Lowther Rinse Repeat

Thanks Lululemon - Free Endorphins Class! September 8, 2008

If you live in Vancouver, Lululemon is practically synonymous with the city.  You don’t have to go more than a block in pretty much any neighbourhood to find someone decked out in head to toe in Lululemon.  It’s part of the active lifestyle that is pervasive in Vancouver.  The clothes are incredibly comfortable and the yoga pant are very flattering.

I was in the Lululemon on Robson street the other week buying a rain jacket for running when the girl helping me in the change room recognized me from a previous visit.  She asked me if I was interested in joining a clinic that they were hosting.  What they did, was ask 20 people who came in to the store if they wanted to take part in a four week - 8 sessions in total - bootcamp style class called Endorphins, that is taught by the owners own personal trainer. The best part about it, is that it’s free.

I was quite surprised that they were offering this for free and jumped at the opportunity to participate in the class.  To sign up for a 4 week bootcamp class, the cost is between $200 and $300. Anyway that you look at it, it’s a great deal for me.  I’m not sure exactly what is involved in an Endorphins class, but I’m definitely looking forward to going to my first one tomorrow.

It got me to thinking about why they were doing this.  They didn’t know anything about who I was, other than they recognized me from a previous visit and I was offered this before I’d purchased anything - and they didn’t have a purchase requirement in order to participate.

All to often these days, companies want you to jump through hoops in order to partake in a promotion that they are offering with all sorts of small print in there to catch you on the back end.   Think about all of those “free” digital camera’s that the telecom’s give you to sign up to their internet or phone services.  They are never free and you’re better off just buying one yourself.

There isn’t anything involved with this offer that Lululemon gave me.  What they have created is a loyal customer who is more than willing to tell all of my friends - and in my case readers - about this.  The next time I need to buy athletic gear, you can be assured that I won’t be hitting the Puma store on Granville or the closest big box sports store, I’ll be heading down to my local Lululemon.  If I wasn’t a loyal consumer before, you can be sure that I am now.

So other companies out there, you can take a cue from this.  Don’t make your customers jump through hoops to participate in your promotions.  You’re far more apt to create a loyal customer by treating them well than by trying to trick them with your “free” promotions.  I know that I loyally avoid several companies now due to their ‘free’ promotion giveaway’s.

Thanks Lululemon!

Observations from a Night Time Seawall Run August 19, 2008

Last night I was sitting at home and decided to finally go for my run around 8pm.  It was a perfect evening for it - it wasn’t too warm and there was a nice cool breeze on the seawall.  I intended for it to be a quick run - from my house down to the seawall at the Cambie street bridge then down to the construction next to the tennis courts at David Lam Park and back.

It was so nice though, that I kept going and ended up at English Bay, then ran back to Urban Fare to pick up a quick bite to eat.  It was a really nice long run - I’d guess between 5 and 7km.  But, I really don’t have any idea how long it actually was, because they don’t have any distance markers on this part of the seawall.  They do around Stanley Park, but that’s it. This got me to thinking why they don’t have distance markers or am I just missing them?

Vancouver is an abnormally active city and you can pretty much look anywhere in the city - particularly the seawall - during the day and see someone running, walking, biking, rollerblading or participating in some sort of group workout routine.  I think it would be a great idea to have distance markers installed along the seawall to let people know how far they’ve gone or to help facilitate people meeting on the seawall.  I can’t imagine that it would cost much to install and I’m pretty positive that I’m not the first person who has wanted to know how long they have run for.

This brings me to my other observation.  Not all of the seawall is lit at night - on my way back the sun set and there were several sections of the seawall that have absolutely no lighting.  I know that I shouldn’t leave for my run so late and it is ultimately my responsibility to ensure my safety and plan my activities accordingly, but I think as a basic safety precaution for the seawall users, it should be lit. Being a girl that was out alone, I find this to be slightly troubling - especially around the area’s that have construction.  It wasn’t too bad as the seawall was still pretty active with people because the sun had just set, I would have felt much more unease had it not been so busy. What do you think - should the seawall be lit at night?

Happy Birthday Monica August 18, 2008

On Sunday, I spent the day at Kits beach celebrating Miss Monica’s birthday.  It was a great time all around.  The weather couldn’t have been nicer and the people there were great company. For some reason though, they setup on the grass amidst a bunch of trees that created some evil shade!  They said something about having to have a picnic table for the scads of food that was there for us to nibble on. But it was still slow quiet chinese water style torture being that close to the sand on such a nice day without actually being on the sand:)

Chris made some decadent Raspberry Mojito’s for us to imbibe and Tris brought some interesting bread in a can and promised me fluffer nutter sandwiches if I make it over to the Redwerks office.  He promises me that the sandwich isn’t dirty like it sounds - that it’s a marshmallow and peanutbutter sandwich.  He assures me that it’s the best sandwich ever - I’ll let you know what I think if I ever get around to trying it.

It was great seeing everyone and chatting with everyone who was there - Beth, Tanya, Tris, Matthew, John, Monica, Joe, Chris and a bunch of other people who I’m currently drawing a blank on.  I blame it on being a Monday.

Beth and I had a great time getting down to our bikini’s and laying in the sun - or what sun we could carve out amongst the shade.  Check out the cute pics that Tris took of me while I was there.

Photo Credits: Tris Hussey

What Activities Are You Doing This Week?

So my second month of bootcamp ended last Friday and I had fabulous results.  I loved everything about bootcamp and would absolutely do it again in a heart beat.  Unfortunately, I can’t quite justify spending $200 again this month to do it again - if it was $100 a month, I think I’d go year round, but alas it’s not.

So myself and another girl I met at bootcamp are planning on going to Steve Nash.  She’s out of town this week, so when she gets back next week, I’m going to try it out with a free week and sign up if I like it. She already has a membership there for $75 per month - which I am willing to pay if I like it.

That leaves me with nothing athletic planned this week and I really don’t want to slack for the week.  I’ve been thinking that I may see if the World Gym has a free pass I can use and try it out - it would be my backup gym if for some reason Steve Nash doesn’t work out.  It is less expensive and far closer to my house, but I wouldn’t have a workout buddy there.  If any of you workout there and would like a gym buddy for the week - ping me, I’d love to join you!

My other option is to continue to run the seawall or to play tennis.  Unfortunately I’m not that great at tennis and don’t have a tennis partner.  If you live downtown and would like to play with me let me know - as long as you can deal with my beginner status.

So this is my dilemma.  What would you do?  Are there any other outdoor activities that you’d recommend for one of the last weeks of summer?

Vancouver Start Up Tagga Launches August 12, 2008

Good friends of mine, Amielle Lake and Ryan Holmes, have recently launched their new startup tagga.com.  Tagga is a Mobile Bookmarking Platform - a free service that lets anyone tagg real world items and send web snippets to their mobile phone.  I think it’s a really cool startup that has a lot of potential as the company moves forward and gains traction in the competitive SMS market.

With tagga, an advertiser only pays per action or is free with embedded ads.  All traffic generated from the SMS campaign is fully trackable through tagga’s analytics reporting - enabling advertisers to accurately track campaign ROI. They’ve also got some great revenue sharing options available to bloggers so if you’re interested, make sure you check out the blogger resource section.

Tagga Features:
•    Enable anyone to setup and launch a text message campaign within minutes
•    Enable print and web publishers to monetize content through distribution on  mobile phones
•    RSS to mobile features and easy embed scripts
•    Enable any web content to be sent direct to phone or email

Tagga hasn’t just been developed with marketers and advertisers in mind - they’ve set up some cool features that are useful for everyone. I personally love using tagga for a couple of their features.  I’ve set it up so that if you text jennmae to 82442, you’ll receive my personal contact info straight to your mobile phone.  I’ve found that this is great for when I’m out at networking functions and have run out of business cards and I’ve also used it on my about page on this blog.  I’ve set one up for my work contact info and one for my personal contact info.

I also love the tagglet tool.  It has a simple drag and drop install on your browser and you’re off.  Any website you navigate to, you can use the tagglet tool to send info from the site to your mobile phone.  I find that this is particularly helpful with addresses.  I no longer write down addresses of businesses I need to visit now, I just highlight the address on their site - hit the tagglet button, and it’s sent straight to my mobile phone.

I’m running tagga’s Social Media Marketing Campaign.  We’ve got plenty of fun campaign initiatives coming up and it’s already been featured in both Tech Crunch and Mashable.  I’ve been having a great time playing around with the site and coming up with fun campaign ideas for tagga.  Make sure you check them out and set up some taggs.