Marketing Mistake Introduction

Chris Norton 0:00

This is more fun . I'm going to take it easier . Tell us about the time that you did an exhibition stand and what happened , because you gave us a few details .

Rachel Massey 0:10

Well , yeah , you see , you want marketing mistakes and I mean there's been a lot . We've all had a lot , haven't we ? Oh yeah , but this one particularly sticks out because when I think about it now , I can still feel the anxiety and I can still feel the dread of watching what unfolded . So we were at Excel in London , where I'd spent a lot of time over the years and it was quite early in my career at one particular organization and this was

The Exhibition Stand Disaster

Rachel Massey 0:37

a big stand build . This is , I don't know , probably 100 square meters stand Big .

Will Ockenden 0:41

And the investment is huge for those , isn't it Huge ?

Rachel Massey 0:43

for those Six figure stuff . Wow , and it's in the middle of excel four sides . What ?

Chris Norton 0:49

color is it ?

Rachel Massey 0:51

it's multi-colored multi-colored and , um , we'd done all the messaging inside the stand so we'd got uh , we'd signed all that off , we've got that down down part , great . But I hadn't really thought about the signage . I had really thought about it . It was standard signage around the edge of the stance . It was just our strapline brand . Maybe overlook that slightly . So this is day one opening the stand . It's all going grey . And the guy someone came up to me and said the guy at the stand opposite wants to chat . So I said okay . So I went over to the stand and he's got another big stand . He said I don't know how to tell you this . He said but you've missed T out of software all over your stand .

Will Ockenden 1:38

So not just once .

Rachel Massey 1:40

No , it was all over .

Chris Norton 1:41

What so someone couldn't

Deciding to Hide the Mistake

Chris Norton 1:42

spell software when they wrote the Someone ?

Rachel Massey 1:45

I don't know who it was all over what . So someone couldn't spell software when they wrote the Someone I don't know who it was , but who's cheating . It was something that was overlooked because it wasn't . This was just . This is standard stuff that goes .

Chris Norton 1:52

So it said software .

Rachel Massey 1:53

So I never even thought so it said software , so this was all over this stand and Software . The second day .

Rachel Massey 2:02

Usually if this happens and you get some sort of spelling mistake , you can send it to the printers . You have to throw money at it and you can get it sorted . But this is day one and this is in london . So chief execs coming to see the stand , there's a lot of important guests coming to this stand . This is a big showpiece , so I had to make the decision . So I thought , right , this has been . This has been around now sort of all morning . No one said anything about a guy that's looking at this stand his whole time . Do I fess up , tell them what ? Tell people what I've done , or do I just think no one else has noticed it so far ? I'm gonna stick with it , I'm gonna pretend I don't even know and we're just going to continue , and that's what I decided to do ?

Chris Norton 2:42

what time of day was it that you heard that there was a spelling mistake and it was software everywhere ?

Rachel Massey 2:47

it was probably about 11 am , so the show had been open like a couple of hours . How ?

Chris Norton 2:51

many . How many people do you think is in the show ?

Rachel Massey 2:53

thousands , thousands , okay , and then the whole leadership team of the whole leadership team of the company , all the team that were . I mean , there was I don't know how many stand staff 20 , 30 . How long was the show ? Three days so . For 72 hours I just sweated and I was just . The anxiety was high because every time someone said my name I just was like what . Because I thought they were going to say have you noticed that ? What level were you ?

Chris Norton 3:18

here . Did you have bosses there as well ? Yeah , right , okay .

Will Ockenden 3:27

But what you ? You know I couldn't . I couldn't do anything about it , so I just thought . No one has noticed it in front of the word every time it was everywhere .

Rachel Massey 3:31

I couldn't position myself , and we're only using this stand once and then .

Chris Norton 3:35

That was it .

Rachel Massey 3:35

They're going to bid after that unfortunately , that is what happens with stand bills . Yeah , you just build them and and then they take them down and fortunately , but at that point they might be a little more environmentally friendly these days , but that's

Post-Event Reflections

Rachel Massey 3:46

what used to happen , yeah .

Chris Norton 3:47

I think the moral of this story is that nobody reads stands . That's a very cynical view .

Rachel Massey 3:53

Nobody bloody reads them . What I did know , because I'd written that word a lot in my time at this Software yeah , that I had done it . It's a mistake that you do when you're typing a lot . So I thought this is a mistake that people don't pick up and have not picked up on it before in other certain things . So I knew that it was a mistake , that was common and I just had to just , yeah , just go with it .

Will Ockenden 4:16

So when the clock struck five o'clock on the last day , were you just incredibly relieved .

Rachel Massey 4:22

Do you know what this is ? No one knows . I've never , ever told anyone .

Will Ockenden 4:25

An exclusive .

Chris Norton 4:26

I love this , I absolutely love it . We're clipping that bit . I mean , it's the fact that you've spent the whole time .

Rachel Massey 4:34

basically , you did the ostrich approach which is you buried your head in the sand . I buried my head and just thought I'm just gonna grin and bear it . But this wasn't . This was quite early on in this . This was a big p . I just didn't . I couldn't do it . I just couldn't . No , if anybody else had noticed , I would have been . I can't believe it , but no one did and I got away with it .

Will Ockenden 4:54

It would have been so me and the guy in the stand across that .

Rachel Massey 4:57

That's all that knew . Your fake surprise Really how did nobody notice ?

Chris Norton 5:02

How did nobody notice ?

Rachel Massey 5:04

I mean I've . You'll be surprised that word , particularly when you just glance at it , you don't . You just think , oh , it says software , because that's what you expected to say .

Chris Norton 5:13

There's certain words isn't there when you see grammar books and things , where they do it and they take a letter out and you can't notice it no , they do it because a lot happens .

Rachel Massey 5:20

Well , maybe that is . We need to do the research into that .

Will Ockenden 5:22

Is there some retired chief exec listening to this now ? Let's hope not . I think we've not to that degree . We've all done that .

Shared Typo Stories

Chris Norton 5:40

And I say you must have in PR and um as an exec part of the admin of the job . Was it , um , like basically printing all the press releases out , stapling them and folding ? There was we actually got trained on how to fold them into three so they fit perfectly in an envelope . Then we'd go down to the mail room and you'd get all like it was 250 of us Mail room .

Will Ockenden 6:01

that's how it's called , isn't it ?

Chris Norton 6:02

Exactly . You'd get like 15 , 20 of us at all , the same level , and we'd be like a chain and you'd be folding up press releases and putting them into envelopes . Then you'd run them through , get it the Franken . Do you remember that ?

Will Ockenden 6:14

yeah , I remember the frankie machine .

Chris Norton 6:14

They were quite fun because they'd fly through the frankie machine anyway . So I remember being specifically like 83 press releases in of a press release that we'd written and the team had written , and on the second sorry to all clients listening right now second paragraph in I saw typo like a small typo and I was like did exactly what you did I was like . I'm going to have to go upstairs because this wasn't , this wasn't the days of being able to . It's not digital is it ?

Chris Norton 6:42

you've got to go upstairs change everything , reprint it all out , come all the way back down , and we missed the post , so we just I just went with it with a typo what was the typo ? I can't remember , it was probably software .

Rachel Massey 6:53

Because we weren't in tech , probably .

Will Ockenden 6:56

My first ever job in PR . This isn't the other story . I told you earlier . I'm not going to tell that story . I had to mail out 5,000 companies Again traditional mail out asking for sponsorship and it said dear colleague , blah , blah , blah , blah , blah . And on the last batch that I was sorting out , I realized it didn't say dear colleague , it said dear college . Oh no , but again , head in the sand carried on .

Rachel Massey 7:22

I think that might be a software one , though I think people might just see that and not actually realize that one yeah , and they get the gist , don't they ?

Will Ockenden 7:29

you get the gist , it's not as bad as maybe .

Chris Norton 7:31

That's what I should have told my chief exec you get the gist well , everyone knows what you're

More PR Mail-Out Mishaps

Chris Norton 7:37

trying to say , don't they ?

Will Ockenden 7:37

you get the gist it's .

Chris Norton 7:38

Everyone knows what you're trying to say , don't they ? You get the gist . It's not going to work in a branding meeting , is it ?