Tag: sales
Got Marketing? Segway of Clearwater doesn't
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m big on the Segway HT. The media laughs at it, people in general ridicule it and everyone I have seen ride it smiles instantly and loses their negative tone at least for a while when onboard.
It’s a thing of freedom to the disabled – though not medically approved by the FDA. It’s a vehicle of fun for those who are tired of the automobile.
And it’s the most poorly marketed item possible at Segway of Tampa Bay – Clearwater.
While Tampa Bay lacks mass transit – a vital part of the Segway’s appeal to get where you’re going faster while not quite going bike speed and going much faster than foot speed – it has traffic issues that have been brought up time and again by moi and others aroudn the blogosphere. People are looking for alternatives for short commutes and such and Seg of Clearwater is no where in sight.
Downtown Tampa is currently undergoing a developement boom and those who are going to be living downtown are going to need a means to get around that shouldn’t include the car – something that will travel where the TECO Streetcar won’t. St. Petersburg already has a large urban populous. Segway of TB – Clearwater? They’re on the beach showing off the device but not actually catering to potential customers. To show up on Clearwater Beach with the device sells the item like a novelty to the masses and not as a legit means of transportation.
Going to their web site, they laude sight seeing over mobility. They avoid the transit question because they happen to be exotic car dealers – why shut out one means of business with your other means of business?
It frustrates me when something that can be used is mis-advertised or just plain swept under the rug. Such is the Segway in this suburban hell.
Tarpon Springs and the Suburban-blight of WalMart Supercenters
Wal-Mart is trying to add the 44th (or is it more?) store to the Tampa Bay Metro Area by sticking one of their Supercenters on the bank of the Anaclote river in Tarpon Springs.
While Mary Jo Malone wrote an incredible piece on the subject a some time back on the fact Tampa Bay has too many Wal-Marts as is, I had to send Tarpon Springs my own piece on why Wal-Mart is not a good thing for the city.
I am very upset at the shortsightedness of those in power with the City of Tarpon Springs with their collective reasoning behind blessing Wal-Mart. Though the city has not approved of the new Super Wal-Mart being built on the banks of the Anclote river, it seems just a formality even with the public outcry against it.
One of the “major” issues that the Mayor and others have had with Wal-Mart is the sale of natural sponges at the proposed location – which seems to be an attempt to save downtown Tarpon Springs and the tourist trade. It also seems foolhardy seeing that you can go to most any Wal Mart location and see they do not sell natural sponges.
What Wal-Mart also sells is the death of small businesses. What this Wal-Mart will also sell is the slow death of Downtown Tarpon Springs. Has the city of Tarpon Springs paid absolutely no attention to the history of this area? Look at Clearwater alone – they struggle greatly because they have sold off land on US 19 to as many retail giants as possible, and now they are hit with a lackluster downtown area and are desperate to draw the people back. There is money for investment, sure, but the key component to downtown Clearwater is Scientology now, not residents..
Tarpon Springs, by the logic shown, is greatly concerned that the tourist trade will be unharmed by this addition to the city limits. What about the rest of Downtown? What about the small business owners who can’t compete with the monopoly-like tactics of Wal-Mart, which tends to profit even when losing money on sales? Is expanding the cities tax structure for one store so important that it kills off the rest of the cities tax structure by forcing the smaller competition to close their stores?
This isn’t even getting into the negative environmental impact of the store on the banks of the river, the ecological damage that this store will undoubtedly do and the increase of sprawl that we don’t need in North Pinellas / Southern Pasco county.
If the city of Tarpon Springs needs additional tax revenue — raise taxes. If the city of Tarpon Springs wants to be for Corporations and By Corporations like the rest of America under the current State government and Federal Government, by all means — vote in Wal Mart and watch the central district of Tarpon Springs fall away with time. The Sponge Docks will remain but everything else will pass.
Not the best… But still, it tries to convey a point.
Anyone who wants to speak out for or against Wal-Mart being built in Tarpon Springs shoueld email the city clerk and good luck conveying your point.
Web projects
Well, people already saw on my last post I am thinking about doing a Buccaneers Web Log… That being said, Stonegauge Productions may have a new client soon enough.
Danielle’s boss is in desperate need to not only get a lower-costing hosting company but also improve (visibility, sales, etc ) her store’s web site – Chantilly Lace Gifts… It’s an E-Commerce site that isn’t doing any commerce (no sales in a year of existence). It doesn’t get any exposure and damn it, it doesn’t even give you a glipse of the store itself.
Nice design pre-designed site but a challenge from top to bottom.
Home Video Lameness and marketing idiocy
It was sort of an interesting thing to happen and cool that it happened to me but at the same time, it aggravated me… No, not just that, it infuriated me.
Last nigh, a representative from Warner Brothers Home Video emailed the webmaster of Boltsmag.com — namely moi — and tried to recruit me to help sling their product on the web. The product in question is the Stanley Cup Championship DVD which shows highlights of the Tampa Bay Lightning season along with Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final and the Lightning being crowned as Champs. It’s a DVD I very much want to be able to enjoy….
But I can’t. No sir, I can’t invest a couple of bucks in the DVD knowing it’s going to a company that didn’t complete the DVD and put it on the market. I can’t invest in a company branch that does it all the time with their sport DVDs. The Warner Brothers Stanley Cup Championship DVD lacks Closed Captioning for the Hearing Impaired and I happen to be hearing impaired.
Lets roll back the clock to more than a year ago with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers winning the Super Bowl…. It was a cap on a dream season for the Bucs and I quickly went and bought the DVD that Warner Brothers Home Video produced that had the entire game — or a likeness of it — along with season highlights and a pre and post game show (so they claimed).
What I found out, cruelly, was when I tried to view the season highlight package (which is always an incredible job done by NFL Films) I got pictures and sound but no clue what the narrator was telling me. No clue what miked players were saying. I could see games and relive moments but not find out what people were blabbering about at any given moment…. Was this a joke? I went to the actual game and they had the network video feed but — what is this? Not only is the video feed replaced by the respective teams radio commentary men but — no closed captioning. I had no clue what was being said by Buccaneer radio man Gene Deckerhoff or the Oakland Raiders respective play-by-play radio man.
So I could see but I couldn’t really enjoy the DVD. I wrote off a scathing letter to Warner Brothers Home Videos and got offered a free DVD of my choice as if to say “Sucks to be you – have one of our movies we can’t move on us!”
This isn’t an isolated incident with DVDs and lack of closed captioning. While major motion pictures are captioned on all DVDs, DVDs tend to be loaded with extra features such as commentary tracks and featurettes. Neither of these are captioned so that the hearing impaired can enjoy these additional features they are paying for when they buy DVDs. To make matters worse, Universal Home Videos doesn’t even use Closed Captioning but instead relies on Subtitles (much like you would see on a foreign film) with their movies. It becomes difficult to follow the film if the text is set on a white background or over a bright object. You lose entire sentences or entire conversations because of the setting of a scene.
And it gets worse from there. Trimark Home Video has the rights to NBC’s Saturday Night Live on DVD — which is both syndicated on TV and broadcast on NBC with full closed captioning… Trimark couldn’t be bothered to add this captioning to their DVDs of Saturday Night Live. Just as Rhino Home Videos couldn’t be bothered to add captioning to their DVD palette which includes children’s TV series like Transformers, Jem, GI Joe… Not to mention their Monkees DVD’s…. Or their original offering of South Park DVDs. (I have no clue if Rhino is still responsible for publishing South Park DVDs at this time. This may have changed).
With the Baby Boom population aging and their bodies failing them to one degree or another, why is it that the Home Video industry gets away with this? Better yet, with 22-34 deaf and hard of hearing Americans out there, why does the movie industry think they can ignore this demographic when it comes to their home video sales? Even more pertinent, why doesn’t someone stick the Americans With Disabilities Act in their face and tell them to shape up or ship out?
It’s an ironic story that Warner Brothers tries to get someone to help sling their DVD — for free — on the web when that person can’t even enjoy the product. It’s even more ironic that no one in the deaf community or elsewhere in America makes a fuss out of this… It’s one of the great dupe jobs going on in the entertainment industry for the sake of the almighty buck.
To continue the Gluttony trend of stories…
McDonald’s Salad Has More Fat Than Cheeseburger
LONDON (Reuters) – Global hamburger giant McDonald’s latest line in healthy looking salads may contain more fat than its hamburgers, according to the company’s Web Site.
McDonald’s, plagued by health critics and flattening sales, has launched the biggest change to its menu in 30 years with its plans to get into the multi-million pound prepared salad market.
“You can choose your salad, topping and dressing. You can mix and match to suit your diet and lifestyle,” said a McDonald’s spokeswoman.
However, consumers hoping to lose weight by switching from burgers to salads may be disappointed, according to the Interactive Nutrition Counter on the McDonald’s Web site.
For example, on the new menu to be launched at the end of this month, a “Caesar salad with Chicken Premiere” contains 18.4 grams of fat compared with 11.5 grams of fat in a standard cheeseburger.
The British Nutrition Foundation (BNF) told Reuters it welcomed the salad menu but warned that salad dressings bought in fast-food outlets or supermarkets could be very high in fat and calories.
BNF said the recommended daily fat intake for men is 95 grams per day and for women 70 grams per day.
Good thing I avoid McDonalds — that shit just ain’t healthy… For ANYONE
Gobble Gobble
Turkey Day….
Just what am I thankful for? Just what is there to be thankful for?
For starters, having readers like you actually viewing my web page. Hello, how are you? 🙂
I’m thankful for electronics and for the mesh of the electronic and the biologic that gives me a chance to hear again.
I’m thankful that George Dubya Bush hasn’t blown us all to hell yet – though I don’t think it will be much longer if the fool gets to remain in charge for a while.
I’m thankful for the internet….
For Sarah Marie….
For Target Corporation and giving a guy who can’t hear that well a chance to do a job on the sales floor.
Speaking of Target, I’m thankful I still have use of my legs, feet and arms after getting worn out pushing, shoving and lifting stuff and putting them on to shelves.
I’m thankful for Jon Gruden, for the Glazer family proving that they aren’t as incompetent as they are shrewd, for the Tampa Bay Buccaneer sand 9-2 as of this writing….
For the Tampa Bay Lightning proving me wrong and starting off very hot this season. I am very thankful for that.
For Lou Pinella Coming back to TB to coach the Devil Rays who play like Deviled Eggs.
For the Beatles and Sony Music not suing my ass, and for the fans who supported me while they threatened… I am most certainly thankful for this.
Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving everyone 😀
