Sorry, We Are Not In Right Now

Hi,

Thanks for checking out our blog, we really appreciate it.

However, our blog has moved to http://travel2dot0.wordpress.com/

Sorry that you have to visit another site to find us, but it is worth it...we have all of our 'classic' posts and comments on the new blog, plus a ton of new thoughts and ideas.

Why are we moving? Basically, Blogger failed us and never responded to our emails and requests. A clear example of poor customer service...too bad, we liked Blogger.

Come over and see us on the new blog.

Regards,
Troy and Mo

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Bloggers? We Don't Need No Stinkin' Bloggers!


Target to the blogosphere: you’re irrelevant. That was the message the cheap-chic retailer seemed to convey in an abrupt e-mail message to ShapingYouth.org, a blog about the impact of marketing on children. Early this month, the blog’s founder, Amy Jussel, called Target, complaining about a new advertising campaign that depicted a woman splayed across a big target pattern — the retailer’s emblem — with the bull’s-eye at her crotch.

“Targeting crotches with a bull’s-eye is not the message we should be putting out there,” she said in an e-mail interview. Target offered an e-mail response: “Unfortunately we are unable to respond to your inquiry because Target does not participate with nontraditional media outlets,” a public relations person wrote to ShapingYouth. >>Full Story

Author's Note: Not travel related but very relevant.

Thoughts// While this story is not as egregious as the infamous Wal-Mart "flog" (If you're not familiar with it, read about it here), it is nevertheless one that leaves you very confused. For all the buzz about the "conversation economy" and engagement with your audience, Target is apparently not currently using new media (at least blogs) to reach out to consumers.

I concede that monitoring the blogosphere—not completely unlike traditional media monitoring—can be exhaustive, time consuming and unpredictable due to the the difficulty in gauging the
honesty, integrity and accuracy of a particular blogger. However the blogosphere is a microcosm of the real world; what people say about you and your products matter; this is all the more important when the person doing the talking (or blogger) is reputable. Not acknowledging, monitoring or participating in a medium that is a real time pulse of consumers is puzzling indeed.

Or perhaps we all have it wrong. Maybe Target does see the value of new media and is using the question from ShapingYouth to spark a firestorm of conversation in the blogs about the brand? Now that would be turning a challenge into an opportunity!

Curious about how Arizona and Oregon monitors online conversations? Read the two part blog, "Tracking Your Social Media & Blogosphere Presence" from the Trend Report in November.

Editor's Note: We could not resist adding a photo from the 'The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.' For more, read the history of the 'stinking badges' line on Wikipedia.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for your post.

Interesting to see DMO's guy in the blog space

Check out the T-List group on Facebook, could be interesting you participate
http://tinyurl.com/2nzl47

Best regards from France

Claude

Troy said...

Bonjour Claude,

Thank you for the comments, we appreciate them.

It is a bit odd to have peers from a DMO posting on a blog (especially two government employees), but as we have said in the past, we felt there was a need within the DMO industry (and parts of the travel industry) to have a voice from the inside. To give our DMO peers real advice and tips when it comes to new interactive technology. To provide answers, not just more questions.

So far, the response has been fantastic.

We will certainly check out the T-List group, I have actually been looking and reading about the group for the past few weeks.

Regards from Arizona,
Troy