Hello Kitty Loves Philly Beer Week

I was so concerned that we wouldn't make it to Philly, the hotel, and the Special Event at Comcast Center to kick off Philly Beer Week by 7:00 p.m. last Friday. We made it in the nick of time - to wait in a line stretching ALL THE WAY AROUND THE BLOCK. Thankfully it wasn't too cold; it was actually kind of nice - one might call call it, "breezy" except it was really windy. There were television crews set-up outside! A thousand (may I call them?) Yuppies! I was going to meet a rock star for sure!

Let me be blunt. The event sucked. Yes, the midweek email blast was brilliant marketing. I cannot have been the only person in that line who was spurred on by the email. http://gophila.com is a tourism site. Clearly the message was for out-of-towners: get a hotel, make a weekend of it, or a week; eat at our restaurants, drink in our bars, support our local economy.

Allow me to elaborate: Once inside the Comcast Center we were kindly provided with a plastic "beer glass" and let loose to check out the scene. There was a band setting up, we were graciously informed that there was "more beer downstairs" - good thing since there was barely a drop upstairs!

Downstairs was a Food Court, yup, a Food Court, just like you'd find in any mall... maybe a TAD more upscale. Hey, a Food Court is a Food Court! There were approximately 20-30 independent brewers set up at card tables. I like a craft brew. I'm fine with a Food Court. I enjoy playing cards. But this was a mish mash that simply did not add up or work out.

The brewers, I learned, were asked to donate their beers for the event. I'm not clear (it was loud) if they were inevitably paid, but the mere donation suggestion, or the blunt reality of not being paid seems to have soured (good pun but I didn't mean it) the mood of the brewers. They were very friendly to the public but they sure didn't seem to be overjoyed about being there.

The samples were minimal. The card tables were arranged as attractively as possible had they been given an hour's notice. The marketing materials were MINIMAL. I have to think the brewers had more than one hour to prepare. WHO coordinated this event???? It sure wasn't Hello Kitty!

My point is this: the price of the tickets combined with the "service charge" (what service would that be?) was enough for my husband and me to have gone to a nice brew pub and downed a few with a couple of appetizers without leaving our neighborhood. We didn't even notice until we were leaving (early) that there was yet another card table in a dusty corner with complimentary snacks.

Why I ask, WHY bother to employ brilliant marketing techniques in order to draw a sold out crowd to your basic Chamber of Commerce Mixer? I didn't even meet a rock star :~(. By the way, that band setting up where there was little beer to be had? They were awful. I hope they weren't paid if the brewers had to donate the beer. We left in a hurry when they started to murder Good Times, Bad Times.

There very simply was NO EVENT. It was a "make your own event" event.

So let's talk about Hello Kitty instead. A few weeks ago I got a direct mail piece from MAC Cosmetics www.maccosmetics.com in the shape of Hello Kitty's face - all done in shades of black - very punkchic. I was happy to know I'm not the only geek out there who is fascinated by Hello Kitty (is it because back in the late 70's our Mom's wouldn't let us have those unbearably cute little Hello Kitty pencils?).

Yeah, I like MAC almost as much as I like Hello Kitty so I was on the web in record time to check out the colors. I decided not to buy via the internet because who knows what the colors REALLY look like. I knew I'd be in Philly eventually, where I could browse the collection in the boutique.

That's exactly what I did for my second Philly Beer Week event. The Hello Kitty colors were not for me, but man, the little pleather stuffed HK was adorable :~). The MAC piece was Better Brilliant Marketing. I couldn't get it off my mind. I made a bee line to the boutique first thing Saturday morning. Hell, it wasn't even open when I got there! I didn't buy any of the Hello Kitty Collection (including the stuffed toy) but I DID buy some other colors.

The mail piece could not have been inexpensive to create but it had to have been worth it. It drove traffic to the MAC site, it drove traffic to MAC counters in department stores, it drove traffic to MAC boutiques. The cash I spent on colors was not in the budget but I didn't care. That matters these days. Caveat I am NOT promoting irresponsible spending. I knew if I bought a lipstick and a pigment powder, I could still eat this week. I'm thankful for that. The point is, you still need to market because people are still buying things that are not in the budget.

So you already had to like MAC; you also had to already like beer. I'll be back at MAC. I won't make the mistake of attending Philly Beer Week again. One would think it goes without saying that if you are going to invest in marketing, you'd better have something there to back it up with. What a waste. A bare minimum of effort at coordination could have made Philly Beer Week - from kick off (dead in the water) to the last beer brunch on Sunday, a memorable, relatively inexpensive and FUN event that out-of-towners will want to attend every year.

If you've got a marketing budget for a possibly HUGE recurring event, please make an effort; put on a show. You don't have to spend a mint to look impressive (my dress for the kick off was from Goodwill but I got compliments on it. Motorcycle boots and all). It's Beer Week, not a Presidential Inauguration! The Philly Beer Week Committee and the City could have printed a couple thousand Guides To Beer Week (on newsprint), handed them out at Comcast Center, dropped them in hotel lobbies and bars... and created some buzz, some excitement, some sense of inclusion/purpose... a sense of an actual city-wide event. That's what I THOUGHT I was attending.

I cannot resist a couple of jabs at the COMPLETE lack of Beer Week coordination: I searched up "Philly Beer Week + Saturday Events" at the hotel. I was interested in two. There was the Beer Bus Tour of South Street. That's all it said; no further information. Ok, thanks, guess I won't be seeing you there! Then there was the Neighborhood Bar Crawl near our hotel. There was a starting bar and meet-up time. Based on evidence, that was a Sure Winner because there was actual information provided.

We headed over to the starting bar a little early to check on the scene - make sure the other crawlers wouldn't want to kick my butt for wearing motorcycle boots. The place was PACKED but it did NOT appear that there was any organized event going on... because there wasn't. I informed the server that we were there for the bar crawl and thus did not need menus. She informed ME that the bar crawl started at a different bar and ended at the bar we were in. Well Bananas! Everyone misread the posting on the net, because they were all there for the bar crawl. The owners quick put up a sandwich board announcing the bar crawl but by then it was too late - everyone, including us, was off to make their own fun.

I only wish I had bought the Hello Kitty pleather stuffed toy. I would have put her on a leash and "walked" her around town to bars. THAT would have been fun, relatively. I'm not even kidding.