Random Thoughts on the RMC
I’m just back from the Retail Marketing Conference, the Direct Marketing Association’s redo of the ACCM show. How was it?
Don’t ask me—I spent most of my time in rehearsals or presenting. And much of the feedback I heard tended to state the obvious: shockingly small turnout, quiet exhibit hall, not enough catalog content, etc.
But I did also hear some of the sessions were good, and the plus side of being small is that it was pretty easy to find people you were meeting up with. And my MCM Awards cohost, e-commerce guru Amy Africa, almost made everyone forget the sparse attendance and the fact that we were crammed into a long, skinny ballroom with bad acoustics. (Well, the folks in the back who couldn’t hear anything probably didn’t forget.)
I thought about live tweeting from the conference, then I remembered I’m not on Twitter. But here’s the type of thing I would have tweeted, if I could get my thoughts down to 140 characters.
1) The “Get the hook” award goes to Monday’s keynote, Bob Googe of Jittery Joe’s Coffee. Sure, the merchant has a nice story and Bob’s a fine speaker, but he promised up front to end his talk 10 minutes early. And then he went 20 minutes over.
2) The Gaylord Palms is way too PC. I’m a Mac. I know most people, especially at a marketing conference, are going to do their presentations on a PC. But would it kill the Gaylord’s AV guys to provide an adapter for Macs? (And could they maybe not chuckle and say “We don’t really do Macs” when you ask them for one?) Thanks to my panelists Ken Lane and Fatemeh Khatibloo for getting us around that one.
3) The hottest ticket at the show was probably a drink ticket for the Tuesday cocktail party in the exhibit hall. (Note to the DMA: If you’re only going to give out only one drink ticket, at least have a cash bar. How is anyone supposed to buy me a drink?)
4) You can lead Amy Africa to a teleprompter but you can’t make her read. Well, you CAN make her follow a teleprompter, sort of, but then she’ll tell everyone you’re forcing her use a teleprompter. And then people will start taking bets as to whether she’ll actually follow it. (Why wasn’t I in on that action?)
5) Spanx for your patience. My deepest apologies to Spanx. The undergarments catalog won a Silver Award in the apparel over $20 million print category—only I forgot to announce their win at the proper time during the Awards presentation Tuesday.
I blame Amy Africa—that was probably when she was telling the audience (including my boss) that getting fired from Multichannel Merchant would be the best thing that ever happened to me. Herschell Gordon Lewis never tries to get me fired…
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Related Topics: Direct Marketing, Opinons, E-Commerce, Catalog, Events, Multichannel Marketing
May 27th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
I’ll take the hit for No. 5, but not No. 3!