Online Marketing for the UNI Glee Club Christmas Variety Show

Cover to the 2011 Christmas
Variety Show program

The UNI Varsity Men's Glee Club has tapped into some social media marketing this year to promote their 34th Annual Christmas Variety Show.  Various choir members have turned their ticket sales to the power of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to help sell out the annual shows.

For example, 1st-year Council member, Dylan Keller, has set up an event using the user-friendly function on Facebook to invite his friends to the holiday concert.

Some students have resorted to clever statuses and tweets like,

"Joy to the world, the Glee Club Christmas show has almost come!

Let earth receive her Glee;

Let every Glee Clubber prepare Him tunes,

And Tenors and Basses sing,

And Tenors and Basses sing,

And Tenors, and Tenors, and Basses sing."

to garner interest in the upcoming shows, and they are not about to stop yet!  With the three concerts being held Friday, December 2nd (at 7:30p) and Saturday, December 3rd (at 2:30p and 7:30p), the Glee Clubbers are in full force to sell out the +4,600 available tickets.  Tickets are available through UNI Varsity Men's Glee Club member, that has a personal marketing code--mine is A09--or through the PAC box office at 319-273-4TIX (4849).

The UNI Glee Club posing outside the Colosseum in Rome (May 2010)

The proceeds from the ticket sales return to the students that sold the ticket to help offset the costs of being able to travel to Europe during their Bi-Annual European Tours.  In the past, the Glee Club has traveled to such countries as England, Ireland, Wales, Poland, Czech Republic, Italy and the Vatican City, but this year the men will be touring the musically rich lands of Germany and Austria.

For more information, about the tickets to this year's Christmas Variety Shows or the UNI Varsity Men's Glee Club, feel free to contact me at bottorff4@gmail.com, and always remember, "Brother's, sing on!"

British Airways Goes Digital for the 2012 London Games

According to The Guardian, a leading US and world newspaper, British Airways planned to abandon TV advertising to focus it's efforts on print and, more importantly, digital advertising earlier this year.  After signing on as a top level supporter of the London Games in 2008, BA has established a two pronged campaign.  

The first step has been to used to as a means of soliciting outside professionals to add to the British Airways experience.  In this approach, Britains--chefs, artists, and script writers--are asked to submit proposals for in-flight menus, plane exterior design work, and in-flight short films that will combine and showcase the Olympics and the British culture.

British sailor Ben Ainslie surfing the
skies with British Airlines

As for the other aspect to their campaign, British Airways has plans for creating ads featuring the athletes they are sponsoring to make the British Olympic team.  

Abigail Comber, British Airways' head of branding, understood the necessity of a viral campaign to reach the audience members necessary to help them with their London Games campaign.

In addition, BA created a microsite to help facilitate an information base of their marketing efforts with the 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.

Anyone interested in attending a London Games event needs to see official site.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/may/05/british-airways-olympic-2012-adverts

Digital Samba

As some of you may know, I studied abroad in Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil for six months during the fall semester of 2010.  While there I fell in love with the country, culture, people, music, food, drinks, and general atmosphere.  One of the main things that people asked me about after my return to the States was Carnival.  "How was Carnival?"  "Did you get crazy?"  Unfortunately, my time abroad ended a couple months before Carnival, so I was unable to participate in the never-ending party of parades, music, dancing and drinking.

Although I did miss out, I know I will attend one day.  This year would be a good one to attend with new innovative digital additions.

Float design for Portela Samba School sporting digital
screens from Positivo

This year, Positivo, Brazil's largest computer producers, and Portela, one of the top samba schools in Brazil, team up together to bring samba from all over the world to Rio de Janeiro.  Positivo has donated multiple monitors to be mounted to the top of Portela's float that will display photos of individuals dancing samba from countries all over the globe. 

This innovative way of incorporating these digital screens will be giving both Positivo and Portela some positive publicity during the country's biggest event of 2011.

Source: http://adage.com/article/global-news/brazil-s-carnival-digital-marketing-element/142053/

Touchscreening to a New Beat

The Samsung Galaxy S II was released into the mobile smartphone markets of France in May of 2011 to a pretty interesting beat due to a clever marketing campaign.  The ad campaign, "Unleash Your Fingers," was filmed in France featuring Los Angeles' own JayFunk, a professional at tutting, to show some untapped creativity hidden within your fingers.

Now, what is this tutting, you ask?  It is better first seen, then defined.  

Pronounced /tuht-ing/, this new rhythmic interpretive street dance tries to emulate Egyptian hieroglyphics (with some embellishments, of course), thus the name is derived from the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen.  Through deliberate hand and arm motions, JayFunk follows the beat to this new genre of music called dubstep.

Dubstep, one of the newest forms of music, is only 13 years old and originates from southern London.  The music itself is mainly synthesized sounds giving it a sort of mechanical tone.  This pairs perfectly with dance moves like tutting and other robotic-like hip hop.  The dubstep music featured in this ad campaign comes from Siegfried de Turckheim and Vincent Drux.

Samsung's intentions with the the "Unleash Your Fingers" appear to demonstrate that the Galaxy S II is the newest and most innovative in touchscreen technology.  By pairing their positioning with two incredibly new art forms (tutting and dubstep), Samsung shows that they are indeed in touch with innovation.

Credits for the the "Unleash Your Fingers" campaign are as follows:

Creative Directors: Arthur Kannas, Martin Hamelin and Simon Loizeau

Art Director: Olivier-Stephane Picard

Account Director: Karine Spencer

Telecom CRM Manager of Samsung: Clara Autuly

Filming Producer: Vincent Kherroubi

Production Agency: Labandeoriginale

Post-production: Motion Fan Club

Performer: JayFunk

Choreographer: Mario Faundez

Music by: Siegfried de Turckheim and Vincent Drux

iPads and iPhones Memorialize 9/11

Since it is the 10th Anniversary of September 11th, 2001, I feel it only appropriate to blog about how people are commemorating this day.  I noticed on MSNBC.com (http://ow.ly/6rgUT ) the other day this interesting new way that Apple products are embracing the 10th Anniversary of the tragic terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers on September 11th, 2001.  This day has been ingrained into the minds of every American old enough to have viewed the attacks, suffered a personal loss, or that have since learned of it's effects on this country.

Not only Americans lives were changed that day, but the lives of people all around the world.  In my time in Brazil (Fall 2010), I would answer a gauntlet of questions related to 9/11, foreign diplomacy, and our country's future.  The terror left no boundaries and resulted in many countries unifying together against further acts of terror.

With this year being the 10th Anniversary of those unfortunate events, many companies have taken advantage of utilizing a "what has happened over the past 10 years" story and relating it to their business.  This may seem a tad deceitful, but I feel most companies have utilized this method under the best of intentions.

For instance, Apple has developed a means of memorializing the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 through it's applications for iPads and iPhones. 

 

Apple has launched several applications, such as 110 Stories, created by Brian August, which accesses your phones GPS location and camera simultaneously to digitize an outline of where the World Trade Center towers would be in your photo.  These photos can then be uploaded to the app's archive to join thousands of others' experiences related to visiting nearby Ground Zero.

Another application, The 911 Memorial: Past, Present and Future, was created by documentary filmmaker Steven Rosenbaum after releasing his film "7 Days in September".  This app incorporates authentic footage from his movie, testimonials, thousands of image, video and sound files to create an in-depth history and timeline of 9/11 prior, during, and after the attacks.  The app is sort of an anthology of commemorating information available to you where ever you may be thanks to mobile technology.

Lastly, the National September 11 Memorial and Museum has developed an app called the Explore 9/11.  This application is great for walking tours of New York City and includes maps, voice-over eye witness testimonials, and image sharing.

These applications provided for iPads and iPhones may not be meeting actual needs of customers to memorialize these events, but because Apple has provided them on the 10th Anniversary in a booming technology society, they have become quite popular to remind us of what happened.

These apps can be found at the following App Store sites if anyone is interested in getting more information about 9/11 or is planning a trip to New York City:

• 110 Stories
• The 911 Memorial: Past, Present and Future
• Explore 9/11