The Village
This morning, while I did my usual singing, speed racer impersonation,
a commercial came on the radio. Normally when this happens my hand leaves the “2”
position in order to quickly find a new
jam. (Nobody dances in their car better than me!) But, I stopped mid-button
pushing. The commercial talked about The Village at Meridian’s grand-opening.
At first I thought, “seriously, another new store on Eagle road!?” Then I
listened a little more. The event consists of a 300 swag-bag give-a-way with
five bags containing $500 shopping sprees, food, live-music, fountain show and
sculpture unveiling. This sounded all fine and dandy until I heard that the
festivities began at 6:00 a.m. on Friday morning. I thought, “seriously, who in
their right mind would drive out to Eagle road at 6:00 a.m.? Then, the light
bulb moment. The Village promoters know their audience.
Supply and Demand
Eagle road, while the bane of my shopping existence, seems
to be one fastest growing retail center in the state of Idaho. It is also close
to the money. Ada County has a median family income of $73,929, the highest
monetary contributors to this figure reside in Eagle, Star, and Meridian and
these consumers demand products. The Village plans to provide it.
Leave’m Hangin
After the commercial ended a million questions ran through
my mind. What is The Village, a new store, shopping center, events arena? How
haven’t I heard about this before? What am I doing Friday morning at 6 am? The
ad delivered all the important information in a way that made me forget my mad
singing/dancing skills. I pondered on all my questions throughout the remainder
of my 10-minute drive. As I began my trek to my first class I whipped out my
GalaxySII (product placement) and searched the interwebs for information on
this amazing event. The ad effectively piqued my interest but left me with more
questions than answers. This lead me to actively searching out The Village
online.
The Website
Strike a pose, Vogue. My first thought as the web page downloaded.
The first page made connecting with The Village simple, but required you to
click on the “GRAND OPENING. Come see what’s happening at The Village. Grand
Opening Events Guide” link. Once there the site delivered the information on
the festivities in a clear, easy to follow format. The color scheme–tiffany
blue–gives the site a luxurious feel and the simple font lends itself to
elegance. Simple, clean and concise.
The Plan
The events planned encompass every conceivable activity for
families, singles, and teens. The 3-day event includes a super hero/princess
meet and greet, cookie decorating, food sampling and a Beatles tribute band in
addition to the previously mentioned activities.
Is Failure an Option?
Planning a multitude of outdoor events in an Idaho city,
what could go wrong? I’m sure the Farmer’s Almanac, The Weather Channel and God
were all consulted before the dates of the Grand Opening became solidified. But
I can’t help but wonder if anything short of a tornado possessed enough power
to kill the awesomeness of this event.
Final Question
So what is The Village? I leave the answer to this question
up to the readers. The link http://www.thevillageatmeridian.com/
will provide the information, but the interpretation is up to you. How were you
inspired?
Angel, great post! I was one of the poor unfortunate souls who attended the grand opening this morning at 6 a.m. and let me tell you- what a disappointment! First of all, I go there at 5:30 expecting there to be clear indicators of where to go. I didn't see any signs until I was already parked in the back and I had to go clear around to the other side to even get into the back of what looked like a 500+ person line. My bad, I should have gotten up earlier! But the real disappointing thing I saw was they didn't even hand out swag bags to the 300 people, they handed them wristbands and told them to come back later for the bags! I couldn't believe it! Why have all these people come at 6 a.m. just to have them return later for the fountain show. There were a lot of angry people. It was crazy. For all the promotion they did telling everyone they were handing out bags at 6, but then didn't, made me feel like they weren't prepared for their own event. The Village itself was beautiful, but this 6 a.m. event was a huge let down in my perception of the "Grand Opening." I love your post, great writing!
ReplyDeleteAngel I really like this post.
ReplyDeleteI checked out The Village's site and can say that I was really inspired by it. Paired with your description of their grand opening, it really sounds like an awesome place to be! They also sound like they utilized their PR skills perfectly. I am all for supehero/princess meet and greet, along with cookie decorating. Based on Ashlee's response, I can tell that it wasn't that big of a success though. This shows the poor execution in the actual event. It's sad that after all that hard work of promoting it that it didn't turn out well.
This is an excellent post though and it really gave me good ideas on how to promote an event! Nice job!
Ashlee,
ReplyDeleteFirst, thank you for responding to my post! I'm starting to get a bit of a complex about my blog since no one, until you, has managed to comment on my blog. Oh, well! I'm sorry to hear about your experience with the sway-bags! I wonder about the thought process behind that decision. It seems to me that if you advertise that swag-bags will be handed out then that is what should be done, otherwise advertise wristbands first followed by bags later. I can't image anyone being thrilled to show-up that early just to leave with a wristband-I bet it wasn't even fashionable. Well, at least we now know that it took a bad decision by the PR team, instead of a tornado, to mess-up the event!
I was surprised to hear that they had people coming to the mall at 6am.... for what? Nothing was open at that hour, so what in the world would they have people coming there for? To get a wristband to come back later? Why not have the 500 plus people come when things were OPEN so that after they get their bags, or not get one because they were not one of the 300, they could do some shopping? That would have made much more sense to me! Bad PR planning, if you ask me! As for the Village itself, I am really impressed by some of the buildings. I have not seen them up close, but from the road they look beautiful - some have green domed roof tops like I saw so much of in France this summer. Really nice architecture - so I would hope the stores would be nice, as well.
ReplyDelete