Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

OK… So a while back I posted about the iconic nature of the Rock Band KISS and how my boys were big fans of the band based in great part to their playing ROCKBAND and in particular enjoying the challenge of the KISS classic ‘Detroit Rock City.’ Well my older son Koji figured that for his school Easter Egg competition he’d craft the entire band’s heads out of eggs and put them on stage… I got a bit involved in the act helping make hair from cotton balls, and some flame bursts from images scrounged from the internet.

If/when you find yourself featured as part of an Easter Egg decorating competition where you’re featured on the Egg itself I think it’s safe to say you’ve made it!

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Where in the world am I today?: Winnipeg, MB, Canada

I’ve been staring at the design for a new Checkerboard Guy business card for a week or two now… It’s going to be a double sided full color front, full color back sort of dealy and the challenge from the beginning has been to find a suitable replacement for image/look on card I’ve been using for years and years.

This image has served me incredibly well because anytime I’d hand a card to someone with this image of me with my tongue sticking out on it, the reaction was priceless… It made people laugh from the get go! I debated keeping this image for the front of the card and just reworking the back of the card to be more in keeping with current promo. After much deliberation I’ve chosen to make a break from the old image and work with some more recent shots.

The new images are more in keeping with a lot of the other promotional materials I’ve put out recently in terms of their look/feel. They also feature me in my more upscale costume which is useful as I seem to be doing more and more work in venues that require a more corporate look.

I’m lucky to have worked with a couple of great designers over the years who’ve helped me craft some great rules to follow when it comes to attacking a new piece of promotional material. Coming up with these rules or guides, things like a consistent headline font that you’re going to stick with, a distinctive logo or logos, a consistent color pallet, established catch phrases or slogans and great photos allow you to put the building blocks together in multiple combinations for various purposes while staying true to certain pre-established parameters. There may be a bit of room to play within the context of these rules, but working from a place of a certain consistency does help to keep the ‘Brand’ recognizable.

So… I made certain decisions about the elements that I wanted to use for both the front and back of the card then took several stabs at laying things out in various configurations. My buddy David Duchemin endured many many emails and brain storming sessions where I’d craft something then throw it at him to see if it would stick… With out his eyes and brain I’m sure the end result would be far less effective.

For the business card I got all of the building blocks sorted out, configure them based on solid design principals. Thanks again to my buddy Dave who sat down next to during one configuring session and stressed the CRAP Principles – Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity (each word links to a post he wrote where he discusses these on his blog). Then, once I had what I thought was a design I was happy with I’d print it out at actual size and stick it on my monitor and just look at it for a few days and digest the look/feel of things. I did this two or three times before getting to the design above that I’m pretty pleased with.

Next… I got in touch with another buddy who’s got a great eye for proof reading and who had fresh eyes for this project. Not only is he a good proof reader, he’s also published several books and understands design. He caught something that I hadn’t even seen or thought about which was awesome… Just a simple little kerning issue (character spacing) which although subtle made a difference when addressed.

Over the years my process has gotten a lot more involved and time it takes to get from initial concept to final product seems to have increased as I’ve gotten more thorough about the checks I’ve put in place to make sure the marketing materials I create are as effective as possible

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Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

OK… I gotta admit that today’s post was partially inspired by the fact that my boys have been playing ROCKBAND a lot over the March Break and one of their favorite song to play seems to be Detroit Rock City by KISS, released on the Destroyer Album back in March of 1976. Man… That’s freakin’ 33 years ago and the kids are still lovin’ it!

Of course ROCKBAND has breathed new life into a ton of music, and introduced my boys to various generations of music in the addictive format of a video game, but for some reason I have less of a problem with this particular video game as a parent than I do for say a bang bang shoot shoot sort of game. Sure the game over simplifies what it actually takes to play guitar or drums, but that our boys are being exposed to music and having a hoot doing so is still pretty cool.

But I’m sliding waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off topic. Monday’s are dedicated to marketing and the point I wanted to make today was about longevity. The Band KISS has a ton of stuff working in it’s favor when it comes to the marketing and promotion of their product. The look, the iconic KISS lettering, the sound, the incredible live shows, but the fact that they’ve been together in one incarnation or another for over 37 years means that they’ve been able to play to several generations of fans.

Admittedly it’s a bit weird driving down the highway listening to my eight year old belting out the lyrics to ‘Love Gun,’ but in a strange sort of way it’s also pretty cool. That KISS has endured as a band long enough to be around for my boys to enjoy is pretty cool not to mention the fact that I’ve become more of a fan of their music and their ‘show’ as a result of my kids than I ever was when I was growing up.

I never really thought about juggling as a career when I first picked up three bundles of socks and started throwing them around at the age of thirteen. I never thought that the checkerboard pattern that started invading costume elements around 1985 would lead to the performance persona that’s kept me working and happy with what I do for almost three decades, but it has and I still find it remarkable when people come up to see me and say things like – I remember seeing you in Ottawa on Canada day twenty years ago… If you can find something that you genuinely love and can find a way to keep the excitement for what you love alive, then you’re bound to be at it for years. Love what you do, care deeply about what you do and above all else, enjoy the ride!

Do all that and you may even make it to your own set of Russian Nesting Dolls!

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Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

Often when one is performing at a festival or an event that runs over a number of days there will be opportunities to do special media hits. Interviews with local newspapers, a chance to appear on TV as part of the evening news or perhaps the morning breakfast show, visits to the local radio station, you name it, a chance to get out and plug not only your show, but the event at which you’re performing.

The dreaded breakfast TV spot is by far the biggest challenge I’ve encountered on this front. Waking up at the crack of dawn to head to either some predetermined location or to the studio and then getting the energy and momentum up at an hour when the thing I’m really most excited about is the prospect of putting my head back on the pillow not interacting with the often too friendly and excited morning host…

But what’s the real down-side to it? Loosing a bit of sleep? Not the end of the world, and if you’re lucky enough to get decent press coverage at the event you’re working at it can help build a very impressive portfolio to help promote your show to other events thus feeding a cycle of getting more gigs and doing what you love to do – performing. Not only that, but event producers understand the challenges of getting performers to wake up early, so if you make the effort to do so you’ll leave a very good impression with your current employer and open the door to repeat bookings.

Finding ways to creatively interact with the media can go a long way to getting your picture in the paper or making a great impression on that appearance on TV as well. Anything you can do to have a fun, positive and memorable interaction with the person who’s doing the interview is great! You want to do something that packs a bit of a punch so that the TV hosts continue to talk about you through out the show and anytime they mention the event you’re at.

Especially for caption shots in newspapers, there’s usually a ‘Ta-Da!’ moment in your show (usually something to do with your finale) that the photographer who’s working for the newspaper will want to capture. If you’re able to perform the ‘Ta-Da!’ moment on command in a specific location for said photographer, to stage the shot that they’re after and work with them to get the ‘money shot’ you may well become the darling of the media and be asked to do multiple shots.

I have a friend who used to blow fire as part of his show… He was keenly aware of the best angle and position for the photographer to be in to get the most dramatic shot of him with fire leaping from his lips and that shot showed up in just about every newspaper around… Mind you, the moment happened so quickly that it wasn’t as good for TV, and there wasn’t an easy way that a TV host could interact with the fire blowing, so he typically did some other part of his show for TV hits…

In the end what you’re after is creating a buzz about your show so that more people come to enjoy it. Using the media to your advantage to help build that hype is a art in and of itself and learning how to get the most out of this opportunity will take you a very long way.

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Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

Ok… I’m likely going to sound like an old man for a bit here, but I remember the days when you had to send out your promotional video on a VHS Cassette Tape. There… I said it. And even better than that, I remember the days before I even had a promotional video because the cost of making one and the technology were so far out of reach that the mere idea of having a promotional video was somewhat of a dream…

The first computer I ever bought that could handle video editing was an iMac DV Special Edition which I purchased on January 18, 2000. As soon as I had my hands on a computer that could actually handle non-linear editing I was hooked and was shooting videos, dumping them back onto VHS tapes and sending them to family members. The fact that I was a proud new Dad likely had something to do with it, but I also turned my focus toward the building of promotional videos as well.

VHS tapes got replaced by DVDs when easy DVD authoring became the norm and DVDs seem to be going the way of the VHS tape in that people are using on-line distribution methods to deliver their video content, but what compression method should you use and then there’s the question of Standard Definition (4:3 Aspect Ratio) vrs. High Definition (16:9 Aspect Ratio) that’s worth considering as well. Enter YouTube to level the playing field and create a standard that everyone accepted.

YouTube got it’s start A mere four years ago in February 2005 when three former PayPal Employees created the site and was purchased by Google less than a year later to the tune of 1.65 billion dollars… Yowza!

More than just a huge internet success story it has become, for many, an alternative to TV, a soapbox on which to stand and preach to the world, a resource for researchers, and an absolute necessity for performers looking to promoting their shows to buyers. “Do you have a video up on YouTube” has become such a common phrase that if you don’t have one, you’ve become the exception to the rule.

The vast discrepancy in quality of video content is staggering, but picture quality is less important than content as viewers have become accustomed to watching video of an inferior quality if the content is what they’re after. Come up with a funny idea and produce it cheaply and you could be the next video with a million plus hits or more importantly that on-line video could land you your next gig. In today’s age I’d say that a video that plays well on YouTube could possibly be the most important tool in your marketing arsenal – so get shooting and get posting, or if you feel more like watching than creating, head over to my corner of the youtube universe at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/checkerhead

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Where in the world am I today?: Aruba, The Caribbean

Making yourself available to shake hands and sign autographs after your show leaves a lasting impression not only with the people watching your show, but also with the people who hired you to do the show in the first place.

I was talking to a country music fan who what a huge Garth Brooks fan. In part because he really likes Garth’s music, but also because of the way Garth took the time to sign autographs for anyone who wanted one after his shows. The word that came up during the conversation repeatedly was ‘Class’ – Garth was a ‘class act’ for taking the time to acknowledge the support of his fans.

Now admittedly I don’t have the same sort of star status that a celebrity like Garth Brooks does, but the lesson that can be learned from this is clear. Acknowledging that people might want to come up and shake your hand after your show makes the performer/spectator relationship somehow more real and your willingness to make this connection leaves a very positive lasting impression.

I think this is one of the things I really like about doing busking festivals and street shows. When people come up to throw a tip into your hat, it’s not just that they’re acknowledging that they enjoyed the show enough to pay you for it, they also want to make a personal connection with you – person to person.

In other venues, I try to find a way to allow for this to happen. The picture above was shot at a consumer trade show in China, following my shows in this venue I handed out trading cards just so I could make that connection. When I’m on cruise ships, I make a point of getting to the entrance to the theatre as people are exiting my shows so that I can shake hands and thank them for sharing their evening with me. I’ll often hand out free souvenir postcards as well just to leave a positive and lasting impression and get my web site information into their hands…

Ya just never know who’s in your audience and taking the extra time to connect with people may well lead to other performance opportunities.

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Where in the world am I today?: St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, The Caribbean

I touched on the concept of BRANDING in a blog post earlier in the month, but wanted to take it a bit further to discuss the importance of cross media consistency. Having all of your marketing materials have a consistent look/feel though the use of  a well defined colour pallet, specifically chosen fonts and an eye catching logo means that possible buyers will receive a unified marketing message and know that it’s you any time they see these elements put together in the same way. 

Say you run into someone after your show and you hand them a business card. That potential client loved your show and goes to your website to check out your on-line presence. If the business card that you handed out uses a completely different colour scheme or design structure that potential client may question whether they’ve actually reached the right web site.

If on the other hand that same potential client calls you and asks for a promotional DVD to show to the committee that’s in charge of hiring talent for their next corporate function and you deliver a well put together video that arrives in a box with a slick looking liner that’s consistent with the business card you originally handed out, you’ll not only create a strong first impression for the committee members that haven’t seen your show, you’ll also add credibility to the one guy who did see your show and loved it and is basically acting as your one-man cheering section. Why wouldn’t you want to make his job as easy as possible?

So how do you do it? How do you create this consistent look and feel and how can you be sure that it actually does represent who you are and what you do so that the image that you’re presenting in your marketing materials is consistent with the look/feel the client gets when you walk on stage. Consider talking with a professional graphics designer or possibly find someone who’s studying design at school who’s looking to make their career in design. Chances are that they’ll have a much stronger vocabulary when it comes to the language of putting design elements together than you do. 

If you’re the sort of person who likes doing thing yourself, then get yourself some books on design and start studying. Even then, I’d still recommend sitting down with a designer to lay the foundation for the work that you’re looking at doing. Having a second set of eyes that are well versed in how to make things look their best is always a good idea. Once you’ve picked colours that work with your on-stage image and have selected fonts that help support that image and perhaps even crafted a logo that incorporates the colours and possibly the font(s), you’ll have what I call the foundation in place. 

Once you’ve determined the elements that form your foundation, crafting any piece of promotional material becomes easier because everything you design (or is designed for you) will come out of a common set of elements that you took the time to think about and establish as being consistent with the image you want to deliver be it on your business card, on your website, in a brochure or even on stage. This consistency will serve you well.

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Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

Over the years I’ve had a number of different vehicles that served as a way to promote and marketing my show. They also helped created a certain image that I felt went along with my show. The most notable over the years were – 

• A 1974 Austin Mini Convertible with a black and white  checkered hood and trunk lid
• A 1980 New York Checker Cab
• A 1968 New York Checker Cab with Purple Hot Rod Flames
• A 1981 Vespa P200 with Checker Cab motif
• A 1989 Nissan S-Cargo shown above.

Now I’ll be completely honest… When I thought to write about this as a topic I was going to go into length about the pluses and minus of cost verse performance. How going the extra step to add signage that acted as advertising allows you to write the vehicle off 100% as both transportation and advertising, but for me owing cool vehicles has been as much of an addiction as it has been a business practice. I’ve always had a fascination with cars that have a bit more personality than say your average Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic. This has lead me to search out cool vehicles and spend far more time and money on them than I would have on a Corolla or a Civic, but what’cha gonna do – it’s a weakness…

I can tell you that people remember these cars and my association with them. This past weekend, in fact, I ran into a guy at the Richmond Winterfest who remembered me from the 1988 Halifax Buskers and remembered the Mini convertible that I was driving around at the time – not bad considering that was over twenty years ago. Anything you can do to help create a buzz about you and your and helps people remember you specifically is the aim of most marketing efforts. The fact that I also got to feed my love of quirky cars was just a really fun added bonus.

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Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to go on the very first Ships and Dip Cruise put on by the Barenaked Ladies. I’ve known the guys in the band for years and when I found out that the were planning a Fan Cruise I got myself invited aboard as one of the acts. Got to do it the following year as well and had a blast not only with my own shows, but also checking out all of the great acts that were a part of the event. It was like a fantastic floating music festival!

While on-board I also hit it off with Photographer, David Bergman, who was shooting the event and we got to talking about various marketing techniques. He introduced me to a technique that I completely understood and agreed with that he called “Poke Marketing.” 

Basically it amounts to making a little extra effort with the clients that you really want to impress. Send an email occasionally, in David’s case as he’s a photographer, he’d sometimes send an enlargement of one of the images that he had taken to the key person in the shot who would enjoy the memory and might be able to offer him more work in the future. 

There’s a fine line between pestering someone and sending a gentle reminder or ‘poke’ to say – “Hey, I really enjoyed working with you and I’d love to do it again.” 

The concept of ‘poking’ someone on Facebook has much the same effect. It’s just a little reminder that you’re thinking of someone which is fairly unobtrusive, yet might just put a smile on the face of the recipient.

If you find out that a particular client collects elephants for example and you happen to find interesting elephants that you can send them to add to their collection it’ll have the effect of having that person remember you in a positive light. You don’t need to do this on schedule – ‘Every Two Weeks I will Poke Client X’ it should rather be done somewhat randomly but often enough so that you remain in their thoughts and you become their go-to person when every they need your services.

Happy Poking!

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Where in the world am I today?: Woke Up in Aruba and am heading home…

Went to my computer’s dictionary to get a semi-official definition of the term branding and it gave me this –

[as n. ] ( branding) the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design.

The concept of branding has been used by large corporations and business for years to create a strong, memorable, positive impression with their target demographic. 

Some companies create company awareness through a logo that, in and of itself, says very little about the products or services that they sell.  Examples include the Apple Computers Logo with a bite out of it, the Nike Swoosh or the Golden Arches of McDonalds. Each of these are instantly recognizable to most consumers who know exactly what company each logo represents.

Another technique takes the company name and gives it a color and stylized font treatment that also becomes very identifiable to the point where the name itself has turned into a logo. A great example of this is the flowing type used on every can of Coka-Cola. As soon as you see a red can with that flowing text you know instantly that it’s a can of Coke.

Hybrids that take color, text and logos and combine them together have also been incredibly effective with the Starbucks logo being an excellent example of a logo that incorporates a specific shade of green with the companies two tailed mermaid logo and a specific font treatment of the text.

I’ve been very fortunate to have had a couple of things happen to me that have made branding my product or rather branding ‘me’ incredibly easy. The decision to base my costuming around a checkerboard motif is where it all started. When checkerboard items started appear in costuming I wasn’t thinking too much about it, I just liked black and white checks and bit by bit more and more checkered items became a part of my regular costume. Because I wore the same costume at every show, the checkerboard pattern began to be associated with my show and my character and became an incredible hook. People saw the show, remembered the costume and started to call me ‘The Checkerboard Guy’ which became as powerful a hook as the pattern itself had been because the name conjured up the look which conjured up memories of the show which lead to people calling me for gigs…

The name ‘The Checkerboard Guy’ doesn’t actually say much about what I do which, has at times, creates some confusion, but wording introductions or press materials to say things like, ‘Award-Winning Comedy-Juggler David Aiken – The Checkerboard Guy’ is an easy way to combine all of the elements of who I am and what I do into an easy to understand title that still taking advantage of the hooks and branding that I’ve been using for years.

The bottom line with what ever sort of branding you choose to implement is to create a positive impression for your target market and to be remembered when what ever it is that you do is needed by who ever it is that needs it. Anything that you can do to help yourself, your product or your service stick out amongst the competitors, the better.

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Where in the world am I today?: St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, The Caribbean

Thought I’d feature my cbg baseball caps as part of my regular ‘mondays and marketing’ feature. For about the last four years I’ve been doing an increasing amount of work on cruise ships. Like the postcards that I featured last week, I use baseball caps as a promotional item of sorts when I work on ships and, in fact, I use them at most events that I perform at. 

These caps fall under the category of ‘swag’ – items made for the express purpose of being given away to people who do nice things for you. Though these hats could likely be sold as merchandise at the end of my shows, I typically only give then away to the technical crew who help me make my show look and sound it’s best and to other people like the Cruise Director or Festival Producer as a way of saying thanks for having me.

Financially speaking the investment in a half dozen hats per gig doesn’t amount to more than about thirty dollars and these well-branded, well-made, caps seem to be the sort of thing that people keep and actually use and remember me for.

Often the guys running sound or lights this contract graduate to become production manager or sometimes even moves higher up in the company and can potentially be the guy in charge of hiring in the future. If you’ve been easy to work with and appreciative of the work that others have done for you from the beginning, this gets remembered. So, a relatively small investment in a cap today to say thanks, may have long reaching effects that are hard to measure.

Another reason why this particular item is in my mind at the moment is because I’m in the midst of ordering more caps and have been working directly with a company in China to produce these for me. For those interested, the new cbg baseball caps are being manufactured by Capwindow International. The guy that I’ve been corresponding with at the company, Jack Wu has been great to deal with and his communications have all been clear and response quick.

So why a baseball cap over something like a t-shirt? Well the baseball caps have a couple of advantages.

1. They stack nicely and are easy to pack around other things I’m carrying
2. Unlike a t-shirt which come in various sizes, baseball caps are far more universal in that they can be easily sized to fit just about any head meaning there’s less guess work when it comes to giving them out.

Useful online resource:

Capwindow International Company Ltd.: http://www.capwindow.com

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