Welcome to Winnipeg Target and Bullseye!

Targets mission statement is “to deliver outstanding value, continuous innovation, and an exceptional shopping experience and to make Target our preferred shopping destination.”

How are they going to make Winnipeggers feel that they are going to have this?  By promoting it! 

Target is a one stop shop that allows you to pick up all of your household needs and more. 

 Target needs to get out the word and to do this successfully they will have to have many events to promote it as they have many target audiences; from families all the way to seniors. 

One of the major events that I would do would be a family fun day which will have activities that the whole family can do.  Bring in Bullseye (the mascot) for everyone to meet have face painting, cotton candy, and games and rides for the children to do.  I would also have the Target race car there with Juan Pablo Montoya (the driver of the race car) signing autographs and promoting Target.  This will bring in people from the community and will allow them to see that Target wants to be known for being part of the community.

Another event would be a gala where people attending would have to buy tickets, all the money for these tickets would be donated to a charity that Target invests in.  This event would have a red carpet and would also have Bullseye.  It would have a fashion show, music and dancing and an auction with prizes from the store.  This would allow some of the people in the fashion industry what Target has to offer as well as other people that have different interests other then the family.

I would also have Bullseye doing some major events around the time that it was opening as this would also be another great time for Target to get its name out.  Bullseye has some pictures that I have noticed that he is wearing a racing suit so I would contact Red River Coop Speedway and see if I would be able to get Bullseye to come to one of their events where you could meet him have gift certificates to win and watch racing I would also get Juan Pablo Montoya to come out with his race car and have him signing autographs.  This will also promote Winnipeg’s race track which is part of the community.

There is so much that Target can do to promote itself and I cannot wait to see what they do as the possibilities are endless!

NHL and players association get back to bargaining table

http://www.ctvnews.ca/sports/nhl-and-players-association-get-back-to-bargaining-table-1.1023186#commentsForm-340560

With us hearing the same news over and over again does it make us feel better or worse?  Do we want to be educated and see the behind the scenes of who is really being greedy and who really wants to play hockey? 

We are being educated and as the public we need to look at the big picture.  Just getting the Jets back to Winnipeg was so exciting and energizing, but with everything going on, how much money has been lost, not only to the Jets but to the establishments that were built around our new arena, an arena that was sold out. 

It’s time to get back to the table and look at the big picture rebuilding.  We all know that they want more money but cities are suffering and fans are being lost, it’s going to cost a lot more money to repair the damage that they have caused.  

Ben and Jerry's Schweddy Balls wasn't funny at all!

Ben and Jerry’s thought that doing an ice cream after a Saturday Night Live skit wasn’t going to cause any type of hype they were wrong.   Why is the name Schweddy balls causing so much media attention  and leaving such a bad taste in the “American Family Association Group” mouth? 

When Ben and Jerry launched this ice cream I am sure that they were thinking that it was going to be funny and everyone would associate it to Saturday Night Live, there was a cow on the container with a  Saturday Night Live t-shirt on it.  The spokesman Sean Greenwood said:  "We've always been a company that has had a sense of humor," he said. Sometimes, he said, they spend time discussing serious business and other times "we just do fun."

Ben and Jerry’s have released other ice cream names in the past that have been questionable think hubby hubby (a reference to gay marriages), Karmel Sutra and Black and Tan (a reference to the infamous police force that burned down chunks of Ireland in the 1920’s). 

Although they had fun coming up with the name who wanted to eat the ice cream that tastes like Schweddy Balls?  Sure its ice cream with rum and malt balls what could be wrong with that?  But think about it nobody wants to eat ice cream after thinking about Schweddy Balls.

We will never know if they did RACE (Research/Assessment/Communication/Evaluation), but if they would have looked more into Schweddy Balls they could have saved themselves some time, money and effort.  This is why it is important to do the “back work” in Public Relations so this can be avoided or you can be prepared if you are going to have a backlash like this.

Although this caused Ben and Jerry’s to discontinue Schweddy Balls, or as they call it put it into the “graveyard” it didn’t destroy them all together, they still have a great reputation as they are such a huge corporation, but if they were smaller they could have had some major damage and this could have cost them a lot of time, money and effort to rebuild their company.

So next time you are thinking of doing something new without doing the “back work” think Schweddy Balls!