Is there a reason you chose that name?

Wow. Things have been busy in the life of Chris Davis over the past few weeks.

Our biannual conference that I put together is fast approaching (3 weeks), and I feel that no matter how much of an early start I am getting on this, I never seem to have enough time to do everything I want to try to increase the experience for our Members while still keeping the cost down. Our conference sure has come a long way in the past several years though - from meeting in the Association distribution center having a fish fry while listening to Association staff speak in 1999 to 3/4 star hotels with fully catered meals, leading industry speakers and national renown keynotes in 2008.

It is all for the better though - I would rather be busy than bored. But being busy is not easy when Mother Nature seems to have some sort of grudge with Arkansas (for those of you who don't know, I live outside of Little Rock). Last week, a dozen tornados came through central Arkansas, one of which landed two blocks from my house, destroying over 250 houses and businesses and causing millions of dollars in damage. It is not easy getting to work, or working from home, when roads are flooded and power is out. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Over half of the states rivers and lakes are above flood stage and it has been raining for over a month. This thought brings me to my blog title.

I often wonder if people think about what marketing message they put out prior to actually launching an advertisement. Yesterday, I was driving to work with my windshield wipers on high taking an alternative route that was not flooded, when I heard a commercial for a local ATV/RV dealership than named their big sales event "Sunny Day's at " Did they really think about the fact that they have their big yearly sale in April, the month with probably the least sunshine? Was this something that they had planned for a long time, before knowing that the weather was the worse that Arkansas has seen in many years? And if it was a long time in coming, did they not have some sort of contingency plan?

Just a thought that I had. I often hear advertisements where I wonder if the advertising company thought about who their target audience was, who was viewing the advertisement and if those viewers really are the intended audience. One example I can think of a good ad in a bad place is a radio ad which had rap songs going in the background with the announcer talking about "rollin' on dubs". Now, I thoroughly enjoyed the ad - I laughed in fact. However, once the commercial ended, I realized that in my radio surfing, I was listening to a country music station! My first reaction was "wow, that ad was on the wrong station. Only a minority of those listening to this ad really know what it means." A little more time and effort put into pre-planning and media placement could have really paid off on this ad and increased the return the company would receive.

Chris

p.s. Thanks to Tony for the extra push to post this blogs.