I got a Christmas present from our promotional goods company. It's a cardboard desk calendar. Yep, it is the one in the picture. (The name of the company has been blurred on purpose. And note the handy telephone index that is under the calendar.)
Now, I don't mean to be ungrateful because this company provides great service and good quality items. Yet, as I took these pictures with my I-Phone, I wondered who uses these anymore. My grandmother always had one in her kitchen. Shes' been dead for 20 years and they were out-dated then.
More importantly, I wondered why you would send something like this to your clients – as a gift. The message is "hey, this doesn't cost us much and we're getting our name out. Don't say we never sent you anything." It's all about them. It's not remotely about me.
Holding the calendar in my hands, I felt like I was in an episode of Mad Men, the AMC series about ad agencies in the 1960s because this is very 1960s. But it is not retro-cool. It's old. It's tired. It's useless. It's a mistake.
However, it got me thinking about what marketing techniques we use that might be all about us and that are old, tired, and useless. Hmmm.
Is this a case that we keep doing what we have always done without thinking if it still makes sense?
Posted by: bvgirl | December 05, 2008 at 11:44 AM