New Year's Eve Events: London vs Toronto, Mississauga, and Waterloo

Since New Year’s Eve is on a Saturday I thought that, if I was going to travel to a public New Year's Eve event in another city, this would be the year.

I started with a look at London and was impressed to find that they had the band Glass Tiger as well as lots of events throughout the night. Because my new girlfriend is a big fan of Disney I thought the 7 pm Disney event would be up her alley. Even the 9 pm children's fireworks display gives one a double helping of fireworks.

Next was Waterloo. I was surprised to find out that their three New Year’s Events didn't go till midnight. One went till 10 pm and the other two events were over by 9 pm.

Further down the road is Mississauga. When I first checked their website in early December I read a message saying that they had spent millions updating their central city park and that they would hold a New Year’s Eve Event this year. The message made it sound like there was nothing left in the budget to afford a staff member the time to add any details on their New Year's Eve event. Last time I checked they had added some local bands to play at the event.

Toronto to my surprise is having country star George Canyon as their main entertainer. This is a surprising choice-having a country star in the most urban place in Canada. The City of Toronto website provides very little details on the event other then it runs from 10 pm till midnight and that City TV will be helping host the event this year. Considering the amount that Toronto spends on tourism one would have thought they could have afforded to put more details on their website for anyone from out of town looking to attend.

My decision is that I'm going to stay in London this New Year’s Eve and enjoy the festivities. Congratulations to the City of London staff for doing a great job preparing for this event and publishing the details.

Wasting Your Marketing Dollars

Marketing is essentially about telling the market about your product. This is done primarily through advertising. Now I have taken a few breaks over the last week and been able to watch some television shows. During the commercials I saw Lowe's TV advertisement for their exclusive offer with Kobalt, the Kobalt Double Drive. The Bob Villa like pitchman made this look like the most amazing screwdriver on the planet with its double drive technology that drive forward when your ratcheting backwards. I was sold on this being the Christmas gift of the century. Well, tonight after a long hard day at the surplus shop I drove across town to the Hyde Park plaza and went to Lowe's store. I was amazed at how empty the parking lot was for a 200,000 square foot store, but I guess that could have been blamed on the fact it was a Monday. When I get in the store the friendly return clerk rushes to greet me. I tell her what I'm looking for and she beckons the tool expert. The tool expert tells me that they are sold out of the Kobalt Double Drive. All that expensive TV advertising to try to sell something that only brings in $20 (in comparison to an expensive air compressor) and they weren't even able to get me to buy anything. I walked out empty handed. The marketing did its job; unfortunately they didn't have the stock to back up the promotion. Now I got home and thought perhaps it was just that one store and I should be able to go online and try to find this product on their website. Sadly no, I was unable to find the product on the website. All that money gone into expensive television ads and they don't even have the product on their website. Local London TV ads can cost as much as $1,000 a piece for a 30 second spot. Given the tremendous expense it amazes me that a business would not make sure it has enough product in stock before launching the ad campaign. Marketers remember the next time you get dazzled by the bright lights of TV or the sound of radio think about the total cost and whether or not you have the stock or the distribution system to match the demand. By doing that you can turn advertising costs into net profits.