One Night of Queen at the Long Center (=
So, last night I saw One Night of Queen at the Long Center. So freaking good. Basically, this show is a two hour set of The Works covering Queen music. How wonderful, yes?
After the show, I was thinking about what I thought made the show so great…aside from the obvious answer of “the music”, one element of the experience I found so appealing was the crowd. Why? Well, because there were people there of all ages…equally enjoying the evening. Queen just seems to be a timeless classic that appeals to people of all ages. I had a row of older people on my right, a handful of middle aged people behind me and high school aged kids in front…all loving it!
I also said this about the Wilco show I saw a few months back, but last night, the performers and their stage presence were pretty darn phenomenal. The lead singer was wonderful and engaging, interacting with and including the audience, which from a branding perspective I think is pretty big. I might even say it’s HUGE.
Anyway, all in all, amazing wonderful night. Enjoy this clip I put together from last nights show (=
One more quick side note. Please look at the lower right corner of this picture and observe which seat number I had. 111!!!!! And no, I did not pick my tickets. The 111 saga ensues…
Learning About Target Markets from Soulja Boy
When I first began partaking in DECA/marketing in high school seven years ago (oh my god, I am getting old), we wrote and presented marketing plans. I remember copying down a list of demographic and psychographic target market ranges – 18 – 24 year old men and women, who attend college. Was this really how advertising was back in the day, or was I somehow disillusioned that there was a formula for advertising?
So anyway, back to DECA (funny – in high school, everyone not in DECA in high school always refered to it as being part of “the cult”. Anyone notice how this is the same exact opinion of us in the ad. program at UO?!)
Ok for real – back to the story: based on this very generic target market information…we wrote a marketing plan and strategy. And actual won a number of categories we/I had entered. Granted, this was a high school competition and we were just beginning our journey into the marketing world; however, point being…when we were first learning about marketing, we certainly did not have the types of resources we have now for market research. I remember I could not get on Facebook as I did not yet attend a college (how it still SHOULD be, p.s.) and social media had not yet exploded…
But I digress. Again. Oops.
Anyway, the point is, I was looking up Soulja By’s ‘Crank That’ on YouTube the other way (as to why I was searching this – well, don’t worry about it (; ) ANYWAY, it is quite amazing,actually, the wide variety of users who have posted content that I could not pigeon hole into a categorized target market (unless the target was: those who love Soulja Boy). I won’t lie – if I was shown the Crank That video in high school and was asked which target market I thought the song was catering to, I would probably say 16-22 year old African American males. Sounds horrible that I would stereotype this, but hey, I’m just being honest and I think a lot of people would have been right there with me.
Ok…so here’s the point. I complain a lot about how social media is ruining the world (and in a way it is), but at the same time, the power of social media is actually is pretty darn amazing. Social media and digital means have provided opportunities to gain an incredible insight and to open the transparency doors to connect dots and form communities that might have never been connected.
Very cool. Check it out:
The Project 100 book is ready!
I’ve been talking about The Project 100 for the past few months and now it’s finally available for purchase!
100 social media “experts” sharing their thoughts on the future of social media marketing in 400 words or less (and yes, I am lucky to be one of the 100…)
The cost is $19.95 per book, and all proceeds go to the Susan G Komen foundation for The Cure. I encourage you to get a copy – you get to learn the perspective of 100 social media marketers and support a wonderful cause.
The Project 100
100 authors – branding/marketing enthusiasts.
400 words each.
1 collaborative book: ’Connect! Marketing in the Social Media Era’
100% proceeds support the Susan G. Komen cancer research foundation.
love it right?
I was lucky enough to be selected as one of the 100 authors and I am quite excited to see what the power of collaborative ideas/book writing can bring. Jeff Caswell has worked extremely hard over the past few months to coordinate The Project 100 – it’s going to be good – April 6th,2009 is the release day, we’re getting close!!