THE SMURFS Movie versus THE SMERF Market

Head to www.BeSmurfed.com to get your own Smurf name.

As a child of the 1980′s, I know the Smurfs.  I didn’t watch the cartoon, but the merchandising was so strong that you were bound to run into a Smurf-something.   And this Friday, Papa, Brainy, Smurfette, and the rest of the gang return when The Smurfs movie is released.

As an educational post on the meetings industry and its tie-in to your auction fundraiser, today’s post teaches about SMERF:  the SMERF market.

In the meetings industry, SMERF stands for Social, Military, Educational, Religious, and Fraternal.

Your auction may or may not be a SMERF.

For instance, association and government meetings aren’t SMERF.  If — and I’m pulling this out of thin air — the American Industrial Hygiene Association decided to conduct an auction fundraiser at its annual convention to raise money for its PAC, that would not be SMERF.

But if the Society of Decorative Painters held an auction to raise money for — hmmm, help me out here — a software program to better design the quarterly newsletter … or maybe to raise money for the American Heart Association in honor of a beloved member who recently passed from heart disease … that would be SMERF.

And if at your family reunion you held an auction to raise money to cover shared expenses for the next family reunion (which is what I’ll be doing this Sunday), that is definitely SMERF.

That might even be SMURFILICIOUS.

So should you find yourself chatting with some venue’s event manager about your auction fundraiser, and you overhear her mention SMERF to a colleague, know that she’s not talking about those little blue creatures wearing white pants.