Holiday Club

Smudge

Last night our cell helped out at the Stirling Baptist Holiday club. A carnival was staged for the kids, and leaders were paired up to run various stalls.

Adam and I were tasked with selling Smudge. We weren't actually selling it, the kids got some tickets that they could redeem for games and food. But the principle of limited resources satisfying unlimited desires still applied.

In order to out perform the other volunteers we applied some fundamental marketing strategies.

Sales floor:
What matters most in any retail situation is not the quality of the product, rather the appearance of your store. Anyone who's eaten at Spur can verify this. Thus we pillaged some traffic cones and an umbrella to outfit our store in an intimate, yet edgy atmosphere.

Market competition:
Our product was good, but for some reason the kids insisted on investing in games which didn't guarantee return. We approached the market with various slogans, like "You won't always win at carpet bowls, but you always win with Smudge". and "Do you have an ailment?... Because we have the cure" - emphasizing the obvious psychological (if not dietry) benefits of Smudge.

Mobile advertising:
A must-have in any modern day marketing strategy. Unfortunately, due to the complete lack of infrastructure... from internet connections, e-commerce facilities and a critical lack of 'small children with cellphones'... we instead took our store mobile, and hawked our goods through the carnival grounds.

Unfortunately the only available auditors were actually running one of the other stalls, but I'm sure if an impartial judge were present, we would certainly have taken a sweet victory.