Some of Alan's views on this digital marketing malarkey ... there's more on: AlanCharlesworth.com

Monday, December 28, 2015

Gender issues?

So I've been looking on ebay for a travel bag that I can take in a Ryanair cabin - don't get me started on how Ryanair's permitted size is a couple of centimetres smaller than the size of bag allowed on other airlines, as in: the bag I have taken around the world in the cabin of 'proper' airlines. 

However, that is not the purpose of this story. Because of my searches on ebay, that company 'targeted' me for other products. Well ... I say 'targeted', but really I mean 'fired off some very loose shots in my general direction'. 

This is what I got when I clicked on an ebay 'Pre-Loved Bags for Him' ad. 


Even two of the bags I've not hi-lighted seem to be rather feminine - though this is likely due to another bug-bear of mine: ebay advertisers scatter-gunning key terms for searches [a scatter gun is the opposite of a rifle, as in 'not targeted']. 

And while I'm on the subject of selling on ebay - I can't be the only person looking for bags that are allowed in aircraft cabins, so including the dimensions in the description is a bit on the important side. And to the seller of a bag I was willing to pay £100 for if it was the 'right' size ... ignoring two requests from me for its dimensions has cost you a potential sale. 

Ho hum 

Oh, a footnote to this is I eventually found a suitable bage at a reasonable price ... in a shop, that is; a retail outlet in a physical building where I was able to pick up and measure the bag prior to purchase.

Sunday, December 20, 2015

Sorry, you're too late

So I thought, I known - I'll go somewhere sunny for Christmas. But it was Sunday December 20th, so it would be a last minute booking. So I went to latedeals.co.uk. Trouble was, I could only book a date from the 24th. Presumably there are no flights leaving the Uk on Monday 21st, Tuesday 22nd or Wednesday 23rd?

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Let them eat cake

In my books I advise having a 'local' person check translations for global websites. Here's and example from ebay where a term has got lost in translation ... 

 PS if the title of this post has confused you - Google it, it's your history lesson for the day :-)

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Twitta-vert

For reasons I won't go into [it was professional  :-) ] - I searched for "Katherine Jenkins" on Google - and near the top of the SERP was this:
Now ... this may not be representative of the songstresses Tweets - but this is not what social media is all about. Nor is it good social media marketing.

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Hmmm, perhaps a little insensitive

Only a couple of weeks after the Paris atrocities, the normally excellent, eMarketer.com sent an email with this headline:

However, by accident or design, the linked-to article was: