Bathroom Blogfest - Greetings from Manchester

 I am currently on business in Manchester and decided to blog about the bathroom experience in hotels as I travel regularly. I have to say that I have been very impressed by the Manchester City Inn –  fair enough it’s a four star hotel. I have had far too many times bad hotel bathroom experiences – dirty bathrooms, not enough water pressure, not enough freebies such as shampoo and soaps, no hairdryer. The whole point about staying in hotels is to feel at home… well for the first time in my life, I do feel good in a hotel room!

Here’s my bathroom and a drawer that includes a toothbrush, toothpaste and mouthwash! Pretty cool, huh? Oh, I also have a bathrobe!

Click images to enlarge

                               

And here’s my room! I love the imac (check out my crappy work laptop!)

               

   

Good night everyone!

Bathroom Blogfest - Toilet Ladies: friends or foes?

A post by Anna Farmery about an engaged toilet attendant  inspired me to blog about not so engaged UK Toilet Attendants!

Toilet Attendants could only be found in extravagant restaurants and bars a few years ago but have more recently begun to appear in mainstream bars.

A Toilet Attendant’s responsibilities include: turning on the tap, providing soaps and towels as well as offering perfume, mouthwash, chewing-gum, deodorant and lollipops – well not necessarily in that order!

If you go to Asia, they may even provide a massage or a hot face towel! In the UK, you’ll probably get melted chewing gum and dodgy perfume.

I’ve been to a number of hip as well as mainstream bars in London and Toilet Attendants aka Toilet Ladies always make me feel uncomfortable. What is their purpose apart from making you feel guilty when you don’t leave them a penny? The worst thing for me is when they talk to Mr Toilet Attendant with the bathroom’s door wide open or half hearteadly hand over a paper towel whilst talking to her mate on the phone!

I personally think that bars and restaurants should rethink the hiring of Toilet Attendants or train their staff on political correctness.  Toilet Ladies can damage your brand; I now make a point in avoiding places with Toilet Ladies – they can ruin a night out in less than a couple of minutes!  

So what do you think - are Toilet Ladies friends or foes?

Bathroom Blogfest - Funny Bathroom Experiences

 A couple a funny bathroom experiences I’d like to share with you to kick off the Bathroom Blogfest.

Funny bathroom experience #1

Ping Pong seems to be the new hip restaurant in London. It hasn’t been open much more than a year, but Ping Pong already has a keen following among the young and fashionable. There’s no booking and queues can stretch almost to Liberty’s department store down the road. Inside, the dramatic decor is very 21st century, with stools ranged around curving counters and a huge glass wall looking on to a Japanese-style garden.

Enough about the restaurant, let’s talk about the bathroom. The bathroom is very 21^st century like the rest of the restaurant.  The sliding doors are very stylish and open after pressing a button as if the bathroom was in another world.

However as I was washing my hands, I saw a male pair of hands coming from the other side of the wall! You can indeed see into the guys toilets (right where the sinks are) and vice versa! There are cubicles for the ladies however the same cannot be said on the men’s side!  I didn’t take a picture – I didn’t think it would be terribly appropriate!

Funny bathroom experience #2

I was in Poland earlier this year and discovered a pretty funky bar in Lodz called Kaliska on Piotrkowska Street with one-way mirror loos! Very strange feeling when people seem to stare inside the cubicle while they in fact they are looking at their reflection in the main bar area.

The Bathroom Blogfest 2007 is coming!

 No news, good news! Life has been a little hectic lately and I have had no time for blogging! I started my new job 4 weeks ago and I love it; the accounts are challenging and I am really enjoying myself despite working American hours!

As some of you may know, the bathroom blogfest 2007 will run Sunday, October 28 through Friday November 2. During this week of madness, we will post about the best and the worst bathrooms experiences or talk about bathroom products directed at women.

And this year’s contributors are:

• Kate Rutter—Adaptive Path 

• Iris Shreve Garrott—checking out and checking in 

• Susan Abbott—Customer Experience Crossroads 

• Maria Palma—Customers Are Always 

• Becky Carroll—Customers Rock!

• Toby Bloomberg—Diva Marketing 

• Stephanie Weaver—Experienceology 

• Linda Tischler—Fast Company Now 

• C.B. Whittemore—Flooring the Consumer 

• Ed Pell—K+B DeltaVee 

• Helene Blowers—Library Bytes 

• Claudia Schiepers—Life and its little pleasures 

• Katie Clark—Practical Katie 

• Sandra Renshaw—Purple Wren 

• Reshma Anand—Qualitative Research 

• Marianna Hayes—Results Revolution 

• Carolyn Townes—Spirit Women 

• Sara Cantor—The Curious Shopper 

• Anna Farmery—The Engaging Brand 

• Dee McCrorey—The Ultimate Corporate Entrepreneur  

• Katia S. Adams—Transcultural 

  … and we also have a group blog right here.  

Stay tuned!

The dangers of copying and pasting

Bad PR can be sooooooooooo entertaining, don’t you think?

 I recently received an email from Jeff Cambron from Attention PR - spot the mistake!   

‘Hi Darryl, 

Some cool news you you that I thought might be of interest for your blog - The brand new “Friendly” marketing philosophy of 22squared (formally WestWayne) has now inspired its own web script and facebook network!  Looks like people are catching on!  Adam Crowe developed a script for FireFox that eliminates the dreaded “cword” (CONSUMERS!!) in all your web pages, and replaces it with people/person. Pretty nifty, plus, he’s also created a facebook community on the subject, boasting over 66 members and counting!   

This is great news for the folks at 22squared and their “Friendship Model” of advertising, as it is was directly inspired by their research and new philosophy of friendship marketing.  For more info on the subject, check out the 22squared blog, The C Word, which strives to turn around all the negative energy in the ad world, and treat people how they would hope to be treated - like friends, not consumers.   

The Friendship Model is based on many months spent mapping the consumer relationships of 128 recognized brands, and applying the principles of social psychology to  create an empirically-based approach to facilitating and deepening friendships between people and brands. 

Laurence, I would LOVE to read any thoughts you have on the subject on Blog Till You Drop.  If you’d like some more info, I have pasted a recent 22squared press release at bottom, and feel free to grab (and post!) either of the Anti-C-Word badges below if you like! 

Best,

Jeff 

Jeff next time you send blanket emails, please make sure you read and re-read your email before sending it. You only had three words to change yet you got this wrong!  That’s a shame because the blog looks good, but Jeff I would LOVE to see a comment from you in my comments box!

Can you help?

Hi everyone,Just started my new job today and we are looking for a blog mining company. I would prefer a UK based company if possible. 

Any ideas?

Thanks a bunch!