Terre, a plea on marketing...

[Breandan]

I understand that you are the GM and not necessarily the person directly involved in marketing, but I- and many others here, hence why this is a public question- am very curious as to the thought process that goes into some of the recent marketing pushes. I have seen many more television- and heard more radio- commercials of late than I have for several years now, for which I most heartily applaud. However, the "name your baby" stunt, the immersion-breaking "sponsored by-" signs, and the Fiat contest- which is being put on by Silverleaf Resorts, a dodgy company with nearly 500 complaints to the Better Business Bureau regarding fraudulent practices and advertising, and had personnel at TRF's gate pushing underage people to sign up for a contest that is clearly for 18+ individuals- have me wondering whether these marketing actions were properly vetted before being engaged in. I have heard rumours of others, but I will speak to those only if I see them for myself. These three are bad enough, as they threaten to adversely affect TRF's reputation among some of its most loyal- and high-paying, I might add- patrons. I understand a lot of supportive messages get posted on FB, and I am also well aware that MANY critical messages are promptly deleted. Ignoring our complaints and concerns is poor business and only serves to increase the concerns we have that TRF is going downhill, fast, into a glorified Medieval Times with beer and car logos splashed all over it. PLEASE listen to me when I ask you to not let this happen, to actually listen to our concerns.

As a dual-business-owner (partner in a publishing company and COO/owner of an executive protection firm), I have seen how fast missteps that damage reputation can bring a company down. I watched two competitors go down in flames for poor reputation management, and others lost business due to marketing missteps or actions on the part of management or personnel that adversely affected how their customers viewed them. Any time I take on a client, work with another company for a joint project, or hire on a contractor to do work for us, we vet the snot out of them because we know full well our reputation is in their hands. Likewise, we do not make any marketing or advertising push or material until we know bloody well how it will be received, as that is one of the banes of businesses today- poorly-thought-out marketing strategies. I have been going to TRF since 1989, and working there- off-and-on- since 1990. I do NOT want to see it harmed by poor vetting leading to the kinds of missteps I mentioned above. Sure, the Buzz crowd would eat that sort of thing up, but they account for one or two days a season per capita. The camping clans and playtrons take such things a lot more seriously, and are some of the highest concentration of season-long ticket-bundle-purchasers out there. The Buzz crowd won't notice if such marketing ploys disappear, but we most certainly DO notice them when they pop up. You risk driving away good, high-dollar customers in favor of the slim possibility of snagging a few of the less-enlightened sorts who show up for "beer-and-boobies", as one of them so eruditely phrased it opening Sunday, for a day or two a season.

Market to the crowd you want to see the most of, scatter-method does not work with as specialized of an entertainment form as you have here. For years I have heard "do not break the immersion!" from the ED and in the participant's handbook. What I see now is "Welcome to Disneyland circa 1497. Give us money." I do not doubt TRF will continue to bring in patronage, and if you burned every one of the camping clans you would still get enough "beer-n-boobies" patrons to show up to keep it afloat. For a time. But why lose any of us at all? Why not use a little common sense and forethought before doing something that royally honks off hundreds of playtrons, who then- in turn- rage to thousands of their friends, adversely impacting your bottom line? Do you truly break even on such stunts? In my household alone, the name-your-baby stunt and the doubling-down and dismissive, somewhat insulting, reaction we got for voicing our concerns cost you over a grand in ticket sales as- other than comp tickets we got for free at Space City Con and a couple of quarter-priced discount tickets we got this spring- we did not buy the sixty-some-odd tickets our clan would have bought. We put that budget towards Sherwood instead. Hell, the ONLY reason we didn't throw those away was because many of our friends gather there. I want to make that clear- our FRIENDS, not TRF, are why we even attended this year in the first place, nor are we alone. You read these forums, and know full-well that is a fairly common opinion. I want to come back to TRF in 2013, but am not going to spend a dime on it until I know we aren't going to just throw good money after bad.

I am asking, nay, begging you to step in and do more oversight of the marketing TRF is engaging in. Use focus groups before firing things off to see how they will be received, research partners and sponsors before getting into bed with them (metaphorically), and if you must have the sponsorship signs, for the love of Mike please try to make them at least look SEMI period. Things like this will go a LONG way to assuaging the fears that a lot of us have that TRF is on the fast-track to devolving into just another commercialized theme park with no soul. Other faires exist, the customers have options. Give us a reason to continue spending our hard-earned (and in this economy, tightly-controlled) money at TRF rather than waiting a few months to spend it at Sherwood or Scarby. Keep the dream that brought us all there alive.

[dbaldock]

"Like"!!!

[PollyPoPo]

In reference to the white tent Win a Fiat issue:

Removing the bulk of my post because Mr. Albert has replied to this query and states the drawing will be in December and open only to TRF fans, not nationwide.

Thank you.

[PollyPoPo]

Post being deleted because Mr. Albert has answered the question about the drawing for the Fiat 500 which will be in December and open to TRF fans, not nation-wide.

[Terre Albert]

The car will be drawn on December to only TRF Fans not a national drawing. 

[Terre Albert]

Breandan,

I have such a hard time talking to you because you comments an full of half truths and rumors.  It's like you listen to every negative comment and turn it against me. 

What have you heard about the appearance of the festival?

How do the gardens look?

What about the campgrounds and the improvements?

Have you heard one positive thing about TRF?

[PollyPoPo]

Glad you posted that Mr. Albert.

As a matter of curiousity, are minors eligible to win the Fiat?  

Our teens were being heavily solicited to make entries, even though they are obviously underage to even the most obtuse individual.

[Terre Albert]

Did they stop when the found out their age?

[PollyPoPo]

RE:  Underage kids being solicited to sign up for car.  

I'm not sure the exact word exchange after the kids went to the table.  I do know the kids walked away with an entry in hand; I did not intervene as I saw they were given a lesson by Dad on not signing up.

Since the kids had entries given to them I would assume they were not asked their ages.  

I will let you know.

Edit:  The 15 year old, upon being asked to sign up, took form, then told the solicitor that he wasn't old enough.  Apparently the solicitation stopped there as he walked away from the tent.  I'm not sure if there was a sign or if it was on the entry form, or how he knew he was ineligible, but I'm content that the boy took the initiative to walk away.

[Breandan]

Breandan,

I have such a hard time talking to you because you comments an full of half truths and rumors.  It's like you listen to every negative comment and turn it against me.  

What have you heard about the appearance of the festival?

How do the gardens look?

What about the campgrounds and the improvements?

Have you heard one positive thing about TRF?

I applauded the renovations of the Globe stage and the addition of the Barbarian Inn, complimented the campgrounds and the improvements made there, gardens look pretty much the same as last year, so no need to comment there, and yes, I HAVE posted positive things about the faire. I also point out the problems with it. If you wish to be a good, solid manager of a business- and I've been doing it for two of them for nearly ten years now- you have to take the good with the bad, maintain the former and correct the latter. I challenge you to disprove my criticisms, as they are born of first-hand experience. I will be happy to post photos of the signs next week, you have plenty of witnesses regarding the Fiat issue who have or would be willing to voice their issues with it, the company responsible and the complaints filed against them are easily found on the BBB website, and many people have voiced anger that their criticisms of the Heir to the Throne contest were deleted, promptly followed by the contest being buried quietly without any public resolution or discussion as to the solvency of the matter. Every single one of the issues I presented in my initial post is supported by witnesses and documentation, and accusing me of half-truths rather than address these issues directly isn't going to settle the matter.

My concern is the appearance that is created by dodgy marketing becomes one of an organization with poor oversight and a desperation for money, especially in light of the paid parking fiasco. I challenge you to fix the problems- or openly tell those of us who believe them to be problems to take a hike, either way- rather than dance around the issue.

[Terre Albert]

Paid Parking Fiasco??

Why do companies have soft openings?

Were you hear to see this fiasco?

Did is cause any problems in the traffic flow.

Why is it a fiasco?

[Breandan]

*headdesk*

Terre, in another thread on this very forum are several people- paying customers- voicing their complaints about it, and the best response you have is to try and twist it around into an attack on my credibility? You DO realize that even if I suddenly dropped the matter, the problems would STILL be there, and you would STILL have to deal with them? If diversionary tactics, ad hominem fallacies, and basing the validity of the criticisms levied on whether or not I attended this weekend when plenty of people who did have voiced the precise same thing- or worse- is the best response we are going to get from the Texas Renaissance Festival corporation, I give up.

The proper, professional response would be to address the concerns directly- state that the Heir contest was a mistake and dropped (or was considered a good marketing strategy that sparked some controversy, either way), clarify the relationship with Silverleaf Resorts and the Fiat contest, and clarify that all of the follow-up calls for timeshare marketing people who entered have been getting are not associated with TRF, explain that the sponsorship tags throughout faire will either be made more period-appropriate for immersion as they have been done in the past, or that they will have to remain as they are for legal reasons of the contract with the sponsoring partner. Address the concerns rather than just attack or dismiss the people raising them. "Were you hear (sic) to see this fiasco?" is not the kind of response I would expect from a multimillion dollar business.

[The Rabbi]

As an unbiased bystander here Terre Albert seems to sound very much like a politician straddling the fence and dodging issues. Breandan While I can neither confirm or deny the validity of his statements makes it very clear where he stands. I have seen Breandan make both positive and negative commentary on TRF and from this forum I would give him the edge on credability. Mr. Albert Breandan is not the only person complaining about issues taking place at TRF yet you refuse to provide any adequate answer of any type but instead just ask questions seeking positive feedback. If it walks like a duck talks like a duck and looks like a duck then it must be a duck and just my uneducated observation but TRF has major issues which need to be addressed.

[PollyPoPo]

(meekly holding up my hand to say something)

Obviously management is super busy with faire going on, but it behooves us all to remember that the internet has changed forever how issues are perceived and addressed.

The initial question about preferred parking appeared on TRF FB page on Saturday, October 20.  I asked here if anybody knew anything about it.  The first concern was perhaps parkers were getting scammed by an ambitious non-TRF entrepreneur.

That original posting disappeared from FB, and then a new one came up today by someone who posted their approval of the preferred parking.  By this time, people here were seeing the newly posted signs and discussing pros and cons, sometimes heatedly.

Mr. Albert's response came this afternoon, some 72 hours after signs went up (Friday night I assume) and about 48 hours after it hit these forums. 

As for the Fiat giveaway tent, first reference was in these forums, October 9.  The first in TRF FB page was I believe October 19, Friday.  While there were two responses by "The King" on the TRF FB page, they were not truly responsive to the concern, with the second one being too similar to the responses received from the time-share appointment setter upon the initial phone contact.  Today, Mr. Albert gave us a definite response that the Fiat will be won by a TRF fan and that the contest is not national.   

Each of these issues, as well as others, could have been addressed much more quickly and with less animosity had someone in the TRF office been really reading the questions and concerns.  If nothing else, a clerk could put out a little message such as "give me a couple hours and I'll check on that for you," or "we're trying it out to see if this is something some people would interested in." 

Anything to avoid the appearance that concerns expressed by your customers are simply being ignored could help prevent this happening repeatedly.

The internet is the new word of mouth venue and it is almost instantaneous, limited only to how fast someone can think and type. 

[nolekhan]

Well said Polly.

Thank you Terre for answering the drawing question.

As to the parking issue, I do not recall reading any mentions of traffic problems. The concern is that while parking is advertised as free, the "soft opening" caught people off-guard (people who arrived early for close spots and lost them) and did not appear to fill those lanes throughout the day (though I see you said they sold-out).

Marketing does appear to be hit and miss, from an outsider's viewpoint. I do not have the experience to comment on how "immersion" is handled by TRF or its participants but those cars out front do stick out and being asked to fill out an entry form wasn't fun.