1. What do you advise Derek, as the director of market and sales, to tell Kathy?
2. What ethical concerns do you have about the proposed blogs?
3. How effective do you think favorable comments on social networking sites and personal blogs would be in enhancing enrollment at the Center City Athletic Club?
4. How effective do you think “goofy talk” would be to help the blogs seem more authentic?

Kathy is the managing director of the Center City Athletic Club, a chain of twenty-six athletic clubs. Although the club is sufficient for generating a profit, Kathy and her management staff believe that the club could do better with the right type of advertising and publicity. Derek, the club director of marketing and sales, explained that a couple of marketing efforts have not been successful in generating new members. One approach was to invest in a program of newspaper advertising that consisted of a decal lightly glued to the front page of the Sunday edition of the local newspaper. The decals did not bring in even one new member. Radio advertising brought in a few inquiries and two new family memberships.
Billboard advertising on a major highway in the outskirts of the city brought in apparently no new members.