From Mr D. Titman

With reference to Tony Stivala’s letter “Gozo missed out yet again” (TMIS, 28 October), Flora is deeply sorry to have disappointed Mr Stivala when it had to cancel its seminar in Gozo. Flora had fully intended to run its World Heart Day Seminar in Gozo along with the rest of the programme in Malta.

Flora advertised and promoted the Gozo seminar in all newspapers as much as it has advertised its three seminars in Malta. A full-page advert mentioning the Gozo seminar was, in fact, published in this newspaper on Sunday 30 September being World Heart Day. Similar full-page adverts were published in other English and Maltese Sunday media.

Furthermore, various newspapers carried Flora World Heart Seminar’s press releases mentioning the Gozo event. Among these there was a news item, complete with “Flora love your heart” logo prominently displayed, in this same newspaper on Sunday 7 October.

While there was instant heavy booking for all the three Malta seminars, (in fact Flora had to double the number of seats at each venue due to heavy demand) a very low number of bookings were registered throughout the booking period for the Gozo seminar.

Seeing this, Flora immediately invested in a radio advertising campaign on a Gozitan radio station during the first fortnight in October. In addition, posters were sent to all Gozitan local councils to further attract individuals from various Gozitan communities to this seminar. Unfortunately, there were still only a very small number of registrations and Flora decided to cancel this seminar.

Flora did offer a place for the last seminar being held in Valletta to the few Gozitan individuals who had registered and honoured the free cholesterol tests by post. Through this newspaper, Flora would like to offer Mr Stivala a voucher for a free cholesterol test as a sign of goodwill.

Flora has always sought to maintain the highest level of customer satisfaction and will continue with its endeavours to maintain this high standard. We assure Mr Stivala that what happened will not put Flora off from including Gozo in its yearly Flora pro.activ campaign.

David Titman

Flora Export Brand Manager

Unilever UK Limited