They Don't Want Me, They Used To Want Me, Now They Don't Want Me Any More

I am employed in a marketing capacity.

In this capacity, I received an invitation to HP World, a conference costing between $700 and $1900.

Before I found out the cost, I was leafing through the brochure, trying to decide if this conference was for me.

Then I got to page 2 of the brochure and saw this woman:



If you go to the HP World website, this woman's intentions are explicitly spelled out:


Marketing Free

If you’ve ever been frustrated when a technical training session turns into a sales or marketing pitch then HP World 2005 is for you! This year Interex will offer a complete line-up of “Marketing Free” sessions so that attendees can be sure that they will get only the purest technical information directly from highly respected industry experts. Attendees can look for the “Marketing Free” symbol in the conference catalog to easily identify these sessions.

Plus, now you can take matters into your own hands! Every conference attendee will receive a “No Marketing” sign in their conference tote bags. If sales or marketing information begins to intrude into a “Marketing Free” session, attendees can fight back by hold up their “No Marketing” signs to let the speaker know that he/she has veered off course. Power to the people!



Well, this conference is not for me.

This whole idea of "empowering" lecture attendees with cutesy signs does bear some monitoring, however. This could really be misused, don't you think?

P.S. What are your car radio presets?

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Comments

Ontario Emperor said…
It just occurred to me that the signs themselves are a marketing ploy. So if someone holds up a "no marketing" sign, do you hold up a "no marketing" sign back to the offender?

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