Advertising?

[BlackjackGabbiani]

Where and how is the con advertising? I was just on the Otafest boards and they said they're advertising on their light rail, so is there any way we could do things like that?

I was also thinking about the Starlight Parade, getting some walkers in that. Last year they had Star Wars cosplayers advertising their group, so some of our people would be awesome. But we'd need to get that in very soon.

Additionally, there's the PDX 49 Street Team, and they could perhaps come to our mini-con (they broadcast Mon-Fri so getting them to the actual con would be hard).

[JeffT]

For the Starlight Parade I am unable to find any information pertaining to entering without creating a float. Do groups of cosplay marchers need to be entered in advance?

We're being careful about advertising that is not targeted enough as that doesn't seem to bring in the number of attendees needed given the amount spent from the budget. We tend to focus more on ad trades in targeted venues including some web ad trades.

[DancingTofu]

This might not be universally true, but all the people I know who go to Kumoricon (whom I've talked to) were exposed to it primarily by word of mouth.  The best way to advertise is to tell your friends about it.  If every fourth person convinces one person to come to kumoricon, and we have a 90% re-attendance rate, we maintain the current growth rate of 18-25%.

The con's done quite a bit more this con year though than in the past; I know at least a few people who will probably come after testing the environment at the K-con Lite.

[laurifer]

This might not be universally true, but all the people I know who go to Kumoricon (whom I've talked to) were exposed to it primarily by word of mouth. 

Tried and true!

And advertising is really expensive (think like upper hundreds-a few thousand bucks or so for substantially sized ads) and like Jeff said it probably won't attract people from the general public. So I think sticking posters up at like Sushiland and stuff are good enough for now until kcon (and the budget) gets bigger

[BlackjackGabbiani]

For the Starlight Parade I am unable to find any information pertaining to entering without creating a float. Do groups of cosplay marchers need to be entered in advance?

I have no idea. I just remember the Star Wars group was walking and they had a banner.

[VampireFangs103]

I think it would be really fun to walk in the parade if we'd be able to find out how. lol

[Trumby]

I don't know the information, but it is too late to enter the parade now, seeing as how it is on the 31st.

As for the Star Wars group, that is Cloud City Garrison, part of the 501st Legion. http://www.501st.com/ for anyone interested.

I'm not sure if Kumoricon doing a thing in the parade would do well as advertising, though, as Jeff said it seems our advertising would be better spent targeting specific groups of people.

[BlackjackGabbiani]

It's that soon? I thought it wouldn't be until mid June or something.

Oh well.

[DancingTofu]

Same day I get my full SAT score report! (I know I got a 2170; but the full reports aren't released until May 31st.)

[leashy]

Same day I get my full SAT score report! (I know I got a 2170; but the full reports aren't released until May 31st.)

What do SAT scores go up to now?  They used to be 1600, but that was before they added the written piece.

For advertising, a lot of it is going to come from getting the fliers and posters out there!

[DancingTofu]

2400; each section is still out of 800.

[BangBangNeko]

I think the Starlight Parade would be a great idea to do for 2009. I went to it this year and Kumoricon could totally fit in, I mean they had a star wars group and the roller derby girls, so I think adding Kumoricon would be very interesting. Also it opens up Kumoricon to larger audience so people who have never heard of Kumoricon would know of it then they would pass it along to there friends and so on.   
    Sides I think alot of cosplayers would be excited to go out, show off there work and just have fun.
I mean I was! Because when Sakuracon had cosplayers come and be in a parade not to long ago there was tons, I even drove up to Seattle from Portland just to be in the parade and it was totally amazing. And I was reading the entry application for the parade and no where did it say it would cost anything.
   To get in you have to fill out the application and then the one with highest scores for Family appeal and illumination quality. Will be able to be in the parade, So what does everyone think of having Kumoricon in the parade NEXT year?
Oh here's where I found all the info.(all the info I could find was about 2008, so hopefully nothing changes drastically)
http://www.rosefestival.org/events/starlightparade/2008-Starlight-App-FINAL.pdf
http://www.rosefestival.org/events/starlightparade/

Sorry about the rant I just think it would be cool to do it.

[Hawkeye]

Starlight parade may be a bit difficult in terms of time frame, but still sounds fun.  I would just worry about college classes & graduation, plus high school graduation for those of our attendees who are still of that age.

[DancingTofu]

It's $2000 for a Commercial Float or group, $250 for a Community Festival (which probably wouldn't include Kumoricon since it's paid membership) and $250 for a non-profit Float or marching group.

If we can pull the $250 non-profit, it wouldn't be a bad idea.

For the Commercial Float, it requires some assimilation.
$2000 = 60 registrations
Total attendance of the Starlight Parade (est): 250,000
Now think of 3500 random people perfectly representing a set of bell curves.  Of those 3500 people, how many are likely to take interest in a cosplay group?  Of those, how many would be likely to remember such a float out of 2 hours of fantastic floats present at an event?  Of those, how many would take the initiative to find out more about what that float represented?  Of those, how many would take an interest in attending the event AND paying the cost of membership?  Of those, how many would be able to actually attend the event?

1 of every 3500 individuals in attendance would need to register for three days at kumoricon to break even.  1/3500 doesn't sound too bad, but you have to compare that to existing advertising.
Kumoricon's memberbase draws a significant majority from High Schools and Colleges, and individuals in the 14-22 age range.  If 15% of the population of Portland is within that age range, then roughly 1 of every 1000 people within that age range attends Kumoricon.  To gather further data, ask some people within that age range if they know about kumoricon.  Try to find a figure out of 20 or 50.  Multiply the 1/1000 figure by the inverse of the figure polled and you have an approximate ratio of people within the 14-22 age group who would attend kumoricon if they know about it to people who would not.  Now, take that figure and divide it by 5.  If that figure is greater than 1/1750 (twice the amount needed to break even) it's probably a good investment to make.  If that figure is less than 1/3500, it's probably a really bad idea.

[JeffT]

Thanks for doing the math Tofu ^_^

I don't like to say we shouldn't do it...but that may be indeed the case. I am not sure we are big enough or mainstream enough that non-targeted advertising makes sense. Everyone has heard of Star Wars, but who has heard of, say, Gundam, or Inu-Yasha? Not most people in attendance at the parade, I'll bet. Now, what number of people who would recognize Gundam or Inu-Yasha costumes by sight? It's an even less number.

Unfortunately even our somewhat targeted outreach tables get very few registrations. Only at Sakura-Con and the Uwajimaya festivals do we get significant numbers of registrations. We've been doing increased outreach this year as an experiment but it does cost some extra money from the budget and it takes more staff and volunteer hours.

Of course, increased outreach can help us in other ways, and can still create growth long-term growth and awareness.

But given our niche fanbase, the most productive ways to do outreach are through targeted awareness (street team), clubs, and through presence or advertising at other conventions.

[Trumby]

I pretty much agree that it wouldn't really make a lot of sense for Kumoricon to do this kind of event. I also agree with Jeff on why it works for 501st/Rebel Legion folks, because everyone has heard of Star Wars. They are also not a specific one time a year group, either. Sure Kumoricon is starting to do more mini events and such, but we are still just once a year. The CCG people do a lot of charity events throughout the year. Heck, they are even on the news occasionally because of said events. Check out this one: http://www.katu.com/amnw/segments/19487669.html

Though at the same time, if people were willing to pay the entrance fee for the marching group (split between however many people, of course) and someone to take up all the logistics of it, I think that would be kind of neat and wouldn't really hurt for Kumoricon to get involved with. Heck if I weren't going to be doing this with CCG (I was going to this year but had to work..QQ ) next year I'd be willing to set it all up.

[Syd-chan]

Well, maybe if we can try and find something that relates to the people....For example, pick something extremely popular[besides anime], and link it to anime itself. But, that's the problem. What else can we advertise when we're an ANIME convention?

[DancingTofu]

So, one thing that another convention is doing is making bookmarks for publicity.  Manga are books.  *wink wink nudge nudge*

I was thinking it would be really cool if Kumoricon were to form a more formal partnership with Sakuracon, AnimeEvolution, and some ofthe other area Anime/Geek conventions to get more shared advertising.