I am not the same person I was at 16 and that is for the better. I have amazing friends here and I have built a life for myself that will make leaving very hard. The one thing I did realize is that leaving Saskatchewan was the best thing my parents ever did for me. The friend is exactly the same as she use to be. And no disrespect to her, it is all a personal choice and one that I will never judge but I did change and I grew up and embraced my new life with open arms and that now means that our friendship isn’t the same that it use to be. Many that is for the best, it is hard to say right now.

I realized while she was here just how lucky I truly am to have what I do. I have this amazing life that I built with amazing people. I am blessed to have the opportunity to attend a college with the support my parents have so kindly given me. That’s not to say my life is this magical fairy world with no challenges but compared to many I have none.

My yoga practice has taken off nicely and trust me you learn more about your body during a 75 minute class than you ever wanted to know. But it gives you building blocks for your life from breathing exercises that will get you through any exam ever to remembering that you can’t change everything but you can sure stretch it out.

So all in all it has been a very eventful 2 weeks and I cannot wait to find out what is in store for me in the very near future.