~~~STEP INTO THE DRIVER'S SEAT~~~

With the launch of Ford's unique social media campaign promoting the upcoming release of the Ford Fiesta, the automotive giant has positioned their marketing in such a way as to offer significant advantages over any advertising initiatives lauched by their competitors.

See the article here for a summary of the campaign.

The major advantages of this campaign are:

By putting the promotion in the hands of the social media experts. Ford is able to access an alternate style of advertising/marketing not necessarily accessible through standard corporate channels. Through these alternate methods an entirely different market is opened up to Ford; moreover this market encompasses an age group which is going to soon be the primary demographic purchasing cars. consider the following statement from the social media news release:

"Chosen agents largely will resonate with Millennials, the next-generation consumer group born between 1979 and 1985. These consumers, which will total 70 million drivers by 2010, use social media daily and offer a prime opportunity for Ford to tap into a group that hasn’t yet established brand loyalty."

With the agents driving the Fiesta for up to 6 months, they will have the opportunity to deliver first hand recommendations to anyone they encounter in a face-to-face situation; therefore they can actually show-off the car as well as just promoting it through social media channels.

Arguably the biggest advatage of this campaign is that social media experts will generally be regarded by the public as more neutral in their opinion and therefore any recommendations will be taken at face value as oppose to being considered "paid advertising." Moreover, the SME's opinions are probably considered relatively reliable based purely on the number of people already following their blogs, tweets, videos and any other techniques they use.

For additional information on this campaign checkout the following blog posts:

Andrew's blog
Jackie's Blog
Megan's Blog
Mike's Blog
Johnny's Blog

Age Of the Enemy - Photos and Music Samples!!

Just To give a brief taste of what we do, we've uploaded a short photo slideshow as our video compilation isn't quite finished, As well we've included an instrumental sample of the studio work we have completed so far (player on the left)....... wouldn't wanna give you too much now would we? ;)

Cheers!

Mike

A.O.T.E.

Age Of The Enemy kicks off Canadian Music Week early!!!

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Every year for a period of five days in March, Toronto is flooded with music industry professionals, performers and songwriters from around the world. From March 10-14 this year there will be a multitude of events and performances across the city giving attendees an opportunity to network with some of the top names from every area of the music business.

The three major networking events planned for this year include the Rdaio Star National songwriting competition, the Songwriter Summit: music creator & publisher conference, and the Music for the Screen film festival. For additional details on these and other events click here.



In addition to the main events there are other festivals and conferences running throughout the week as well as a number of award ceremonies. Click here to go to the home page for CMW 2010.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR AGE OF THE ENEMY?


After three years of hard work and countless shows, my band (Age Of The Enemy) is fortunate enough to be attending some of the upcoming events for CMW 2010. As we run ourselves like a business this is a major opportunity to execute some of our PR initiatives including: Dispersing business cards, music samples and copies of our press kit.



WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR YOU?

To celebrate the 2010 Canadian Music Week we will be performing this Saturday March 6, at Velvet Underground. 510 Queen St. W. In the spirit of supporting Canadian music we have invited our friends Special Ops down all the way from Montreal as well, our opening act are local boys Russian Roulette. Links to all the music samples can be found on the Facebook event listing. It's going to be a great night of music and a hell of a celebration.

FOR ALL HUMBER STUDENTS ATTENDING BRING YOUR HUMBER ID FOR ENTRY WITH NO COVER!!!



*POST SHOW WRAP-UP*

Great concert, amazing Music week, if I shook anymore hands my wrist was going to separate. Look for us in the 2011 showcases and on stages around southern Ontario!!!!

KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED FOR THE ALBUM DROPPING JUNE 26TH 2010 @ VELVET UNDERGROUND!!!

Personal Brand: My music, my brand...my life

The following slideshow summarizes my plans, objectives and critical path at the risk of sounding redundant in my introduction I'm going to leave the slideshow to tell my story. I suggest either downloading it if possible or viewing it in full screen mode as the text may be difficult to read on a smaller window.

Mike Staniforth's Personal Brand

View more presentations from Miker954.

I hope that this has given you a clearer picture of who I am as a product, person and brand. Marketability is indeed a major part of drawing attention to one's personal brand. However, I believe that unless you can deliver the steak with the sizzle, you're wasting your time.

I hope all viewers will take the time to follow the development of our music and hopefully the growth of my musical brand on Twitter and online. Samples will be available as indicated by the critical path dates.

For the full experience I suggest attending our upcoming performance March 6th, 2010 @ Velvet Underground in Toronto. 510 Queen Street west.

Happy listening

"The Story" - My Immersion in Social Media

In order to trace the path of my complete immerion in social media, let's set the "way back" machine for roughly 1998.

MY EARLIEST PERSONAL EXPOSURE

1998

Basically everyone had at least one email account myself included. However, this year generated a true turning point in the development of social digital communications. The program was called ICQ (I-seek-you) it allowed the users to communicate with each other in real-time but was constructed in a far more user-friendly interface than any previous system. To this day ICQ has continued to update its software and adapt versions for mobile devices as well; therefore, past users can still use their old account number to reactivate their list of contacts regardless of how long they've been off the system. Like most users, my ICQ usage began to dwindle after Microsoft released the earliest versions of MSN Messenger was released, although the principle functions of both programs were the same MSN surpassed ICQ in ease-of-use replacing it as the number one communicator for me (and most other people at the time).

THE FACEBOOK REVOLUTION

2004

After hearing classmates mentioning "facebook" this and "facebook" that I finally decided to look into it in early 2005. I was instantly hooked, by the end of the year I created a substantial size profile with my photos, information, messages and more. What captured my attention and drew me in the most was the brilliance of all the functions integrated into the interface. It provides a means to communicate; share photos, video, media; reach out and connect users all over the world through common interests...and so much more! I realize it's rather redundant to explain facebook to anyone reading this as you are likely all familiar with it so I will move on from here. Needless to say, Facebook did for the 21st century what online bulletin boards did for the 20th century.

PROMOTIONAL EXPOSURE THROUGH FACEBOOK AND MYSPACE

2007

In the interests of not having this become a singular document, view my YouTube video summary of this section.



For a detailed understanding of the promotional efforts I mentioned in the video, please look at the following sites:

VIEW the old Written In Red Myspace Page
VIEW/JOIN the Age of The Enemy Facebook group
VIEW/FOLLOW the Age of The Enemy Twitter feed

JUMPING FORWARD TO 2010!!

Please take the time to follow through the link posted on my personal Twitter feed, it will take you to the final discussion on these topics.