Recently we had a booth in the Lethbridge Chamber of Commerce Mix and Mingle. We find that the Mix and Mingle is one of the most cost effective ways to get your product in front of a group of genuinely interested people. Simple, effective, inexpensive marketing.
Unless you are me.
Lethbridge has a population of over 90,000 of which there are probably 87,000 people who have not seen all of the projects and products that we can offer through our store.
But I have.
So every year when we take a holiday, we like to bring back an art piece made by a local artist. It reminds us of where we went to escape this frozen northland that we call home. With a little research before we left we found that Puerto Rico is known for a small green tree frog with a distinctive two note mating call and I decided that I would have some artistic interpretation of this little fellow as my trophy this year. The hunt was on.
It’s the last day before we fly home and my trophy has eluded me. No wood carving, no painting, not even a photograph of the little croaker and the money that I had earmarked for art is burning a hole in my pocket, so we try one more gallery/tourist trap. No frogs to be seen(as it turns out the melodious two note call of the Eleutherodactylus coqui is kind of annoying when you have to listen to it every night and it is therefore considered a pest by the locals), however there on the back wall is a very handsome, hand carved, African Elephant head. I am pretty sure that there are not a lot of African elephants in the Caribbean but this one spoke to me and even though the tag on the back said made in Indonesia I laid down my cash and brought it home.
The point of my digression is that I wanted some cool new project for the Mix and Mingle, and therefor it is time to take the elephant off of the shelf and make him resplendent. Off to Rona to grab $80 worth of 1x7 oak and a can of stain then back to the shop to build a shadowbox. In the cutting room I have eight feet of very elegant (and certified forest friendly) moulding that will make a beautiful face for the shadowbox. With the face together I’m looking at the oak that I just purchased and not really loving it, so back into the cutting room and I find another piece of wide moulding that, if I I turn it sideways and cut it as a frame extender will be a worthy compliment to the face and the pachyderm. Of course the finish is not quite a perfect match so down to Home Depot (I like to spread the love around) to pick up a can of paint stripper and the proper accessories then back to the shop. Two days, three applications of paint stripper and four coats of stain later the shadowbox is assembled with a very nice, modern silver mat. But then I see this mottled jungle shadow type mat and I just know that this will be more harmonious with the project so I assemble it with that mat and it looks really good.
But this is for the chamber, these are sophisticated people. I can do better. I’ll add lights!
I let my fingers do the walking and after calling three other craft stores I ended up at The Craft Store which had the lights that I needed. Normally the lights would go around the inside edge of the frame but in the interest of doing something different I decided to float the carving off of the mat so the lights could go in behind the head giving it a dramatic glow.
The bottom line is that the Mix and Mingle is a very cost effective marketing avenue, provided you don’t go off on a tangent and spend three days building one special project just to satisfy an inner need to be different. Anyway I now have the only African elephant, made in Indonesia, bought in the Caribbean, NOT a tree frog, night light, in Lethbridge(maybe in the world! NO the universe!). On display now at Wall Décor and More.
And I think that I can write off last years’ vacation as a marketing expense… Maybe I should run that past my accountant?
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