Thursday 24 March 2011

Tips and Tools of the Trade

Slowly, I'm beginning to discover some of the tips and tools of the marketing trade.

One of the first things I thought I would need to try and convey the message of "Bournemouth Creative Breaks" was a parcel of pretty pictures.

With this goal in mind I assembled my team (they'll hate me calling them that, mark my words) in the Lower Central Gardens, just outside our venue hotel the Arlington, and thrust an elderly but serviceable digital camera into my brother's hands.

So, that's one's first tool: A brother. No, sorry. A decent digital camera.

But just as quickly I realised that my first tip was "don't try and take photographs out of doors on a very sunny day with an unfamiliar camera" - see the unfortunate results.


(but who's the lovely guy with the ice-cream cone in the background?)

A shame, because it's a lovely picture of the four of us - on the left, writer Brian Jenner. Next along is me, then artist Trish Jubb, and the tall lady at the back is Sara Uzzell, who runs the Arlington Hotel with her husband Bernard.

I'm reliably informed that the pictures can be 'tweaked'.

See that Sara has a tray with three glasses of red wine on it? They didn't last the whole afternoon. But no! I DO NOT mean we drank them. I mean a sudden gust of wind lifted the tray and the whole three-glasses-full ended up down the back of my shirt and trousers. Boy, did I smell choice in the car on the way home. Luckily I didn't have any high-powered meetings with local celebrities or business moguls that day. In this picture you can see me trying to put on a brave face whilst Brian and Trisha reel from the alcohol fumes emanating from my rear-side, whilst Sara stands guard over the broken glass. NOT the image we want to convey of Bournemouth on a Saturday afternoon!

6 comments:

  1. THREE glasses? Tragedy! Having been in the world of Hotel marketing on a shoestring, if there's anything I can help with, just let me know. Likewise, if I find anything I think you're likely to be right for - I'll pass it on to you. :)

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  2. Thanks Jenny .. that's fantastic .. maybe we could do something reciprocal? You and I both offer very different types of weekend break in Bournemouth. How about stuff like exchanging links on websites/blogs? Agreeing to re-tweet and do the #FF thing on Twitter? If the Hotel Piccadilly had a "Small Business" Page on FB then I could link to it from the BCBs page, too. I'm a great believer in the old maxim "Every little helps"

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  3. For sure we've got a Facebook page, unfortunately I can't administer it until I'm back in work on Monday - but feel free to take a look! If you search for Hotel Piccadilly, you'll find us under "Groups" (don't ask me why, it was before my time). Regrettably, we don't have links on our website, so can't do the reciprocal thing there. However, I'll happily re-tweet anything sent to @HotelPiccadilly on Twitter and may even remember to log in on a Friday (I'm not at work then) for #FF! :) I can #FF from Jenny Eatwell, too.

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  4. Oh, and by the way, I'm Cotillion Danseur on FB when in "official" guise. Just for your information. :)

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  5. Well creativity is making mistakes and working out which ones to keep.

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  6. Considering the trauma of the moment, I still love the photo! How did the shirt and trousers fare?!

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