Marketing Promotions? My Personal Experience

My very first encounter which was actually the first of two with marketing promotion was in 1969 just before I went to Tahiti to celebrate my 21st birthday.

My first marketing and promotion experience was that I did an advertisement for Television on Juicy Fruit Gum dancing the Tahitian Tamure with Kalua (Val) Bassett who was part of my father’s Tahitian Hula Troupe “Nat Mara and His Tahitians” in Auckland New Zealand in the 60’s and 70’s.

I still giggle to myself about my few fleeting seconds of fame on TV in colour.
Of course my friends and my girlfriend at the time gave me a hard time.

Well that was until they realised how much I got paid for around 5 hours work.
I have tried to find the advertisement I would love a copy, maybe on my next trip to New Zealand.

My Second Marketing Promotion Experience

This was one of those unique promotional activities that comes along once in a life time for a 20 year old young fella, eat your heart out guys.

I was surrounded by a bevy of beautiful models, mostly around my age and a couple were Beauty Queens in New Zealand.

It was like having a lucid dream then waking up and is was actually real and happening, unforgettable even after 40+ years further down the track.

It was at Kirkcaldies (New Zealand’s equivalent to Harrods in the 60’s) in the capital of New Zealand, Wellington.
It was where the wealthy and affluent shopped, similar to Smith and Caughey in Auckland.

Both Kalua (Val) and my self were flown to Wellington, put up at the top Hotel all expenses paid plus we earned an embarrassing amount of money.

As you see I have a copy of the original newspaper clippings, unfortunately I lost the photos of when all the girls took me out on the last night in Wellington, they found out was turning 21 in a couple of weeks and that I was going to Tahiti a week before my 21st.

Unbelievable!

Dreams Do Come True!

Imagine walking into the top restaurant in Wellington arm in arm with all these beautiful girls, not bad for a boy that grew up in Laingholm just past Titirangi in Auckland.

The quality of the images is rather poor after 40+ years.

After those two very unique and fulfilling promotional activities I realised how good life can be when you least expect it and that has held me in good stead all my life.

A very positive beginning to a young mans life, but that is only the beginning of my exceptional number of life changing experiences.

Paul’s Comments

What I learnt from this experience gave me a core insight as to what is involved with marketing and promotions plus how tough it can be.

It also showed me what life is all about for those who work hard, believe me it was fun but it called for total commitment, dancing in front of hundreds of women half naked when your only 20 back in the 60’s. Wow!
It gave me my principal belief that I have continued all my life “WORK HARD – PLAY HARD”
Do you agree or disagree??

To many people go through like and never reward themselves for their hard work!
Unfortunately!
The amount of work an Event Planner does is amazing and not something everyone can do for sure.

It was my first brush with what people skills was about, handling all those models with different characters and cultures, another tick in my learning column.

I also learnt an important lesson that what happens behind the scenes stays behind the scenes.
Not like reality shows today!

One Last

So as you can see I became very aware of the potential marketing techniques at a very young age well before the advent of the Internet.

So marketing and promotion became second nature to me at a very early age.

Thank you for taking the time to read my article about promotion marketing and have a great day.