Alex's Ad Factory

Marketing Tips: Syndication of Content

2011-09-28T03:49:00.000-07:00

Ad Storm #9 - Media Distribution

2008-11-26T07:29:00.000-08:00

2008 has seen the rise of many great web apps that help in content distribution. Having you content available in several areas accomplishes several goals:

- Improve SEO
- Increase Potential Audience

Two of my favorite apps for this goal are PixelPipe.com, Ping.fm and TubeMogul.com

With TubeMogul you can get your videos distributed to all the major video sites with only one upload.

With Ping.fm you can post messages to all the major microblogging/social networking sites and any links in the messages to bookmarking sites.

With PixelPipe.com you can post photos and videos to a plethora of photo sharing sites and blog hosts... SUPER AWESOME

While these two apps still cover a lot of ground there is still some legtwork worth doing!!!

- Look for fairly active Niche communities on Ning.com, Kickapps.com, etc. and make sure to post you relevant videos too them. They may be smaller audiences, but they are probably more receptive audiences as well.

- Digg, Mixx, Twine, and many other worthwhile social news/bookmarking sites arn't supported by Ping.fm yet and are worth posting too.

Hopefully this helps you in your marketing efforts, hopefully I'll be posting more tips often again!!!

Ad Storm #8 - The goal of Blogging for Marketing/Business

2008-06-14T06:43:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys,

If your my age (22, soon 23), you probably remember having your livejournal when you were in highschool. Before myspace was around blogging platforms existed and they were how we would leave ourselves open to the world as our voyeuristic generation likes to do.

Although as we grow up putting out every emotional vulnerability online for the world to see becomes less appealing while blogging still grows to have more and more purposes. From a business perspective you maintain a blog for the following reasons:

- Create a targeted mailing list in the content you deliver, to either push your own products or to sell the list itself.

- Create a targeted following to sell ad-space on your blog, Mashable.com is one of the best for showing use of ad inventory on their blog.

Either way it comes down to accomplishing two foundational efforts of any marketing approach.

- Defining who you are targeting and what content is of value to them.

- Creating superior content of value to your targeted audience.

If you understand these fundamental things you can create a successful blog as a revenue source and marketing tool. Of course some good leveaging of SEO and RSS never hurts.

Ad Storm #7 - Fun with RSS feeds

2008-05-13T07:32:00.001-07:00

Hey Guys,

Public Relations, Advertising, these are things we know and for the most part the way to use them most effectively have been for the most part become routine. Although the internet has become a new playground for marketing think tanks and visionaries. While Search Engine Optimization seems to have all the glory of online marketing, capitalizing on RSS feeds and content delivery to me is the true key to online marketing success.

Before most social networks tried to create walled gardens where everything had to be done within the network, but as competition began to open their walls the pressure to create content portability has increased. While many feared this would kill the competitive edge of a closed community this actually became a boon to then upcoming networks Twitter and Ning as they capitalized of the use of cell phones and widgets on other networks to get the word out.

So that kinda is the situation from a historical context, but I'm here to talk about RSS feeds and how to use them. RSS feeds is way of syndicating content, when content is formatted into an RSS feed it can be read by any RSS feed reader. Every blog and major news source has an RSS feed, so what how does that benefit content delivery.

One way to think about it is this, all major email services now have built in RSS readers, so if I could add the feed to all my favorite news sources to my email reader and read them in one place I'd be willing to read it more often, right? If I read it more often it means any advertisements in the content will get more consistent views, right? Which means monetization. This is one way to look at it.

When creating your product website you can seamlessly incorporate RSS feeds into you page, so what are some clever ways to use this? Let's say I have a product website, but my marketing department head doesn't have time to be at a PC typing up updates and uploading photos, how can I keep him connected.

1. updates answer - I can register my marketing rep with Twitter in which he can update news and promotions via his cellphone. I then will incorporate the RSS feed from his twitter profile seamlessly into my page using standard web design techniques and you get constant content without a need to chain your marketing guy to a chair.

2. Photos Answer - While Ning.com's purpose is to let brand build their own social network, Ning has some useful features for content distribution since all content is syndicated in RSS feeds. So register your guy again with an account on any Ning network, he is then giving an email with which he can email photos and video to with his phone.

So your marketing guy, armed with a good camera phone now has the ability to update your website via his phone with text, photos, and videos. This is only the tip of the iceberg of what you can do RSS feeds. Then you can recycle the the feeds into widgets for your consumers to paste on their myspace profiles and such for further content exposure.

See the value?

- Alex Merced

Ad Storm #6 - Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

2008-05-08T11:58:00.001-07:00

Hey Guys,

In todays marketing climate if your not at least somewhat familiar with the ins and outs of SEO your in danger of losing a lot of potential traffic to your site. I won't lie, while I'm pretty knowledgeable about marketing especially using web technologies my practical use of SEO is limited enough that I won't call myself an authority. Although for all of you who aren't the most web savvy or never really red on SEO here a few quick tips for on-page optimization.

- Make sure your brands tagline is not only something people remember, but also something that uses words people would look for. The key to SEO is using popular search terms in the most natural way possible. You tagline will be put in the most vital places by your web designer naturally, don't assume they are SEO experts so make sure wording is right.

- testimonials are a classy way of getting certain terms on your page over and over again without going overboard. Go out and ask your current consumers questions that might get them to use your target words naturally, it shouldn't be hard if the search terms your targeting are worth anything.

- make sure your site has some sort of blog that way it is crawled whenever there is new content and make sure to use your terms in any content added if it goes into it naturally of course.

Those are some quick tips for on-page optimization, otherwise email press releases to key blogs and newsletters which not only serves your PR goals but also helps SEO, got to love the online marketing karma.

- Alex Merced

P.S. go SEOFAQ and SEOmoz and don't forget about your link karma when making content.

Ad Storm #5 - Building your Own social network

2008-04-08T06:03:00.001-07:00

Hello,

With Ning and Kickapps trailblazing in the world of Social Network Hosts, the question is what is the major benefit of building a separate branded network instead of just using myspace/facebook groups and profiles to build your community. I'll give the same explanation I gave the guys at SHANE&SHAWN (where I'm currently a marketing intern, amazing shoes) before I created their Ning network.

Having a profile on a social network is about building awareness, even though people can interact with your brand with comments and through reading content you put out the end user still have thousands of other profile to dedicate their time to while on this network than to really burn your brand into their brain.

If your brand is a lifestyle brand, then a social network is valid investment cause instead of putting out content to fight for the end users time, you let the end user create content in a branded space. This creates a deeper experience of the brand, and of course the air of exclusivity and legitimacy over a myspace group or profile.

It's the same difference as buying the latest Puma shoe at the foot locker at the mall over the Puma store at union square in NYC. In both locations you can buy the product but which brand are you truly immersing yourself in, Foot Locker or Puma?

A branded social network isn't something that's gonna tip the scales in your favor overnight, but through active community building and content producing you can carve yourself a niche to re-enforce your brand into your core consumers who'd appreciate the fan service. Though to get new faces make sure you still are building awareness with a heavy dose of Myspace/Facebook.

- Alex Merced

Ad Memorial #9: MercedForFreedom.com

2008-02-05T08:13:00.000-08:00

In my political efforts of late, I have created a website where I educate people on the issues called MercedForFreedom.com. While the site has a very simple design the drive of the site is the information in form of Videos, Mp3's, and Blogs that it's provides.

In videos by Eban Pagen of GetAltitude.com he talks about giving value, and that is essentially the idea of all the free media. By providing valuable and educational media for free the value of visiting the site increases. This is the idea behind most media driven websites who's ends is high traffic. While the purpose of my site is to educate and boost awareness of the Alex Merced political brand, this technique can be used to fulfill many Marketing Communication goals.

Remember, free media is a low cost way to add value to your brand.

Ad Memorial #8: Ron Paul

2007-12-03T13:30:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys,

As of late my new promotional obsession has been getting the word out about Ron Paul, who is running for the president of the United States. I have created many flyers like the ones above. These flyers try to do one thing I feel a lot of Ron Paul from supporters don't do, KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid). The Ron Paul campaign has done a good job of creating highly targeted slim jims to pass out but sometimes you just need something even simpler people can read on the fly, especially since we're in the process of building awareness, so too much information will trigger selective attention.

Many of us Ron Paul supporters I would claim are more educated than your average American and don't have a hard time following the logic and explanation of non-interventionism and Austrian Economics and attempt to explain them on materials. I just try to point prospects to the Ron Paul website where most issues are broken down in a way anyone fully digest and further understand. This is the argument I use in my politics blog, Cause of Freedom, as to why Mike Huckabees surge in the poll is at a faster pace than Paul's. Paul is the thinking mans candidate.

The point is I'm trying to drive home is simplicity when creating awareness. You want to make sure the only information given is that which NEEDS to be remembered such as Brand Names, Websites, and Logos. As long as these few pivotal things are registered the prospect is more likely to respond more in depth to the next level of information proliferation.

Ad Storm #4: Grassroots Support

2007-11-30T04:02:00.001-08:00

Hey Guys,

It's been awhile but I've been involved in the political sphere as of late supporting Ron Paul. If you are a campaign supporter the question I'm about to pose is a no brainer, but if your not it's the question everyone is dying to understand, how does Ron Paul use the internet so effectively in communicating his message.

The Answer...

He Doesn't

While the Ron Paul official website is one of the most Web 2.0 candidate pages and is great at providing info and tools, the fact that he has permeated the net so strongly has nothing to do with a tech savey campaign staff, it's the message. The message behind his candidacy resonates in a way so deep rooted that people can get behind the Ron Paul brand to make grassroots videos, fundraising campaigns, and even renting a blimp without spending a dime.

This is where the other candidates fail in developing their marketing communications, they focus on how to make their message resonate without asking the question, what do the people want? Ron Paul himself doesn't quite have the campaign machine visibility as Romney or Giuliani yet he still permeates stronger in the free media, it's cause his supporters feel Ron Paul is the only one who understands them and is truly out there for them.

While Ron Paul isn't a marketing expert, he has a level of brand equity from a long career of honesty, integrity, and rationality which has afforded him the credibility and authenticity to have the strong loyalty he demands.

So what as Marketers should we learn from this?

No amount of gimmicks and media saturation will beat having a clear target based marketing message
Credibility and Authenticity is something that only develops truly over time, taking short cuts for short term gains only hurt your long terms brand equity
A strong brand can survive on what it represents and will permeate without a huge marketing budget

Ad Memorial #7: kissing Rabits

2007-10-07T13:52:00.000-07:00

In order to promote my Social Bookmarking site, Zuki.Us I created a mock Public Service Announcement about an epidemic of Kissing Rabbits. The intention of course that the video would go viral so here's the video and let's see what happens.

Find more videos like this on Fashionably Numb World

Ad Storm #3: Authenticity & Cultural Capital

2007-09-23T20:15:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Recently for my consumer behavior class we have had to read the book, "Chasing Cool", which is an amazing book. This book really articulates a lot of the ideas and concepts I've had about brand development back during the Gamers Lounge days that I did not yet had the knowledge to describe. It was just unsure intuition at the time, and makes me regret the many times I didn't listen to it after reading this book.

One of the reoccurring themes in the book is authenticity, and how to break into a market you need to be part of the market or at least make a sincere and in-depth effort to understand the market. My studies are primarily in Pop Culture first, and in marketing second so I approach many of these topics from a anthropological stand point where this idea is common sense. I think my background in Anthropology/Sociology as applied to Pop Culture gives me a distinct advantage in todays branding environment. Although much of what I've learned should be common knowledge so I'm gonna expound on some useful concepts, primarily, Cultural Capital.

I. What is Anthropology/Sociology and why does it Matter?
II. Cultural Capital
III. Conclusion

I. What is Anthropology/Sociology and why does it Matter?

Some definitions as written by the great Google:

Anthropology

The scientific and humanistic study of man's present and past biological, linguistic, social, and cultural variations. Its major subfields are archeology, physical anthropology, cultural anthropology, and anthropological linguistics.

By this definition the study of all culture is anthropological. Most people assume it's only about past cultures, this generalization is why I think many marketers might not look to this valuable discipline for a lot wisdom to understanding the market.

Sociology

the study of social institutions and processes

Again, on the surface it may seem not completely relevant to marketing. But by understanding the underlying structure of a society you can see how to influence that structure which inherently influence the consumers, again this all relies on whether the consumer "wants" or "needs" the change or benefits you offer.

A lot of people have a lot of trouble distinguishing the two so I'm going to use some hypothetical based on the hip hop community on how Anthropologist would approach it than a sociologist.

If I were an anthropologist I'd use method research called, Ethnography, where I would immerse myself in hip hop culture and become part of it (remember this for later). I would become part of what I am studying and I'd be interested in the slang and dialects spoken among hip hop subgroups and what it means in social contexts. I would take a look at cultural forms such as breakdancing, graffiti, DJing, and rapping and study how it differs among different regions.

As a marketer at this point not only have you built an understanding of the culture giving you the ability of authenticity that the word "bling" does not provide, but it also helps to further segment and target.

Although, as a sociologist I'd be interested in the institutions that developed the culture like the education system in urban areas. The economics processes and more to understand where this culture is coming from. It's hard to know where something ends without knowing where it starts which is the beauty of sociology.

Why is this important?

To summarize many of the themes in "Chasing Cool" in order to have sustainable success in todays marketplace you must have a quality product with consistent and authentic brand image that your target market either relates or aspires to. In this search for authenticity a deeper level of understand your market in necessary, and this is why these disciplines are important.

II. Cultural Capital

A concept that was hinted at in "Cool Chasers" is the pivotal idea in Popular culture studies, Cultural capital. While personal branding is about the amount of value attached your personal association, Cultural Capital is about your knowledge of the subcultures canon of texts and processes in order to achieve authenticity. So to set out to present this authentic brand image, it must have an adequate level of Cultural Capital to satisfy your target market.

Let's take communism,

If I call myself communist and write a new book communism but never read the writings of Marx or studied read about the USSR, Cuba, or Vietnam do think I'd come across authentic enough for other communists to buy my book?

This is the question and answer Cultural Capital provides, and develop this cultural capital a firm understanding of sociology and anthropology concepts I would almost deem necessary.

III. Conclusion

In a world where marketing communications bombard everyone from every subgroup, the average consumers senses to authenticity is more acute than ever. No longer is only understanding what benefits your target market wants is enough for sustainable success, you must intimately understand your market and their unique culture. To achieve the cultural capital neccessary for effective brand communication you must understand social science concepts. Being a student of the Popular Culture studies department in Bowling Green State University has lent me many tools to achieve this authenticity.

- Alex Merced

Ad Storm #2 - Social Networking and Online Communities

2007-08-26T20:10:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys,

I was thinking today about the plethora of Social Networking and Online Communities that are available today and just felt excited about the future. Most people look at this crowded space and feel it's cluttered and that Myspace/YouTube/Facebook is all you need. In a lot of cases, to go viral those three will do just fine, but there are real strong opportunity in being able to take advantage of smaller growing networks. The main benefits is less clutter to break through, wider exposure, and higher search engine visibility.

Go to Google and look up Alex Merced

I've made a lot of efforts to know who are the other Alex Merceds in the world and to make sure my results are on top. I've been able to beat results and lay a stronger search engine foundation than the Alex Merced from popular Metal Band, Necrophagist. While my highlander "there can only be one" approach to dominance in the Alex Mercedosphere may be a little much, this shows many of the benefits of being an online socialite.

Before we go further, read this article on growing social networks.

So Let's Explore these Benefits:

Less Clutter/Less Competition:

Sites like Myspace and Facebook have such large user numbers, it sounds like a great promotions tool due to the sheer amount of audience. Like my professor Earl Boatwright mentioned, facebook is getting special attention due to it's built in segmentation.

This is all true, these are great promotional tools and they are probably a better investment arguably than traditional broadcasting. Though we can't forget about the value of niches, and while Myspace and Facebook can sort of cater to niches but not like a niche social network can. Take a look at a site like Dogster which caters to a very niche market, Dog Lovers.

Although the problem with Niche social network is while you segment is at easier reach, the clutter among competition is greater since every ad is probably for similar products than yours.

This is where all these smaller general networks like Multiply come in handy cause it's not an obvious ground for competitors and probably has less clutter than myspace, meaning the odds of your ad shining through to more people.

Wider Exposure/Search Engine Visibility:

Ok, now imagine an avid net user checking all his profiles at all his favorite sites and the same ads keep showing up for this New Rock band, now he goes to search on google for the latest rock music. In the results are the profiles of that band in the ad at a lot of different networking sites his curiosity increase. He then finally check his myspace and see the band featured on the music page and finally he gives in to the frequent EXPOSURE to this band and checks them out.

I mean it's not really anything we all don't know already, but this extra effort to hit every end of the web payes off in many ways. If the wider exposure with the ads and profiles isn't enough, the amount of search engine visibility those profiles generate should be a clincher.

Check out AlexMercedRocks.info look at the right menu and see my many profiles

You'll notice not only did I have a lot of profiles I joined many niche communities and activley participated, yes this takes a lot of time and effort, but your spending it socializing which really isn't a bad deal.

A lot of old tools I feel aren't as utilized as much as they used to be. While mailing lists are still as popular as ever, Message Boards have been relegated to sort of standard site feature. While every website should have a message board, it's kinda useless if you don't put efforts to stimulate it's community.

- Create many fun threads that are always reply worthy like "What are you listening to now?" or the "Random thread" I've seen these go viral on many message boards and give something fun for community members to do and build inside jokes and board culture around.

Message boards single handedly made the opening day for The Gamers Lounge a huge success. I would go around and actually hang out at local gaming events and tell people about the store opening and tell them about special events that will be announced on our message board. We had almost 1000 posts before we even opened, although after we opened the in store community was so strong it kinda replaced the online activity, but luckily the message board became a built mailing list of everyone who already signed up.

Before we opened we had a special Beta Test event we announced on the message board where we had people come in and play for a few days before the opening to make sure all the computers worked. We also would have secret late night events announced on the message board which kept people signing up even if they weren't always posting, but posting did stay alive for quite a bit.

Bottom Line: Join as many social networks and online communities as possible... why not.

Ad Storm #1: Personal Branding

2007-08-20T00:57:00.000-07:00

Before reading this post listen to this podcast from the foward blog
" Who you was is not who you is" -Mitch Joel

This is resonated with me when I listen to this, and having interest in personal branding for years listening to this really made me want to discuss it a little bit. I really enjoyed listening to Mitch Joel and Paul Young discuss personal branding and eliciting values and molding peoples perception of you on your own terms.

People are going have an opinion no matter what, don't you think you should have some say in what people think about you.

This is the fundamental idea behind personal marketing, I've always been more fascinated in a more product oriented approach which I usually describe by the quote:

"You are your best product"

When I think about it this way it makes me realize the following:

- If I'm a product, what attributes do I have - How do I want to position myself - what are my Marketing Communication Goals (awareness, perception, attitude)
I get some slack for my quite cold approach to myself as a product I'm selling, but to me marketing isn't about making a profit it's about creating value for consumers. I don't sell cause I want profit, I sell cause I want to give value, profit is just testimony to the value I've given.

So I now understand what is my personal brand and what I want to do with it, what's the next question:

- How does my product give value - Who is the target market (like minded people)

At this point you are ready to begin building awareness of you Personal Brand. Here are many things I would recommend to elicit your values to connect your target market:

- Blogs - Social Events - Social Networking Sites - Volunteering - Flyering (that's right, put up flyers about you and your personal brand)

Here is an example of a flyer promoting a personal brand: Alex Merced (myself)

Very obvious we know a lot about the Alex Merced Brand:

- It heavily related to music events and information
- Several Blogs that have information which is valuable
- A Radio show which has entertainment value

conclusion:

The Alex Merced Brand gives me value through Music Information and Entertainment

Now it's your turn :)
Discuss your personal brands in the comments, I'd like to know about your brand

AD Memorial #6: Alex Merced Art Contest

2007-08-19T00:58:00.000-07:00

Me and my good friend the super charismatic Richard Ehrbar a.k.a Rich C $ decided this semester we're taking the personal branding approach for our shows to the next level with extensive cross promotional flyers. This being my final semester before I graduate means my show comes to an end so I hope to create a stronger fanbase before my Bowling Green Legacy finishes it's final chapter. Also with my other project, Fashionably Numb Music, I'm promoting a show called FestFest 07 this weekend and we thought we'd leverage our DJ status to help promote it with this next flyer.

Ad Memorial #5: GamerHeadz

2007-08-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

During my time with The Gamer Lounge we eventually started to feel that the community was starting to lose it's appeal so what we did is create a third party community. The Gamer Headz was an organization within the store completely run by customers sold on the idea of democracy and giving our customers a voice on what goes on in the store. Giving the organization a small budget, writing them a organization constitution, and organizing the first meeting was all that was needed to be done to get this organization off the ground. Afterwards, it gave the customers an identity to buy into outside of being a customer, they would organize events and pretty much be the in house community with enough autonomy to appear as more than a sales promotion or Public Relations campaign, although it was both. In the constitution I wrote in there would be a volunteering committee to get the organization to volunteer around town which I would use to get them press which in turn brought us attention.

As usual my community based branding techniques proved successful and multi-faceted. It worked especially well in a hobby retail store since the appeal of such a store usually is the community.

Ad Memorial #4: AlexMercedRocks.info

2007-08-13T00:08:00.000-07:00

Hey Guy,

Now to talk about my grandest long term marketing campaign of all time, Myself. I first began the journey in creating the Alex Merced brand in high school by using a domain, Ybull.net, to be the home of the Alex Merced Fan Club. Ybull.net no longer exists but you can still find the old logo created by a friend of mine, Lee Wilson, at Ybull's ZZN email service. Ybull for many years served as the hub for many projects such as campaigns for class president, a fan club, several free online gaming products and more. Eventually once I started my time at Bowling Green State University I decided to mature and grow apart from the large yellow bull that was such a fixture of my high school years.

The first couple of year there was no real Alex Merced Fan Club until my radio show finally adopted the name "AlexMercedRocks... the show". At this point I invested in the AlexMercedRocks.info domain which went through many incarnations which mostly just were sites with links to many things I was involved such as WBGUFM and Fashionably Numb Music. During this time I'd put flyers all over campus discussing the The Alex Merced Fan Club which started up on myspace.com and facebook.com and became a psuedo local celebrity and many times was recognized at parties, even had people buy shirts with my face on them. At this point my personal brand equity was at it's highest and I put it to use in my concert promoting.

Nowadays AlexMercedRocks.info is a blog where I post links to all my projects, music, and write about what going on with my highly driven ambitious life as a persistent social networker. Flyers are still being hung promoting the Alex Merced brand with a new logo and new focus from many marketing classes and some online courses on copywriting I'm out to take over.

Ad Memorial #3:Fashionably Numb Music

2007-08-11T09:04:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys,

Today I'm going to talk about my promotions agency, Fashionably Numb Music. FNM is in the business of promoting music whether it be through live events, PR, or other means if there are musicians I like I put FNM to work. FNM got started cause of my Involvement with WBGUFM. With Budget cuts preventing me to promote shows with WBGUFM anymore I began using my money to book concerts and in that process I decided to develop my own brand to do it with. Here is an example of the flyers from over the years.

This show in particular is interesting since I'm gonna be trying some club promotional techniques by having girls get in free. We'll see if this helps promote the show a much as I'd like. Fashionably Numb is pretty standard music promotion, press releases, handbills being passed out on the streets, flyer's, radio interviews with artists, etc. Fashionably Numb Still exist and has gotten some press.

RELATED PRESS:

Junior 'Numbs' BG

Howards Feeds BG Music Scene

Ad Memorial #2: WBGU 88.1fm (18-22)

2007-08-10T08:21:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

Today I'm going to talk about my promotional experiences in my different positions at my college radio station, 88.1fm. It began with me just as another DJ when I was 18, then I became the promotional director while I was 19-20, then I took a year off where I played a more advisory role while I operated the Gamers Lounge. currently, I'm serving my final year at WBGUfm as it's Underwriting director.

As a DJ: After four years of having a radio show, which was good experience in branding. The first couple of years I went through many show names trying to find something that clicked and was marketable. Eventually a name stuck, "Alex Merced Rocks... the show" and thus began my enjoyment of personal branding. Through flyers and involvement in the community I became a highly recognized name in the community which led to my own level of local brand equity.

As Promotions Director: When I first became Promotions director I was still yet to have any marketing/promotions experience so I kind of had to make a lot of mistakes to learn a lot of basic lessons. I first started my main responsibilities which where to put up peoples flyers for their shows and secure on air giveaways. I expanded my duties into organizing events, primarily concerts. That first semester I organized three concerts, two benefit shows and a 12 hour on campus extravaganza known as the WBGUFM expo. The two benefit shows did very well and the 12 hour show ended up on fall break weekend making for a very long 12 hours.

The Following semester I learned about diminishing returns and supply/demand when i raised the number of concerts I organized from 3 the whole semester to up to 3 a week. After a semester of concert overload I toned it down a bit the following couple of semesters and kept doing the semesterly WBGUFM Expo until we did the Expo IV which afterwards I had to make my hiatus to run The Gamers Lounge. Due to my efforts at personal branding for my show, I became synonymous with the station itself for a brief time, which caused resentment against my fellow staff since I was mentioned and consulted on almost all the newspaper articles on the station that year. Being promotions director also was my first experience writing press releases and working with Media outlets and local businesses. Sadly, I no longer have any of the flyers and promotional materials I had made during this period of my life although I was only beginning to familiarize myself with flyer design and promotions at this time. It wasn't until The Gamers Lounge where I really refined my promotional skills.

As Underwriting Director: I have only started this position but after all the marketing classes the experience of running two different businesses since I've joined the station has prepared me to be an effective Underwriting director. I designed what I hope is a logically sound plan to reinvent what over the last few years has been a very unproductive Underwriting department. The reason this department has failed over the years was due to it's complicated price structure and it's lack of perceived value. By simplifying the price structure, including a few premiums, doing some research and work in the perception and position of the station the perceived value of our underwriting will increase to the point to create a workable department that can evolve beyond my time here at the station.

My time at WBGUfm has yielded for me a lot of benefits and given me a platform to learn a lot about promotions, graphics design, audio production, branding, and more. It has also helped me build many contacts within the music industry, overall a very productive time of my life.

RELATED PRESS:

WBGU sponsers 11 band show in Union

WBGU brings progressive pop band, Shirock, to Union pub

WBGU's Free concert to feature seven bands

Ad Genesis #1: Albagan.com

2007-08-09T06:51:00.000-07:00

Hello Everybody,

While the Ad Memorial articles is where I talk about my past in Marketing, Ad Genesis will display me exercising my marketing muscles by creating fake products and creating ads and campaigns strategies for the product.

Today's Fictitious Product is Albagan.com (the domain doesn't exist)

Before I tell you what Albagan is hear is the ad to see what you can get from it.

From this ad I was hoping to communicate that Albagan.com has to do with music albums, and then do an individuality appeal. Now the question is what is Albagan.com.

It's a social networking site built around Music Albums, the idea would be that music labels make profiles for their new releases and back catalogs and that instead of like more general use social networking sites like myspace or facebook, you add albums instead of friends. This takes into consideration that in order to succeed in establishing a new Social Networking site it must be based in a niche cause myspace and facebook already fill the general social networking demand. The appeal of these sites is individuality and community, so a product must not only establish a niche but establish new ways for consumers to establish individuality and join communities. Thus the message is that at Albagan.com you establish individuality by showing which music albums define you, and by adding these albums to your profile you are joining communities built around each album.

I came up with this idea based around two interesting and successful sites, technorati.com and spout.com. Technorati and blog directory where users can have profiles and add their favorite blogs to their profile, and then theres spout.com a independent film focused site with some social networking aspects. They both base themselves in niches, and within these niches the consumer becomes an individual, that's the sign of a successful online community.

As far as marketing goes, I'd probably take a page out of Spout.com's genius campaign with Four Eyed Monster where by consumers appreciating the product @ spout.com the the makers of the product get paid. More specifically the more people who enjoyed indie film Four Eyed Monsters that join Spout.com the more money towards the films debt that gets paid. So I would venture to find a awesome musical act and do the same thing, everytime someone adds their album by signing up for albagan.com, we'll give them a dollar to record their next album.

Other things to note is the slogan, Hear Yourself, which in two words expresses most of what albagan is:

- Music Related
- serving the individual

Why is it called albagan - 2 Reasons

- The flow of the word is kind of fun to say, and odd made up words tend to stick to memory if it flows right. Although I did start out this made up word with alba which is similar to album, just to make it seem loosely connected.

- Also names like this are usually available, which is great as far copyright and trademarking issues are concerned.

Well that's all for Ad Genesis today, keep on checking for more stuff!

AD Memorial # 1: The Gamers Lounge (age 20-21)

2007-08-09T05:13:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to Alex's Ad Factory. I am Hector Alexander Merced and I made this blog to discuss my experiences in Marketing and the techniques I've used in the past to establish my marketing experience. This first post will discuss one of my more fruitful experiences in being the owner of a hobby retail store chain, The Gamers Lounge.

THE STORY: The story is me and a friend, Spencer Marugg, wanted to start a store in Ohio. Back in my days in Connecticut I use to go to hobby stores and LAN centers so I suggested we make a mix of the two. I started off by making a series of surveys with surveymonkey.com and got people in our target market to participate. I defined our target market as college aged Video Game and Anime Fans. Using the results from the surveys I built a business plan and we secured the funding for the venture. Later on met David Baum who helped us with the hobby retail portion of the store and eventually merged with us to make it a multiple storefront operation. (For the record at the point I was still days away from my 21st birthday)

Marketing started months before we even opened, I had made the website and started a message board. I would go to the Anime and Gaming Club meetings at the BGSU campus and tell them about what we were doing. I encouraged them to sign up for our message board which became quite alive and helped build word of mouth and a customer mailing list all in one. We then had many of those looking foward to the store help us paint the store which helped foster the vestment important in community based marketing. Opening day was a huge success having an all day rush of customers.

I was in charge of many of the promotional practices used by the stores here are some of the examples of Flyers I developed for ad campaigns.

This is my Tournament Flyer

This flyer was supposed to really be just a basic flyer to get the info out about a couple of our tournaments. We tried to have a lot of events going on a daily basis to increase the value of coming to the store on a daily basis. Every flyer since the beginning had our logo which became quite recognizable and became so unanimous with the product category that other stores in town started getting referred to as Gamer Lounges.

This is my Halo FLyer

This flyer tried to emphasize the joy of leisure time with friends. We attempt to sell the idea of the store as a place to enjoy time with friends which worked very well as The Gamers Lounge became quite a friendly community.

All the flyers made during my time with the gamers lounge where completely designed and created by me, many of the images I used off Google images. The logo was created by me in Adobe Photoshop along with all the flyers. Also during this time I mastered my ability to spin any event to make it press worthy which got the Gamers Lounge a lot of press among local newspapers. Like here's a few articles on it that are of interest:

RELATED PRESS:

BGFILE.com ARTICLE ON THE GAMERS LOUNGE

Students Open up Shop

Get Your Game On