Andy Boyer

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Category: Marketing (Page 21 of 25)

Are You a Sports Widow?

November 20, 2007 /

sportswidow_sm.JPGI’m taking a few minutes to plug a new and exciting idea from two of Seattle’s best Marketing folks. Dave Sharp and Nan Hall have launched SportsWidow.com. The site is focused on aspects of a "Sports Family" and profiled tonight on King 5’s Evening Magazine.

Some of the many features include the following: 

  • Sports Widow Journal & Features – Topical commentary, tips, ideas about coping/ surviving in a house full of sports fans.
  • Store – Sports Widow® Wear and Gear
  • www.sportswidowradio.com : Pilot Radio Show – This sample 1-hour radio show features interviews with other Sports Widows, Boxer George Foreman and relationship expert Pepper Schwartz, PhD. It includes the Sports Widow Blues theme song by composer/vocalist Chris Sharp and the C. Sharp Trio (yes, she’s Sharp’s wife). www.sportswidow.com/podcasts/theme song.mp3
  • Fan Fare – Recipes and entertaining ideas for sports events
  • Resources – Book, website and movie recommendations

The team will be looking for content soon. “We plan to connect with Sports Widows through interactive media, traditional media, special events, social network meet-ups and products specifically geared to them,” says Sharp. “To that end, we are searching for partners who share our vision and passion for this subject and market.” Plans to roll out Sports Widow Entertainment, include a radio talk show, syndicated columns, cartoons, greeting cards, books, video games/instructional videos, and a television show.

Movaya Wants to Make It Easy to Sell Mobile Games From Your Web Site

November 15, 2007 /

movaya1.jpgNew product announcement from Movaya today, as they released version 2.0 of Plug N Play, which is a technology that makes it even easier for any online merchant (or even a blog) to sell mobile games from their web site, deliver them directly to the customer’s phone, and directly charge their cell phone bill. 

While the mobile game industry is still in its early stages, all signs point to an explosion in revenues of mobile games in the coming years. The new version of Movaya’s product comes after months of research and feedback from the several hundred web sites already implementing the platform.

The entire press release is available in a Social Media form at their blog.

Players Texting the Media

November 13, 2007 /

So here’s something I bet Bob Cousy or Wilt Chamberlain never did.

An ESPN.com article reports that when New York Knick Stephon Marbury left his team’s practice in Phoenix and flew home to Arizona, "The point guard reportedly sent two text messages to the New York Post saying that he had permission to leave the team in Phoenix and fly back to New York. He arrived at approximately 4 p.m."

So much for the need for PR guys and Agents.   

But how far could this go?  Think about Game 7 of the World Series, and a player in the dugout texts the announcers.  Or training camp where a player texts a reporter about a rumor or trade.  I know it’s all absurd, but if you told me a player would ever leave practice and make his press statement through an SMS text directly to a reporter, I’d have said that was ridiculous too….  

A few notes

November 12, 2007 /

So now that the dust is settling from the BlogWorld / Vegas trip, I’ll sprinkle in a few little bits that I have highlighted here in notes.  One curious
company we ran across was the expo’s media sponosor, a magazine called Blogger and Podcasting.

If you recognize the same kind of ironies that roughly 98.6% of the conference attendees noticed, you will chuckle and say to yourself, "Interesting.  A print magazine dedicated to an industry whose sole purpose is to put print magazines out of business."  Or, you might be less generous and say something far more disparaging or mean.  Even the conference panelists on VC funding made special note, commenting on how they would pass on any deal that involved a magazine about blogging.

Is this newsworthy from a "Bubble Watch" standpoint? It certainly shows that there are market inconsistencies.  And it probably wouldn’t be too problematic, if it wasn’t coupled with the fact that Exhibitor booths at BlogWorld were peppered with Booth Babes.  I think this shocked me more than anything, because I can’t think of a group of people that would be less impressed, and dare I say possibly intimidated and annoyed, by scantily clad models who have no idea what they are talking about.  When BlogWorld starts taking on a Comdex feel, something seems off-base. 

 

Sonics 2.0

November 2, 2007 /

The NBA kicked off season #40 in Seattle last night, in a game notworthy for it’s few absolutes:

  • It wasn’t the actual first game of the year, as the team had played in Denver the night before
  • It may or may not have been the last home opener in team history.
  • They never looked like they would get killed, and never looked liek they would win.
  • The roster is stacked full of people you may have heard of, but wouldn’t recognize if they sat next to you.
  • The arena was almost full
  • The fans didn’t quite know how to root for the players and boo the owners

But that made for an interesting dynamic. Some of the recognizable attractions remain – like Squatch, the Boom Squad and Sonics Dance team. T-Mobile still has big ads and the Dunking Ushers still put on a cool show. But there were no more Starbucks ads, and unless I missed them, the Southwest Airlines promotion seemed to be gone. At least there was no ad for the Stillwater Savings and Loan or Petroleum Workers Union 476.

There were some very noticeable handmade signs that I’m surprised fans were allowed to bring into the arena, including, "Noklahoma" and "Trade Bennett." It certainly would not have been unreasonable for an ownership group to force security to remove signs that denigrade the team or execs.

The loudest roar of the night was not prompted by the scoreboard, Squatch or PA Announcer – it was started by the fans and was simply a cheer of, "Save Our Sonics" that reverberated through the stadium for a few minutes. KJR’s Softy Mahler could be seen in the corner of the stadium taking part, and maybe 10% of the stadium was standing for it. With a little more organization, this cheer could take on a bigger role in future games, much like the "Go" ‘Huskies" cheer at UW shifts from side to side.

And finally, here’s an angle people aren’t writing about. The sales, marketing, admin, HR and other folks who work for the Sonics today are all Seattleites. They don’t want to move to Oklahoma. So you have owners who want to go, fans who want them to stay, employees who want them to stay and players who don’t care.

But one thing that is absolute – Kevin Durant is going to be a stud.

Technology Finally Slows Down the Rockies

October 22, 2007 /

Well, they’ve won something like 23 of 24 games, so other teams can’t stop them.  But the Colorado Rockies finally found a nemesis they cound’t vanquish.

According to reports, "on Monday, there were 8.5 million attempts to connect with the computers in the first 90 minutes after sales started, and only several hundred tickets had been sold before the system had to be shut down."

One has to assume many of these 8.5 million attempts are from the automated robots now being used by ticket brokers and resellers.  This indicates the technologies that have been so useful in selling tickets have now become an impediment to getting them to the real fans. 

In fact, the Denver Post reports on the issue, including this section.  "The bots pose a significant challenge to companies such as Ticketmaster, which won an injunction Monday blocking a Pittsburgh software company – RMG Technologies Inc. – from making and distributing such programs.

"We will not allow others to illegally divert tickets away from fans," said Ticketmaster chief executive Sean Moriarty in a statement.

The flooding process has also come under fire from parents trying to purchase "Hannah Montana" concert tickets for their kids, only to learn tickets are sold out minutes after going on sale."

 

“Heck, That’s Alternative to Alternative”

October 12, 2007 /

Remember the old Todd Snider song about the band who moved to Seattle and became a Grunge band that went on stage and refused to play any songs? Well if Social Media is the alternative grunge band, here are the guys who aren’t playing a note, yet.

This article from Wired discusses how a few folks have built a Social Media Marketing campaign around a TV show called Alive.  Here’s the alternative alternative part – The show doesn’t exist.

That’s right.  Here are a bunch of creative guys who built a marketing plan BEFORE they built the product.  In fact, they built the marketing plan to seed the market and raise the money to build the show.  The funny part is that it’s the exact opposite of a stealth launch, where a company goes into a basement, builds the technology, then comes out and tries to convince VC’s that someone wants to buy it.  It would be interesting for someone to launch a Web site for something, start taking orders, then call a VC and say, "We have 100,000 customers who want to by our thingamajiggers for $50 each.  Now we need $2 Million to make them."  

I’ll let you enjoy the whole article, because it’s quite interesting.   

 

Social Media 101

October 12, 2007 /

So, it’s hard to explain Social Media.  Someone writes a blog post, other people comment on it, and it really doesn’t matter, right?

Well, let me introduce you to a man apparently ignorant in the ways of Social Media, or a fictional character that has brought satirical humor and joy to thousands of TechCrunch readers. 

The short version of the story: Richard Figueroa, a little nobody hack photographer in Alabama tries to threaten Michael Arrington, Founder of Techcrunch, with a frivolous lawsuit.  Arrington, as he has previously done in cases like this, posts the letter on his Web site where his hundreds of thousands of readers per day could laugh at it.  What follows is a back and forth banter in the comments section that proves some man named "Richard" to be an incompetent, illiterate dunce. 

Or perhaps, a competitor of Richard’s in Alabama has brilliantly used Social Media to sabotage poor Mr. Figueroa.

Or even, this could be a comedy routine in which some Valleywag guy wants to make Alabama residents look like idiots, and has elaborately created some bumpkin named Richard Figueroa.

Whatever it is, it proves that Social Media and strong communities have loud voices.  Undertsand this medium, before you are trying to defend your mistakes.  

Check out this story, and see what lessons are to be learned. 

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