According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), the definition of marketing (approved July 2013) is "the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners and society at large". Given that the association was formed in 1937, it appears to have taken it an inordinately long time to arrive at a definition as to why it exists, but be that as it may.
There was a marketing operation in Magalluf last week. Where?, I hear you ask. Not heard of that place before. Consequently, a marketing operation would be useful to grow a spot of awareness of the place. But no, we have of course all heard of Magalluf. Over and over and over and over ... . This was a different type of marketing operation. One, so some claimed last week, conducted by the Guardia Civil, but one, by implication, that was at the behest of someone or some other authority removed from the Guardia. A marketing consultant perhaps.
The operation (not formally named Operación Marketing) involved the rounding-up of a bunch of alleged ne'er-do-wells who had been engaged in a spot of drug dealing. Well, quite probably rather more than a spot. How, therefore, was this a marketing operation? Extrapolating from the AMA's definition, one might suppose that what was being inferred was that a set of institutions (Guardia and/or others) communicated an offering of ne'er-do-wells who were of value (because of their arrest) to the rest of us in society. Is this what was meant?
Of course, what one presumed was being suggested was that it was an operation to show that something was being done in Magalluf or that it was an operation to divert attention from things that have been done - like the arrest of three local police officers. It was all nonsense. The operation has been planned for a goodly amount of time and had nothing to do with other local difficulties. If there was any justification for the charge of a marketing operation, then it was that the full glare of publicity that was thrown on to the arrests. But publicity, as any good marketing person can tell you, is but one part of the marketing mix. People need to get their terminology right. And even if there was a sizable amount of publicity, what was so wrong? Drug dealers? Get rid of them.
What a sad evening it was. With the sound of the ghosts of Catalan invaders of yore wooing in the heavenly skies above Santa Ponsa, Manu signalled the end of his own conquest of Calvia town hall. To absolutely no one's surprise, he announced he wouldn't be running as mayor again. Cheers versus tears? Hmm. It was his fourth discourse to commemorate the fiestas of Rei En Jaume. "The number four represents the square ... the four elements and the realisation of ideas," he discoursed. Which was pretty deep stuff to be honest. Earth, water, air, fire. We had not previously been aware that Manu had been applying Aristotelian philosophy to his period in office. "It is time to be as objective as possible when providing the profit and loss account," he mixed metaphored in moving from the ancient Greeks to 101 accounting.
Manu did not avoid THAT subject, the one to do with the three local police officers - you might have heard about it. He could not ignore the seriousness of such an event, he went on, which was in keeping with his learning from the Greeks. The old boy Aristotle had after all invoked the four elements in his treatise "On Generation and Corruption", which is also known as "On Coming to Be and Passing Away". This alternative title seems rather apt. On coming to be mayor and passing away from being mayor. Manu's long goodbye has begun.
As he knows his marketing, Manu wove this into his accountancy theme by alluding to the successes. Which is what you would have expected. The trouble is that no politician is remembered for the positives, such as getting the street cleaners to run on time. They are remembered for the other stuff.
Showing posts with label Manu Onieva. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Manu Onieva. Show all posts
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Saturday, July 26, 2014
Where The Streets Have No Shame
If you were to lay 24 penises (flaccid condition) end to end, the chances of their combined length reaching anything approximating 500 centimetres would, except in very rare anatomical circumstances, be highly remote. Which is, for the purposes of this article, a bit of a shame (to coin a word of current popularity). I would dearly love to be able to paraphrase the Balearics' president and refer to 500 centimetres of shame, but unfortunately I can't, so you'll have to settle for slightly less than 300 centimetres at best (average lengths may of course vary).
It presumably won't have escaped your attention that the dear leader informed an expectant media (one that had been expecting and not getting for more than a fortnight) what he thought of shenanigans in Magalluf. By the time he made his statement, he was the only person in Mallorca not to have expressed an opinion, so he had to say something pretty spectacular to be heard above the noise. 500 metres, the street of shame, the street in question being the Calle Punta Bellend. Some were shocked by his words, as indeed I was. 500 metres? Is he certain? Far be it for me to question the word of a politician, but is it 500 metres long? Has anyone seen a politician acting suspiciously with a surveyor's wheel along the strip recently? It's no use saying that there are 500 metres of shame, if in reality there are only, for sake of argument, 472 and a half. We need to know, beyond any doubt, exactly how long the shame is.
One observer who was clearly unimpressed by the measurement was Manu the Not-Magi. At a rough estimate, if one can interpret what the Not-Magi had to say, the shame is only about 50 metres long. In responding to the Bauzá calculation, he let it be known that the great majority of businesses along the Punta Bellend eschew shameful practices. They are in fact all upstanding members (sic) of the community who make regular donations for church maintenance.
But then, we were suddenly confronted by the knowledge that not only was the length of the shame questionable, the street itself wasn't even the street of shame. It was a different one entirely. No measurement as to the shameful length of Martin Ros García was offered, but we learned that a bar along it called Playhouse had been the venue for the score and four who had scored and that it was going to get it in the neck because of the presence of minors. Or so various laws that a press release reeled off suggested. Quite clearly what had happened was that these minors had mistaken the bar for a playhouse, as in, for example, a Little Tikes Princess Garden Playhouse, a Royal Lollipop Playhouse or a Mad Dash Bunny Wooden Playhouse. There can be no other explanation.
President Bauzá was clearly going to be hopping as madly as a bunny hopping in a bunny playhouse at the revelation. The Not-Magi of Magalluf, the Manupulator, hadn't given him the heads-up, so to speak, as to the location of the Shameful 24. Blissfully unaware, therefore, he made his street of shame announcement, not knowing that he had got the wrong street. And thus, the wrong length.
It presumably won't have escaped your attention that the dear leader informed an expectant media (one that had been expecting and not getting for more than a fortnight) what he thought of shenanigans in Magalluf. By the time he made his statement, he was the only person in Mallorca not to have expressed an opinion, so he had to say something pretty spectacular to be heard above the noise. 500 metres, the street of shame, the street in question being the Calle Punta Bellend. Some were shocked by his words, as indeed I was. 500 metres? Is he certain? Far be it for me to question the word of a politician, but is it 500 metres long? Has anyone seen a politician acting suspiciously with a surveyor's wheel along the strip recently? It's no use saying that there are 500 metres of shame, if in reality there are only, for sake of argument, 472 and a half. We need to know, beyond any doubt, exactly how long the shame is.
One observer who was clearly unimpressed by the measurement was Manu the Not-Magi. At a rough estimate, if one can interpret what the Not-Magi had to say, the shame is only about 50 metres long. In responding to the Bauzá calculation, he let it be known that the great majority of businesses along the Punta Bellend eschew shameful practices. They are in fact all upstanding members (sic) of the community who make regular donations for church maintenance.
But then, we were suddenly confronted by the knowledge that not only was the length of the shame questionable, the street itself wasn't even the street of shame. It was a different one entirely. No measurement as to the shameful length of Martin Ros García was offered, but we learned that a bar along it called Playhouse had been the venue for the score and four who had scored and that it was going to get it in the neck because of the presence of minors. Or so various laws that a press release reeled off suggested. Quite clearly what had happened was that these minors had mistaken the bar for a playhouse, as in, for example, a Little Tikes Princess Garden Playhouse, a Royal Lollipop Playhouse or a Mad Dash Bunny Wooden Playhouse. There can be no other explanation.
President Bauzá was clearly going to be hopping as madly as a bunny hopping in a bunny playhouse at the revelation. The Not-Magi of Magalluf, the Manupulator, hadn't given him the heads-up, so to speak, as to the location of the Shameful 24. Blissfully unaware, therefore, he made his street of shame announcement, not knowing that he had got the wrong street. And thus, the wrong length.
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