Alizée ads 30 seconds long will air on Boston, U.S.A. radio station

[Scruffydog777]

Well I spent a lot of last night and lot of early this morning trying to put together a dvd to pass out at the cultural center if I could talk them into letting me in. I figured even if they didn't, I'd try and hang out in that area trying to meet people as they came and went. Targeting these people because I thought people who knew French or were in the process of learning it would be better candidates for becoming Alizee fans.

I called them in the morning, offering to pay $120 for their annual membership but it was to no avail. They didn't budge.

So I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon, making the 50 dvd's. My printer gave me all kinds of head aches with printing the cd's and the envelopes but I got it done. Finished up around 4:30. I wanted to be there when the open house started at 5, but I found in my mail box the MCE cd I had ordered that I didn't think was going to get here in time to send it to the radio station before the ads ended. Best part about it was it was the international version with the extra English songs on it which I didn't think it would be. So I boxed it up real quick, flew over to the post office and the radio station isn't far away so hopefully they'll have it tomorrow.

So I got to the cultural center and hung out there and there was very little traffic in and out. After about 15 minutes of seeing hardly any one, I decided to walk through the park of the Boston Commons. Lots of people there. But I tell you, it would probably be impossible to give away gold in an area like this. People are so accustomed to having pan handlers coming up to them. I know the feeling myself that anytime someone comes up to you and offers you something, you're always wondering what's the catch.

It's very disheartening to get turned down time and time again. Makes you realy feel bad for these pan handlers. But I kept at it and at least managed to give away 34 of the 50 dvd's I made. I'll try and get rid of the rest this weekend.

It's kind of unfortunate that I had targeted French speaking people with the dvds I made up, because I'm sure most of the people I gave them to didn't speak any French. I'll usually make a dvd for this type of crowd with half of the first eight songs will be in English.

I'll post a picture of the dvd cover I made up. I put the songs in chronological order for the most part, with maybe PTB being the one big exception.




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I put a letter inside it describing what we were doing and who Alizee was.

[User22]

Wow Scruff! That is quite amazing. Im sure that those people will appreciate what you have done to them. Very nice work. You amaze me again and again

[FanDeAliFee]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

I called them in the morning, offering to pay $120 for their annual membership but it was to no avail. They didn't budge.

I'm hardly surprised by their stance. Numerous people there try to earn full-time livings teaching French and this is their big seasonal marketing event. Business is business and they were nice to offer to post your flyer.

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

So I got to the cultural center and hung out there and there was very little traffic in and out. After about 15 minutes of seeing hardly any one, I decided to walk...

I wonder how many people popped in by the end of the evening, and at which times they showed up. Surely a luxury business like foreign language instruction will be down during a Great Recession.

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

It's very disheartening to get turned down time and time again... But I kept at it and at least managed to give away 34 of the 50 dvd's I made. I'll try and get rid of the rest this weekend.

At a convention or a street fair, people are very inclined to pick up free samples. I think manning a booth at a Bastille Day arcade would be much easier work.

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

It's kind of unfortunate that I had targeted French speaking people...

At a French meetup.com meeting you'll find plenty of people who want to learn French, practice it. or master it. The largest such group in the Boston area, The Boston French Language Meetup Group, was founded between Gourmandises and Mes Courants Électriques. It has held over ten dozen meetings to date. Well over a thousand people are registered as members and money is NOT the focus it is at a place of business.

The testimonials for it are mainly written in English and appear here:
http://www.meetup.com/BostonFrenchCo...mments/?op=all

It seems they have monthly meetings at a restaurant and charge $3 to cover some expenses. Everybody has to eat and a meal can be a low-pressure environment at which one can make friends. Many people advise that it is a good idea to slowly become friendlier with someone before you whip you disk out and try to thrust it at them.

You can also first get to know people online a bit by reviewing their forums:
http://www.meetup.com/BostonFrenchCo...ssages/boards/

And there is even a mechanism for proposing meetups for various original ends, which the management team will review and approve or decline to endorse as an official event. Surely some of the people there are interested in French music. Maybe you can even learn to sing songs together. Compromise is a part of friendship, so if you can start a pop music group, you might pull together a lot more people than trying to start an Alizée musical group! And I bet you have a lot of wonderful photos from your trips abroad, including to France. Why not share them with some narration one evening?

[Zeerre]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

Well I spent a lot of last night and lot of early this morning trying to put together a dvd to pass out at the cultural center if I could talk them into letting me in. I figured even if they didn't, I'd try and hang out in that area trying to meet people as they came and went. Targeting these people because I thought people who knew French or were in the process of learning it would be better candidates for becoming Alizee fans.

I called them in the morning, offering to pay $120 for their annual membership but it was to no avail. They didn't budge.

Wow, they really had their mind made up.

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

So I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon, making the 50 dvd's. My printer gave me all kinds of head aches with printing the cd's and the envelopes but I got it done. Finished up around 4:30. I wanted to be there when the open house started at 5, but I found in my mail box the MCE cd I had ordered that I didn't think was going to get here in time to send it to the radio station before the ads ended. Best part about it was it was the international version with the extra English songs on it which I didn't think it would be. So I boxed it up real quick, flew over to the post office and the radio station isn't far away so hopefully they'll have it tomorrow.

Where did you order it from? I've been meaning to get my hands on the international version of MCE, but alas, I haven't been able to find it.

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

It's very disheartening to get turned down time and time again. Makes you realy feel bad for these pan handlers. But I kept at it and at least managed to give away 34 of the 50 dvd's I made. I'll try and get rid of the rest this weekend.

Don't take it personally, I'm pretty sure that's people's automatic response when they're approached, and hey, 34 out of 50 it's pretty good.

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

It's kind of unfortunate that I had targeted French speaking people with the dvds I made up, because I'm sure most of the people I gave them to didn't speak any French. I'll usually make a dvd for this type of crowd with half of the first eight songs will be in English.

Well, very few of her songs are in English, so they might as well get used to the French ones.

[Vista]

"...it is a good idea to slowly become friendlier with someone before you whip you disk out and try to thrust it at them."

@docdtv
You're a cunning linguist, and probably a master debater as well. :-)

[Scruffydog777]

Originally Posted by Vista

"...it is a good idea to slowly become friendlier with someone before you whip you disk out and try to thrust it at them."

@docdtv
You're a cunning linguist, and probably a master debater as well. :-)

Well on the third date is it okay to whip out a disk?

Edit:

Last night, June 22nd. 5 Alizée commercials were played on a local radio station. Here's how they all played out.


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[paintballpdh19]

Scruff, once again you amaze me with everything you do!

[FanDeAliFee]

I scanned the forum entries for The Boston French Language Meetup Group and was not surprised to see the topic of music come up on multiple occasions. By looking there, one can also learn about French things which may be useful opportunities.

For example, just thirty miles outside of Boston, right on the border with Rhode Island, there's a radio station in Woonsocket which programs not one, but two French-themed shows! If one accepts my premise that francophones (and even francophiles) are much easier potential Alizée customers, then sponsoring such radio shows lets you reach a highly qualified target audience with only a few meager ecus in your ad budget. These shows, Salut! Bonjour! and L'Echo Musical, remain on the air even today, with their scheduled times reported at http://www.wnri.com/weeklyprogsched.htm and profiles of their associated talents, Sue Bernier and the Laliberte couple, at http://www.wnri.com/personalities.htm (You naturally mention Mylene's natality to the Lalibertes!)

Robert Solow once wrote of fellow economist Milton Friedman that “Everything reminds Milton of the money supply. Well, everything reminds me of sex, but I keep it out of the paper.” Well, too bad Professor Solow. Once you become friends with someone, you have the opportunity to let everything remind you of Alizée - and then sometimes even tell your friend about it. This is less remarkable than it might seem, because the very premise of <i>L'Encyclopédie Alizée</i> is that "EVERYTHING in the world is somehow related to Alizée Jacotey."

If I am willing to be shameless enough, I can cite three such examples of potential contact between things raised in the Boston meetup group forum and discussions at AAm concerning our favorite Corsican girl.

1. The forum entry at
http://www.meetup.com/BostonFrenchCo...thread/1434930
lists French songs, among them Lorie's performance of A 20 Ans. (Do I <b>have</b> to say it? I will anyway.) This lets you ask them: Why settle for an ersatz lolita when you can have the original? And you show them JPVA!

2. The forum entry at
http://www.meetup.com/BostonFrenchCo...thread/1501514
cites la grenouille fou. I hope you have not forgotten that when we spent time discussing the mystery of what turned out to be Alizée's new "Jeremiah" tattoo, someone pointed out that before Jeremiah was a husband, Jeremiah was a bullfrog! And so, la grenouille fou did us the favor of portraying Jeremiah the Bullfrog auditioning as the DJ for the MJ music video, as recorded here -
http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showthread.php?p=150372 . If telling this story makes your listener laugh, you hit them with some follow up -
http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showpost.php?p=150760

3. The forum entry at:
http://www.meetup.com/BostonFrenchCo...thread/1816975
is your clincher, because it celebrates The DaVinci Code. This opens up the possibility of explaining that some people actually believe that Alizée's secret identity is as the Merovingian Princess Salomé, the <i>sang réal</i>, for extensive reasons explored at: http://alizeeamerica.com/forums/showthread.php?p=150366

Yes, Alizée is darn near everywhere, and if you can make some friends who have no trouble with songs in the French language, sooner or later she is simply bound to come up in conversation, whether one likes it or not!

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ASIDE

Originally Posted by Vista

"...it is a good idea to slowly become friendlier with someone before you whip you disk out and try to thrust it at them."
@docdtv
You're a cunning linguist, and probably a master debater as well. :-)

I wish I had a penny for every time some poor fool was told:
"Hell will freeze over before you put that in MY slot!"

Don't give common sense too much credit. I would have no idea how to sell people software that was "Worster" than all the previous versions. Crap shooters tell me Seven is a lucky number, but it is important to roll it out before the game is over. </td></tr></table>

[Scruffydog777]

I had noticed monday, that the audio for the ads seemed a little low compared to the songs that were being played. I especially noticed it when I merged the 3 commercials so I could post it. I had to amplify the volume quite a bit to get if up to normal levels. I didn't reall think to much of it, thinking maybe the commercials air at a lower volume than the songs do, though such isn't the case for tv where the commercials blow you out of the water.

Tuesday night was to be a big night. 5 commercials were to play. I started recording them and I was sitting in a different location this time. I could hear the songs and other commercials fine, but when Alizée's ad came on, I had to get up and go over to the speaker to really understand what she was saying. I use audacity to record these ads and it shows a scale of the audio levels. Well it was obvious our ads were well below the levels of everything else. I was fit to be tied. It's probably a good thing I couldn't get through on a live phone line at that time.

I know I didn't have these problems last week. I didn't have to boost up the volume when I merged the ads. So what was the cause? My immediate impression was that it was someone at the station who doesn't like this music,or these ads, cranking down the volume. How can a possible technical mistake happen 5 times just to our ads?

Well I was out of town the next day. Talked to Jessica this morning. She did say it was due to some type of programing error on those days. I don't know if I believe that. I do trust her and feel that's what she is being told.

Bottom line is they'll be rerunning those ads on monday and tuesday.

I had ordered an MCE album second day air then priority mailed it over to them, so they could hear the entire songs for some of these ads. I asked Jessica to mail it back because I think there's somebody there who doesn't enjoy Alizée's music.



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[ImRawdg]

Originally Posted by Scruffydog777

I had ordered an MCE album second day air then priority mailed it over to them, so they could hear the entire songs for some of these ads. I asked Jessica to mail it back because I think there's somebody there who doesn't enjoy Alizée's music.

Well... I wouldn't really jump to conclusions like that. Unless you're really sure. I doubt anybody would care that much to make your ads quieter.