╠ Utilizing Twitter ╣

One of the things I've been determined to do since finding twitter is actually find a way to use it for something useful. At Manifest the main thing with twitter that I did was to run a competition where during the weekend if you made a tweet with #manifest in it you were eligible to win. It went down quite well...

The question as to whether it was worth the merch is yet to be raised, however the point is that it sparked discussion and we were getting quite a few tweets, all aligned with the right tag.

The reason I bring this up is that I saw another style of competition today, except this time you had to tweet this '@GuitarHero: “Today is the day I’m getting @GuitarHero 5!” RT for your chance to win 1 of 5 #GuitarHero 5 bundles!'

Basically a set message. One message posted a million times, that my friend is spam. Creating content based around your brand, that's community building.

So what are your thoughts, do I get to feel the pride of one upping a worldwide brand, or is there some trick to this Guitar Hero tweet that makes it more valuable?

╠ My Greatest Success to Date ╣

What I believe to be my greatest achievement in retrospect is progression of Melbourne Anime Festival's mascot 'Peppa-chan' throughout the year. Peppa-chan has been around since 2004 and to be honest the character development has been slim. However I believe it's really grown a lot this year. Peppa-chan has grown, she now has facebook, twitter and various other accounts on sites linked within the community. She finally has a presence and has been able to connect for once.

The best part of it though was that I was able to run an event titles 'Operation Peppa-chan' that encouraged attendees to dress up as our mascot. This event was a huge success and most who attended seemed to really enjoy it. On top of this whilst the event was running we were also collecting money for charity.

So basically an event that is purely Manifest and that only Manifest can do and therefore is representative of everything Manifest, albeit a late start due to other events, ran really well. The brand was reinforced, the mascot was reinforced. The lovely medal you see above was actually donated by Emil Braun making it a low cost event. Charity wise we managed to raise over $600. So basically it was a brand building, low cost, high enjoyment and CSR positive endeavour. Frankly I'm just glad to see it all pay off.

Also I'd really like to thank those who helped along the way, Candice for dressing as Peppa, the entrants, and just anyone who helped along the way.

╠ Kids These Days - No Respect! ╣

Sorry to everyone who was waiting eagerly for my next post to arrive only to find a week went by with nothing but I was frantically trying to organize the Melbourne Anime Festival. I was the branding manager so it's been a long year trying to revitalize what to many has seemed like a bit of a dying brand.

As volunteer work obviously the aim is to learn a lot and develop my skills in order to show off to potential employers. I'll be detailing my activities later on as I prepare my post mortem.

However the one thing that I must mention first which I am quite proud of is that I actually organized for our mascot to be kidnapped. Peppa-chan as she is called used to be basically a faceless entity. Through the year I've slowly added life to her through facebook and twitter and to cap it all off I had her kidnapped. So yes if you employ me I will find a way to have your favourite element captured!

╠ I'm a big boy now ╣

This little poster may not seem like much, being only an a3 surrounded on all sides by A2's but it's still a big step for me. These posters were hung by Plakkit, a group in Melbourne who does poster distribution in key areas. Therefore it makes it my first paid advertising distribution...thingy.

Of course there's been a lot of putting things up for free and for favours but this is my first experience paying to advertise and I think it is a key step in a marketing career.

Is it equitable for the cause? Who knows? That's for market research to discern after the event. However this is the method I chose with a limited budget in order to advertise our event. What matters though is that I personally I feel like a million dollars to see something like this come off. Even though I paid for it, it's a very similar feeling to seeing someone reference you on a blog.

So if any of you see yourselves around Melbourne Central be sure to keep an eye out ^^ Anyone wanting to find out more about the event being advertised, it's an anime convention named Manifest.

╠Lie To Me╣

I must admit I quite like the idea of April Fools. As a marketing tool if managed well it is quite a good way to raise brand value. If you think about it basically you say say whatever lies you want thus making people think your brand may be innovative or whatever you want and then take it all back.

Obviously there are certain limits to this. You have to be clever about it. You can't just make claims and then say 'Oh April Fools' because it doesn't work as well. Obviously there are also certain brands whose target market wouldn't be too receptive to such joking.

However I am lucky. The Melbourne Anime Festival Organizing Committee, of which I am the branding manager, does have the audience for this. So I thought why not test it out. Name some fake events and then see if people get it. You can read it here (Just scroll to the spoiler post). However I made sure to not leave it too open at the very end you get the hint that makes it an easy unravel.

The overall thing was quite well taken, some people were fooled, some people caught it out without even getting to the end. The most interesting thing thought is that it actually caught the eye of the committee. The original plan was to have one point that is actually genuine and the rest be false. However now after seeing it all and the following some ideas have we're now doing more. So I spose the moral here is if you want your organization to do something pitch it to your market as an april fools joke.

Also I can't end a post like this without also showing off mUmBRELLA's Twitter Tax post which really made my day.

╠ Manifest Case - Avatars ╣

As most of you know I am now the branding officer for Melbourne Anime Festival. Recently I proposed that on the main site we should have a set of matching avatars for each user to post their own news. Being Manifest everyone, including those without any understanding of any of the factors involved began weighing in and the question was raised over whether this was worth it. In order to prevent this continuing I wrote a wall of text to argue my point. I thought I would share it here first of all to get your opinion of whether I'm arguing for the right side and also whether my knowledge to back it up was sufficient. Enjoy,

Daniel mentioned the voice of Manifest. This is exactly what this is avoiding. Manifest is a company, otherwise known as a soulless entity. Try as hard as you might but building relaionships with a soulless entity can be a bit of a hard task because communication with it is impersonal and often one way. This is a bad thing. People's opinion of Manifest is not limited to just the festival everything before and after it is included in this. Having a crap Manifest the previous year can be turned into a good experience if the Manifest they are exposed to online is a good one. Clearly what defines this is moc.

Now the online interaction is predominantly one on one and in the past it has been sufficiently lacking. Moc isn't accessible online. All of the members aren't on the website and the main website has just been a dumping ground for news posted under a single relatively faceless account due to Peppa-chan not being utilized as an actual character. Moc and the site are considered exclusive. My goal here is to partially remove that and to integrate MOC into the website. This is because so far very few people who aren't connected know anything about moc other than it's the group that runs things 'round here.

Using the avatars personalizes the online interaction. News is posted by a person, not by the soulless Manifest entity. It brings Moc into the website, you see the news, see the poster and begin to think of the people behind everything. Knowing that actual people are working and working hard for something is a positive thing and makes you think of committee as more than 'Those bastards that raise the prices every year'.

They need to be specially made because that is how you get them to best represent the person. Generators fail at this because first off what you think you look like can be inaccurate and also generators despite how big their libraries are, are always limited. Plus by being used elsewhere they no longer become the manifest style and instead are simply that thing that those guys stole and used for themselves cos they're lazy.

If we do it right people will notice it. However the effect of it is subconscious. You speak of resources as if it is something limited, which at the moment it isn't. All this is doing is asking one committee member to donate their time in order to do a few little pictures. If a committee member cannot spare the time then they won't do it. The resources used are zero. In fact more resources would have been used in this entire discussion.

╠ My first real marketing gig ╣

Today was the follow up meeting to the Manifest AGM. This was the one in which Manifest chose to give out all of its roles. I managed to gain the role of Branding manager. Now would probably be the time to realize the irony of being brand manager before I do the brand management class however I'm hoping to do the best job I can. Pictured left is currently the manifest logo. It's odd, it's a design that would seem somewhat unsuiting to that of an anime convention...but for the life of me I can't design a better one. It seems somewhat brilliant in its simplicity combined with uniqueness.

None the less I am proud to be breaking into the market and who knows, once all this world conomic crisis stuff clears I may just find myself in a position where I may be able to be paid for this stuff.