#best thing about these: drawing the logo on max's shirt

[dealwrought]

happy sunday here's some storror.

2nd one was a test of this incredible texture pack from @tombofnull.

[starrysupercell]

How on earth do Buzz & Stu fit the Bad Randoms into their strict schedules, with Buzz being a lifeguard and Stu being... something? More importantly, how did they become a band if they've got nothing in common? Are they off-screen friends?

One Band Origin Story coming right up!

🥁🎙🎸

So Buzz, I like to think that he got a littttllee bit of flak from a few other Brawlers about how "ineffective" he is and how he's "just making things worse" as a lifeguard. (like Jacky, Carl, Frank and Bull.)

Some of his friends (Shelly, Jessie and the Junker Line) defended him, but the Dino was like "eh, I'm fine guys, really. Who needs them anyway?" Then proceeded to wallow with pity for a few days because he loved that sense of accomplishment that came with being a lifeguard but apparently not everyone felt that way so whatdoesitmattereventrying--

But, since he has to work somewhere in the Park to stay, he opts for a different job, at least for the time being.

So he looks around for a bit, and lands a job with the Entertainers Trio! Amber, Primo and Poco welcome him with open arms because they're arguably the friendliest Trio in the Park and they've already got the place mostly Amber-Proof so it's all good!!

It's been shown that Buzz does like the beat of music, as shown when he started grooving after saving Sunny the Duck Turret and being hugged by Jessie. So for sure he would have a strong appreciation for Poco's shows.

Though he would quickly catch on, Poco plays a lot, but he doesn't....sing?

Poco: well, it's because skeletons don't have vocal chords, and can't sing.

Buzz: But then how can you talk?

Poco: :) *strums his guitar nonchalantly* so anyway--

Poco absolutely loves collaborations and partnering up for different musical bits, (playing at Barley's, collaborating with Frank, Sandy and Piper, etc.) so it wasn't long until he and Buzz decided to work together on a piece, but first they had to find a good genre of music.

Enter the #1 most difficult robot in all of Starr Park...

I couldn't answer where Poco and Buzz were practicing different instruments to see what kind of music genre they could collaborate on, but it was cacophonous.

Buzz tried his whistle, his trombone, a harmonica and other wind instruments because as a life guard, you would just be silly to not use anything involving your lungs (in his mind.)

Poco's a very patient skeleton and didn't mind the discordant start of this collab at all. Thankfully, as that's what Buzz needed. Encouragement and patience!

However it did bother someone passing by. Stu, who's a little rude and mean because it's cool to be tough and you always have to show you're on top of it, drops in and asks what all the ruckus was.

"Terrible. Really t-t-terrible! Can't anybody go-o-o around without being f-forced to listen to a couple o-of noisemakers?" Looking around, he notices that there's countless instruments. "What's e-e-even going on here?"

Poco, ever the peacemaker, is about to say "Hey, no problem! My friend and I can just go if we're really bothering you that much."

But Buzz is Not going to stand that. One insult that hit too close to home leads to another and, surprise, surprise! A Brawl is how The Bad Randoms formed.

After the wreckage that ended in a weird kind of draw, because Poco healed the both of them to get them to stop, they finally talked like civilized Dinos/Robots/Skeleton.

It was explained to Stu that Poco and Buzz were planning a collab, and honestly that sounded pretty cool to Stu--

He asked what they had so far, and they sheepishly said that what he heard was what they had.

"Oh." He doesnt know how to go about saying it so he just takes the dive. "....would you. Maybe consider a third person."

Poco is delighted, because anybody interested in music is a big treat for him. "Do you know how to play anything?"

Buzz is a little reluctant because of the, oh I don't know, the Brawl they just had? Poco manages to convince him to glaze over that-- at least for now. If Stu chooses not to try and play nice, then he just won't play in the band at all.

I'm pretty sure Stu came up with the idea for heavy metal as their focus, and Poco was all for it again.

Everything actually clicked into place after that! Buzz decided that a wind instrument would not be heard over electric guitar or drums at all. Singing was the way to go, since he's great at yelling and making noise

Stu and Buzz do eventually get over their first bad meeting, and find out they have several things in common. Like the crippling need to be adored/needed by others staying active, similar movie tastes, humor, and socializing. :)

The only thing I'm drawing a blank on is if they're a recently public band how did Edgar have a t-shirt of their logo since last December?

So, that's how the Bad Randoms came to be!

~

Did Edgar make the shirt + design himself and the Bad Randoms liked it and paid to license it? Does he get royalties?? (between the Gift Shop, Goldarm Gang, and this, I wonder if he's actually well off in Gems and Coins now after that really rough patch. He shares with Colette but she blows it on Merch anyway.)

~

(And, just as a little bit of character detail for Stu.)

He doesn't like being told what to do. The Mechanics, Arcade Players, Max + Surge and other robots around the park who care about him are no exception. He just sees them as trying to cramp his style when they try to get him help though.

That's why I think Stu's friendship with Poco and Buzz is so important. It's not that they don't/didn't care about him to "improve" him, it's because they gave him a different outlet without bringing up his depression or self-destructive tendencies. Stu simply isn't a robot who likes talking about things like feelings because he thinks they're flaws.

So, to wrap things up, The Bad Randoms bring out the best in each other even though they now all spin in Showdown, go AFK in matches, and choose level two Brawlers in Power League. :)

[spooky-z]

Field Trip

Maribat is from @ozmav​

I want to make two things very clear:

Near the end there are homophobic and racist lines. So, please, be careful.

This is almost 9K.

That was D-Day. The day of the field trip at Wayne Enterprises.

Marinette knew she shouldn't be so excited, because please, she knew that place like her palm. But that didn't stop her from being excited to be able to introduce her friends to the employees there.

Every time she promised to take them to meet each other, but there was never a good enough opportunity for that to happen, since Adrien's father, Gabriel, was the biggest problem of the equation.

She was in the bathroom, finishing getting ready and had shared the hotel room with Alix, who from what she could hear, was jumping on the bed like crazy.

“Al, don't you get tired?” Marinette sighs as she leaves the bathroom.

The pink-haired girl - dressed in denim shorts, a black shirt with Batman logo, jacket tied at the waist and a black hat - stops jumping. Laughter ready to go out.

“It depends.” She replies. “Will you stop letting the rest of the class step on you because of that snake?”

"Al..." The warning tone clear in her voice.

Alix rolls her eyes and gets off the bed. She, like Kim, kept debating that Marinette should stop bowing her head to the class antics because of Lila. The girl had arrived in Dupont and destroyed the brunette's reputation just because of Adrien.

“Okay, I get it. I don't say anything else…” She says grumpy and Marinette smiles “For now.” And laughs at her best friend's frown.

“… I don't know why I still try. Really. You guys are a pain in the ass.” Marinette complains.

"It's love." Alix countered. "Let's go now. Those losers must be waiting in the lobby.”

Marinette picks up her bag from the bed, ready for the trip.

She was wearing black jeans, sneakers (they would walk a lot) and a big white long-sleeved sweater. Her hair was messed up on purpose.

Alix put on her old traditional all-star and opened the bedroom door for her friend.

When they were inside the elevator, Marinette turned to the girl. The high finger, like a mother lecturing her children.

“Remember: no trying to compete with Kim inside the building. If you don't behave, I will end you.” She warns. “And you know I can handle it.”

The pink-haired girl rolls her eyes but nods in agreement.

“I will behave myself. Promise."

"Great."

"Nice."

"Good."

"... You are unbearable." Alix says.

"I know." Marinette winks and they both burst out laughing.

They keep laughing until the elevator arrives in the lobby and bump into their friends, separated from the rest of the class, talking about something.

Alix pulls Marinette into the group, catching the attention of the rest of the class.

They ignore the scornful glances cast.

"Hey, losers." Alix nods when they get to them.

"Good morning, guys." Marinette smiles.

Adrien looked like he'd been kicked out of bed - his hair was messier than usual, a black sweatshirt with little cats, ripped jeans and the orange all-star he wouldn't let go of - his eyes barely opening to nod in acknowledgment, almost lying upright in Kim's arms.

Kim dressed similarly, except for the sweatshirt, which was several bats and the jeans were black, as were the sneakers. His hair was like Adrien's. Soft.

“Good morning!” He replies, holding Adrien with his right arm and waving his left hand.

"It's about time." Chloe complains. "I thought I would have to send Mr. Robot here to wake you up."

She was wearing light jeans, caramel UGG boots. The yellow jacket was open, giving a view of the white - which Marinette was sure was Alix's – shirt with Wonder Woman print underneath. Her blond hair was loose and her makeup minimal.

Max was wearing something Marinette never thought she'd see him wear before. A large hoodie - from Adrien, we should make clear - with Naruto print, black jeans and black vans too. He had the dreadlock — had grown since he was twelve — pinned to the top of his head.

"We took so long because Marinette was getting ready for her sweetheart." Alix teases.

Marinette feels her face burn.

"ALIX!"

Sabrina laughs. "Good morning, girls."

She wore a long green pleated skirt, white sneakers without a sock, a white shirt and an open button-down denim jacket. Her hair was tied in a braid on the side of her head and her makeup was minimal too.

Max looked like he was going to say something when Ms. Bustier appears, a man by her side.

“Class, let's go. The bus has arrived. This is the driver, Philip.” She points at him.

Marinette glanced quickly at the class and her eyes met Lila's. The smile the Italian sent her was freezing her blood.

“It looks like today is going to be interesting.” Adrien, who seemed much more awake, says.

The seven friends couldn't help but agree.

×××

The bus ride had been fun.

As they were many, someone would be left to sit with someone in the class and that was something that Alix did not allow to happen. Then she squeezed herself between Marinette and Sabrina, while Max sat next to Chloe and Adrien continued to use Kim as a pillow.

Marinette was wiping out her cell phone memory by taking pictures.

Proof, she says. Blackmail, replies Chloe, who was also taking pictures.

Alix and Sabrina were busy with the landscape, Max was studying about WE and Kim was playing something on his cell phone.

As the bus pulled up in front of the huge Wayne building cluster, Marinette felt anxiety bubbling in her stomach.

She had promised Dick she would not pretend to know anyone - Marinette didn't like to draw attention - so when she saw any of them, she would have to act like herself.

It had been a long and tiring conversation. The Wayne complaining that she never introduced them to her friends or that she always pretended not to know them.

Jason had even teased that she was ashamed of Damian and Damian retaliated by saying he was ashamed of his brothers. The two started fighting and it took Selina to intervene for them to stop.

Anyway. She had promised and Marinette Dupain-Cheng was not someone to break her promises.

She just wished her classmates were quiet and said nothing... graphic. Otherwise, she couldn't defend them from Wayne's fury.

Caline Bustier gets up from her seat and turns to the class, still sitting in their seats.

"We're here," she begins. “But before we get in, I want to make some things clear. IW has tough rules that should not be disregarded for anything.” Says “I know many should not have read the permission paper I gave their parents to sign, so I will warn them: they signed an NDA along with the permission. If you break this agreement, you can and will be sued. They don't care if you're seventeen.”

She looks each other in the eye, serious. Wanting them to understand the seriousness of the situation.

“Now I'll go over the rules.” She takes a piece of paper from her purse and starts reading it. “It's not allowed to take pictures, walk around the building without the guide or someone authorized, enter forbidden places and most importantly: do not disclose anything you saw inside. If a person breaks any of these rules, they will be banned from any Wayne buildings and prosecuted.” Caline lowers the paper. "Let's go now! We have a lot to learn.”

And get off the bus, followed by the excited class. The seven friends right behind, putting a certain distance.

"I'll finally meet the famous Timothy Drake." Max says, his face serious as if on a mission.

Marinette feels the warnings ring in her head. Max had built a rivalry since Tim figured out in a day how to solve a riddle that had left Max sleepless for months. That had been almost a year ago, but the flame of rivalry still burned in the boy's chest.

"Look, I don't know if the boys will be here." She says "I know Dick will be here, because he told me he would be the guide, but I don't know about the others."

Kim pouting, Adrien joins him and Alix too.

"But I thought I would meet Jason in person."

She shudders thinking about this meeting. No. Nope. That would not happen. Otherwise, she thinks Gotham wouldn't be whole.

"Neither Duke?" Sabrina question.

“I really think it's just Dick today, guys. I'm sorry."

The five sighs in dismay. Marinette sighs with relief.

"Let's go. They're leaving us behind.” Chloe says and points to the group ahead of them, already entering the building.”

"Shit."

And they run to catch up.

×××

As much as Marinette has spent much of the past two years walking these corridors, getting into the WI building was always breathtaking. The architecture was out of this world.

“… Thank you so much for getting this tour, Lila!” She hears Rose squeal excitedly.

Adrien snorts at her side, annoyed. He knew very well that the one who had made the trip had been Marinette. Lila was lying again and Ms. Bustier made no effort to dismiss the girl.

Marinette tightens the blonde's hand, trying to distract him from class.

“It was nothing!” Lila brags. “When I told Brucie that the class needed a trip as a graduation gift, he offered it to us. You know, he likes me a lot, since I'm his daughter-in-law.”

The class begins to praise her as a strange kind of cult and Marinette rolls her eyes at the familiar scene.

“What a nasty little girl we have here.” A voice purrs in Marinette's ear.

The girl jumps in surprise, a little scream escaping her lips. Everyone turns to look at her and she turns to find out who she was.

“SELINA!” She shouts excitedly.

The latin-looking woman smiles. Black hair in a pixie cut, plump lips and green eyes. She wore a black pencil skirt, a white blouse with lace at the shoulders and Louboutin high heels.

"Hello, kitten." Marinette hugs the woman.

They had not seen each other for a long time. Selina and Bruce were traveling a lot on their honeymoon, to make up for the times the marriage had been postponed.

“I missed you.” She pulls back, the firm smile on her face. “How was the honeymoon?”

“Wonderful.” Selina responds. “And how have you been?”

“Great.” She turns to her friends. “Guys, this is Selina Kyle.”

And then turns to Selina again.

“Selina, these are Adrien Agreste-” He smiles. “Chloe Bourgeois-” She waves. “Sabrina Raincomprix-” She says hello. “Max Kanté-” He waves. “And Lê Chiến Kim. My friends.” He winks charming.

The woman analyzes each one, nodding in approval in the end.

"They seem to be good people, kitten." She says. "I hope they can come to dinner with us tonight."

Marinette's smile gets impossibly bigger.

"Of-"

“Who is this, Marinette?” Lila's voice cuts the girl off. And the good mood of before changes to a sour one.

Selina looks away from the girl and looks at the rest of the class with Lila.

The girl had a despicable look on her face, a fake smile and sharp eyes. The class around her wasn't much better, since they didn't even pretend for politeness.

The woman observes the situation. At how once happy friends came together as if they were forming a barrier between Marinette and the other girl. How tempers became exalted.

Selina takes the lead, wanting to avoid a scene.

“Selina Kyle.” She replies. “And you? Who is it?” Question. The sharp tone leaves no gap for jokes.

Lila takes this as an opportunity to lie. Again.

“Lila Rossi. Damian Wayne's fiancée.” She extends her hand. “I’m the one who arranged the class trip.” Selina squeezes her hand.

"Damian's fiancée?" She hisses in displeasure. "Interesting."

Caline Bustier watches the commotion, unsure what to do.

She was sure the intrigue in the class would calm down over time, but it had only gotten worse. Worsened to the point that the Dupain-Cheng threatened to sue the school and report to the council, as no one seemed to see the toxic situation that became the classroom.

They were being dark days for Dupont. For Caline

All were under investigation. Mostly her, since she was the one that suffered the most accusations not only from Marinette's family, but also from Max, Kim and Sabrina as well. This trip had been an excuse for everyone - her - to get away from Paris and the rabbit hole they had gotten into.

A man dressed all in black - button-down shirt, slim-fit pants and oxfords - with styled hair appeared with the driver.

Caline guessed it was Richard Grayson, the guide they had informed her.

He smiled at her and held out his hand to greet.

"Good morning, I'm Richard Grayson." She squeezes the offered hand, feeling her cheeks heat up.

She could be a teacher, but she wasn't dead.

“Good morning, Richard. I'm Caline Bustier, the teacher.” She drops his hand, kind of disappointed to have to.

Ms. Bustier turns to the class and catches everyone's attention. She watches the Latina woman kiss Marinette's cheek and leave the building. The security guard waving respectfully at her.

“Guys, please.” And their attention turns to her.

Marinette's group still distracted by something the girl said.

"Good morning, Dupont." The man says. "My name is Richard and I will be your guide on this field trip."

The class cheers up again and Marinette turns her head so fast that Chloe is sure she heard the bone crack.

"DICK!"

The whole class chokes. Lila takes the opportunity to make a scene.

“Oh my god, Marinette! Have a little decency.” She whines shrilly. “Apologize to Richard right now or I will make arrangements.”

Dick raises an eyebrow at the Italian.

“Now there is no need-”

“There is a need, Mr. Grayson.” Lila cuts off the man. “She's being disrespectful to you and as I am the most influential person around, I must place order.

Alix and Sabrina snort, hands over their mouths trying to hide their laughter. Chloe doesn't care about hiding. Kim and Max were obviously filming. Adrien had such a big smile on his face that Dick knew it must be hurting.

Marinette was frozen. He knew that expression.

"... not necessary, Miss." He says again. Already losing patience with the girl. “Minette didn't disrespect me. She just called me by my nickname.”

Lila looks like she's just been slapped. Bewildered.

"The what?"

“Do you know Marinette?” Alya asks, her nose twitching with the scent of an exclusive.

Dick tilts his head, his arms crossed and a teasing smile on his mouth.

"Of course. She is my sister in law."

... What?

Adrien was right. That day would be interesting.

×××

"This is where Wayne Technologies starts." Dick says, pointing to the floor where the elevator stopped. “You'll see our specialists at work, so avoid distracting them.”

The class walked the floor marveling at the technology and the scientists at work.

Adrien was practically drooling next to Max.

"Dude, close your mouth." Alix jokes.

The boy's cheek burned in embarrassment and he closed his mouth in a loud snap. The hand rubbed his face just to make sure there was no drool.

Marinette laughed at her friend, but stopped abruptly as she watched the red tuft of hair in one of the tech rooms. That was when she remembered that she had promised Adrien to introduce him to one of the smartest people she had ever met. And a physics freak like him.

She takes the boy's wrist and drags him away from where Dick was leading them all.

“Come, Adrien. I want you to meet someone!”

“Wait-Don’t you need authorization-” He doesn't finish, as Marinette puts her palm on the hi-tech lock and the light flashes green before the door opens. "Oh."

The brunette pulls him into the room until she comes across a woman, not much older than 30, who was fiddling with a metal plate.

"Carmen." She calls and the woman looks at her, a lively smile appearing on her face.

“Mari! How long!” She gets up and gives the girl a quick hug.

“Yes, yes!” They laugh. “Remember I commented on a friend of mine who was a physics nerd?”

Adrien protests softly. He wasn't a nerd... just very passionate.

Carmen looks away at the boy and he nods shyly.

"I suppose this is the physics nerd?"

"Himself. Adrien Agreste.” Marinette replies. “Adrien, this is Carmen Leonhart, WI's head of technology research.”

As they begin to talk about numbers, statistics and many other things Marinette didn't care to know, she turns around, ready to leave the room.

Just to face the whole class, Ms. Bustier, her friends and Dick, standing in the doorway. Dick with the biggest fucking smile on his face.

"... what?" She asks. Confused with the audience.

Chloe gives a mocking smile.

"I didn't know you were allowed into these rooms, Dupain-Cheng."

Marinette realizes what she has just done and the embarrassment only gets worse.

She had been so excited to introduce Adrien and Carmen to each other that she had not thought about what she was doing in front of her classmates. Sure, she had promised not to hide her relationship with the Wayne family, but that didn't mean she liked to show off like this.

Lila doesn't seem to like the attention Marinette was getting at all. Her face in a sour frown and the fists clenched.

She sent Marinette a warning look before masking her dislike with a sweet expression.

“Oh, that's no big deal.” She says waving her hands in disdain. “I asked Brucie to authorize our class. He was generous enough to include Marinette on this list.” The scorn barely masked by the disinterested tone.

The class seems to take this as truth (as always) as Nino puts his hand on the girl's shoulder. A proud expression on his face.

“Thanks so much for all this, dude.” He says. “You didn't have to go that far for us.” And the class agrees. Raining compliments on the Italian.

Chloe doesn't disguise the grimace and Alix rolls her eyes so violently that for a moment, Max fears she was injured.

The class leaves the room, following Lila like sheep being herded, leaving the group of friends and Dick behind. Ms. Bustier didn't take long to leave either, which left them finally alone.

"Ok... Now where is my hug, Minette?" He turns to the girl and she runs to hug him. "Much better."

Marinette laughs, the hug lasting a few more seconds before they let go. Dick turns to the other five - Adrien and Carmen too distracted by whatever it was - and extended his hand in greeting one by one.

"It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person."

"The same." Sabrina smiles.

“Now we have to go. There are a few more things to see and a surprise.” He winks at Marinette and the girl feels the danger in that expression.

One thing Marinette was sure of: There was no anxiety to know what this surprise was about.

Anyway, getting Adrien out of the room had been difficult because the blonde didn't want to leave. Carmen had to promise that she would give him a free pass so he could visit her while the trip to Gotham lasted.

The friends had no doubt that the blonde would live in the building and never leave the scientist alone.

Going on.

The rest of the tour had been less dramatic around Lila and her minions. Of course, she continued to lie about everything. How Bruce Wayne and his wife Selena loved her; the fact that Ricardo Wayne - the eldest son - had died in an attack on Wayne Mansion by the feared villain, Clown; that Jackson - the middle child - was an award-winning scientist; Thomas was unfortunately an addict, but Bruce tried with all his might to rehabilitate; and finally, that Damian was an angel in love with her, very sweet and romantic.

Marinette never thought she would have trouble controlling herself, but it was hard not to laugh at the Dick’s expressions and her friends laughing openly.

But apart from The Tales of Lila, the class left them alone.

As they passed the corridors of WI, Mari was being recognized by the staff and she made a point of introducing her group of friends excitedly. That didn't include the rest of the class and Lila, of course, could make some excuse for them.

Honestly, Marinette was surprised that no one showed distrust in the Italian. It was obvious she was lying.

But that didn't last long. Someday the lies would have to be revealed, and apparently that was the day.

They took a break to eat in the cafeteria.

Dick had gone out with Ms. Bustier to talk somewhere which, in Marinette's opinion, would not be a very good conversation. Or happy.

Adrien, Sabrina and Mari with a classic burger and fries; Max settled for a fettuccine; Kim, Chloe and Alix got pizza (not very healthy, but one day just wouldn't hurt). They were seated at a table separate from the rest of the class, but close enough to hear a word or two.

Marinette was chewing on her burger lazily while her friends talked when Jason Todd and Timothy Drake showed up. Both with expressions that said everything but good intentions.

"Oh my god." She whispered; the eyes wide. The cheeks full of food.

They scanned the cafeteria, probably looking for Marinette, and when they turned toward her, Mari used Adrien's height as a shield. Trying to keep them from seeing her. Which didn't work, since Adrien was shaking (laughing) and the conversation at the neighboring table (her class) had been cut short.

“Why are you hiding, Maribug?” Jason asks, his voice malicious.

Marinette sighs before surrendering to her destiny.

She stepped out from behind Adrien, face was red.

The girl swallowed the food.

“Hi Jay. Tim.” A smile appears on her face despite the embarrassment.

Tim raises an eyebrow at her, clearly amused. Jason doesn't disguise the shitty smile growing on his face.

"She hid, but at least she didn't pretend not to know us." Tim points out.

Marinette rolls her eyes, the shame already forgotten.

"I don't break my promises." She says.

She pushes Adrien aside to make room and points them both.

"Sit down and introduce yourself to those you didn't know yet."

They waste no time quickly pulling two chairs off an unoccupied table and placing them in the open place. As they sit down, Jason throws his arm around Marinette's shoulders in a hug.

“We miss you, Nette.” He says. “Demon spawn has been unbearably unbearable.”

She elbows his ribs for talking about Damian and he groans in pain.

"Even though you're a pain in the ass, I missed you too, Jay." Marinette laughs at the offended face he made, before squirming so she can look at Timothy. "And you too, Timmy."

Tim winks at her before turning to the rest of the table. The family (but Selina, since she spent more time traveling than at home) already knew Adrien, Kim and Chloe from past visits, but this was the first time they had met the other three: Sabrina, Max and Alix.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Timothy Drake, Damian's brother.” He reaches out first for Sabrina to shake, then Alix and lastly Max, who narrowed his eyes defiantly and squeezed his hand a little harder than usual.

Tim knew that the boy had a certain rivalry against him over the puzzle. Which was good, since he enjoyed a good and healthy competition.

Jason throws his idle hand on the table, startling the others.

“I'm Jason Todd. The best boy.” He says excitedly. “Nette's favorite!”

Chloe seems to be offended by the man's words.

"I doubt it." Sneers. "Everyone knows I'm her favorite."

Adrien chokes around a fry.

"Now, we know I'm the favorite." He chews loudly.

It was kind of gross, being honest.

"Oh, shut up, Agreste!" Alix throws a potato at the boy. “It is common knowledge that I am everyone's favorite.”

The boy looks scandalized at her, but doesn't take long to throw the fry back at her in revenge. Alix dodges and the food ends up hitting Kim in the forehead.

He narrows the eyes irritably, Tim and Jason laughing, Marinette wanting nothing more than to go back to her hotel bed and sleep 12 hours straight.

Damian chose that moment to appear with Titus and Dick. And as much as Marinette was happy to see him, this was the worst moment ever.

She knew her friends. Knew well enough to know that the cafeteria had become a war zone and that they would be bombed at any moment.

As soon as he opened his mouth to greet her, Kim got up ready to pounce, but before he could, Titus ran and jumped on Marinette. Almost making the girl bang her head against the table by his strength and weight.

There was a general panic at their class table, probably afraid of the dog, but she ignored everything in favor of giving all the attention and love Titus deserved. Because he was the best boy, not Jason, thank you very much.

"Who's the handsome boy, huh?!" She pampers the dog excitedly, which licks her face. "I missed you too." His tail looked like a whip.

Tim and Jason turn to the brothers.

"Yo, Dick." Jason nods lazily.

"Demon spawn." Tim says.

Damian frowns in annoyance, but doesn't respond to Timothy's provocation. The attention fully turned to Marinette with Titus. Dick waves back.

"What are you guys doing here?" He asks.

"We came with father and Cass." Tim replies.

Marinette jumps at the conversation.

“Are your father and sister here?” She shouts.

God! She was not prepared to handle all Wayne and the class at the same time.

"Duke too." Jason adds.

Marinette moans in pain and buries her face in Titus's soft fur. She would not come back alive to the hotel or Paris.

Damian approaches the girl, ignoring the prying eyes of her class. From what he managed to find out (both from Marinette's friends and what he investigated) if he had to interact with any of them, the no-kill rule would probably have to be broken.

"Angel." He calls, crouching in front of her and placing his hands on hers in Titus.

Marinette looks up to look at him.

"Hey, Dami."

She stretches over the dog (who was calm, almost asleep in her arms) and kisses Damian's lips tenderly.

"I missed you. Too much.” She whispers against his lips before pulling away.

"Me too." Damian answers and pecks her lips. "And-"

"Marinette, aren't you going to introduce us to your boyfriend?"

Alya's voice scares Marinette, who jumps away from Damian and Titus. Which makes both Wayne and the dog growl in irritation.

He gets up and Marinette follows him. Her friends comfortable in their seats, Dick standing (without Ms. Bustier) and the class waiting for an answer.

She sighs and turns to face the class. Damian was firm by her side and she also knew her friends would be supporting her.

Alya had her arms crossed. The rest of the class was not much different and Lila's expression soured, since everyone's attention was solely on Marinette.

"This is D-"

"Mari!!!" A shriek interrupts the girl.

They all turn to the source of the voice, only to find Bruce Wayne, a black man and an Asian girl running toward them. More specifically towards Marinette.

The little girl's hair was black, combed into familiar pigtails. She was wearing a red, black polka dot dress, with a black bow around her waist. On the feet were ballet shoes.

She jumped into Marinette's arms, which squeezes her into a warm hug, grinning.

"Hey, young lady." The little girl squeaks as Marinette kisses her cheek.

They watch the brunette put the girl down and start a... peculiar conversation. Where the child signed and Marinette responded verbally.

"You're so cool, Cass!" Kim compliments excitedly, apparently understanding what the girl was talking about. She smiles proudly at the compliment.

They (Marinette and co) continue to talk to the little girl while most of the class remain stunned by Bruce Wayne's presence.

Alya jumps excitedly and looks at Lila.

"Girl!" She practically screams "Did you get Bruce Wayne to meet us?!"

The Italian loses at least half the blood on her face. Increasingly pale with the situation. Her lips were almost sickly and her eyes wide. She swallows hard before letting out a clumsy laugh.

“Y-yea… very kind of him!” The voice comes out weak even to her ears. “B-but let's not disturb his conversation. You know how important he is.” Mumbles.

Lila's hands were shaking. She needed to get out of there, needed a plan urgently.

Alya's excitement diminished, taking Lila's words into consideration, but she kept staring at the men, holding back not to scream.

“Guys, I'm not feeling-”

“Papa, Duke!” Cass shouts again, the dog barking along and Bruce Wayne, with the other man, looks at her. “Mari!” She points at Marinette, jumping and twirling her dress.

Both Bruce and Duke(?) smiled before approaching them and Lila panics. Everything could go wrong at any time!

She turned to the class, making the most innocent expression and trying her best not to let despair overtake her body.

“Guys, please, I'll pretend I don't know him so as not to attract unwanted attention from the staff.” She whispers. “It's something we always do when we're around strangers, so don't be scared.” No one noticed Timothy's disgusted look toward them.

"Stay calm. We get it.” Nino soothes her, the class nodding in agreement.

She sighs with relief, having managed to avert a catastrophe.

"Good afternoon, Dupont." Bruce greets, the serious stance of a businessman. "I'm Bruce Wayne and this-" He points to the other man. "It's my protégé, Duke Thomas."

Duke nods in acknowledgment, then soon mutters something in Richard's ear, laughing at the other's disgusted expression. He made no attempt to approach the class to introduce himself.

Nathaniel felt that what has been said to the guide, was not something minimally pleasant. He felt that the class was the subject of comment and did not like it at all.

Rose, being the most outgoing, reaches out to greet Bruce Wayne.

“It's a pleasure, Mr. Wayne. It's a dream to be here!” She says. “We were very lucky to get this trip.” And tilts her head to wink at Lila, who smiles secretly.

He shakes her hand and waves seriously, pretending not to see the exchange between them. When they release their hands, Bruce turns to Marinette, a soft look on his face.

"Hello, Maribeetle." His tone softened before smiling.

"Hi, Dad." The obvious laugh on her face.

There are choking sounds, but neither pay attention.

She doesn't wait for him to say anything more before she comes closer and hugs him. He returns the hug, making the girl disappear into his arms and kisses her forehead.

"I see you had a welcome committee." He raised an eyebrow, looking his sons.

Dick is the only one who looks minimally embarrassed, while the other three (Jason, Tim and Damian) pretended the issue wasn't with them, looking around.

The class (without Ms. Bustier, who was missing) frozen in shock. Lila was about to pass out. She could hardly believe what was happening.

"Hey, Mr. B." Adrien nods.

"Bruce, what's up!" Kim says.

"Hello, Mr. Wayne." Sabrina greets.

“Wow, B! You look soft.” Alix teases.

"By my calculations, Alix is right, Mr. B." Max straightens his glasses. "You've lost some muscle."

“Congratulations on the adoption. Cassandra is a sweetie.” Chloe says.

Bruce snorts and releases Marinette, who bends down to take Cass in her arms again.

The boys not even trying to hide their laughter. He could see the tears in Jason's eyes, Tim was bent over Dick while they both laughed, Damian had the hand over his mouth hiding a smile and Cassandra imitated the two older ones.

Duke bit his lip trying to contain himself.

"It's good to see you again." Bruce says, hands firmly on Marinette's shoulders. "I remember the last time, Adrien and Jason got into a fight with the police and were almost arrested."

Adrien feels his cheeks heat up and Jason stops laughing, feeling attacked.

"I really thought it was a fantasy." The blonde mutters.

The class begins to whisper, clear confusion on their faces.

Alya was choking on surprise; Nino looking at Adrien as if the boy had grown two heads; Rose had retreated to Juleka's side, not liking the situation and Juleka was the same; Nathaniel bit his thumb uncomfortably; Mylene and Ivan looking lost; and Lila... Lila could see her world crumbling slowly and with frightening rapidity.

The dog barks once more, waking Alya from her mental confusion.

She swallows hard, her throat aching from the action.

“What's going on?” She asks, her voice breaking through the dryness in her throat.

Everyone stares at her. The confused Wayne family, Marinette and friends with the neutral face and Duke... Duke was fiddling with his cell phone.

“Why do you know Bruce Wayne? Why did Marinette call him ‘dad’? What's up with everyone greeting her and who is this boy she kissed?” She looks straight at the girl, her eyes accusing.

Damian frowns at her, his fist clenched, ready to say something that Marinette or his father probably wouldn't approve of, but Bruce stops him.

"What don't you understand yet, Ms. Cesárie?" The question was blunt. "I think if Marinette was kissing Damian, that means the two are together."

Alya gets annoyed with the answer.

"And why did she call you ‘Dad’?"

Chloe sneers in the background. Alix rolls her eyes, Adrien tilts her head, Kim swears under his breath, Max stares in disbelief and Sabrina was busy talking to Timothy.

"They can't be so dumb, can they?"

Jason's attempt to whisper didn't work, as everyone listened to what he said.

Alya's cheeks burn with humiliation.

“That's a fair question!” Nino goes to his girlfriend's defense and Damian rolls the eyes sarcasticallyy.

"Answering your question, Ms. Cesárie, Marinette calls me that because she's engaged to my son." Bruce says. "My son Damian." He adds as he notices the confusion.

Lila sucks air between her teeth. Panic rushing through her body.

“But…” Mylene looks at Lila. “Damian Wayne isn't dating Lila?” She asks.

The Italian freezes when everyone looks at her.

“Lila? What Lila?” Damian asks venomously. "I don't know anyone by that name."

Alya grit her teeth. The anger clear in his expression.

“How not? She grew up with you in the mansion. Bruce Wayne practically adopted her!” She shouts. "Explain it to me!"

“Wow! This is kind of impossible, since demon spawn came to live with us only after he turned ten.” Timothy says.

Alya feels a dizziness start in her muscles.

"But Lila said that..." She mumbles. “She said Selena Kim, Bruce's wife, was her aunt. That you were a family!” Exclaims exalted.

“Look, I'm sorry you and your friends were fooled, but that's the truth: We don't know her. Selina Kyle has no nieces, Jason is not an award-winning scientist, Timothy is not an addict, Damian is anything but a sweetie. And the main thing is, I didn't die and the Joker never attacked Wayne Mansion.” Dick ends a little breathlessly.

The class is at varying levels of shock. No one daring to say anything, Lila wondering how to get out of that mess and beside her, Alya looked like she'd been slapped.

Marinette wanted to feel sorry for her classmates, but failed. She had tried, so had her friends, but no one would listen.

"So, you mean everything was a lie?" Nino asks. A dangerous edge in his tone.

Lila shudders, moving away from the class and almost falling in the process. She was afraid she wouldn't lie about that, but the class had a murderous expression in her direction.

“N-no! Of course not!” Babbles. "Can't you see this is Marinette's plan to make me look bad?!" She points to the girl, who was playing with Cassandra and Titus, no longer paying attention to the drama.

The class seems to believe at least a little, as they turn to the girl, probably to fight.

Adrien, Alix, Kim and Damian form a human barrier to stop them. The look on Adrien's face was no less deadly than Damian's.

"Don't even try." Adrien says. “I'm sick of you. Mostly from you, Alya.” He looks at her. “You can be worse than Lila and her lies. I thought you were smart enough to figure it all out, but it seems I was wrong.”

The girl's eyes was wet with tears, but she kept her posture steady, noting that her friends were no better off.

“You only say that because Lila didn't want you!” She screams. "You who can be worse than Marinette, Agreste!"

Sabrina and Chloe chokes before bursting out laughing. Max and Kim not far behind.

"Oh my god!" Sabrina moans "Is that what she said?" She sighs trying to control herself but failed and laughed again.

"That's the most hilarious thing I've ever heard!" Chloe says, wiping her eyes.

Nino is offended on behalf of Alya.

"What?" He asks.

Adrien feels his cheeks burn because he didn't want everyone to know, but if it was to help Mari, he would do that.

"Mm..." He begins. "I've been dating someone since the first year."

Lila looks shocked. More than their classmates.

“What?!” She shouts, forgetting the situation she was in.

The blonde scratches his head uncomfortably.

"Did you finally surrender to Chloe?" Ivan asks.

Both Adrien and Chloe made a face of disgust.

"Ew, no!" Chloe protested. "I'm fine and happy with Kagami."

“So, who is it?” Lila demands. "Who are you dating, Adrien?"

"Me!" Someone says.

And everyone turned to look.

Was a tall, well-built young man. Hair was black and messy; the eyes were incredibly blue. He was wearing torn jeans, a red vans, black Star Wars shirt and prescription glasses.

He was behind Bruce, probably coming in during the mess.

“God damn it, this became an event and I didn't know?” Duke whispers to Bruce, but the man doesn't respond.

"What the fuck are you doing here Ken-"

“Jon!” Adrien cuts off Damian and runs to Jonathan, who picks him up.

They kiss passionately and Marinette puts her hands in Cassandra's eyes, trying to protect the little girl's innocence. The group of friends moan in disgust. The Wayne family too.

"OK! I think everyone already understands.” Marinette says. “Now let go. Cass is here too!”

"That was horrible." Max mumbles.

Adrien releases the boy, his face red. Redder than Ladybug's uniform. And the other boy smiled, not at all embarrassed.

“Are you gay?!” Lila asks, the accusative tone clear in her voice.

"What-"

"I can't believe I did this all because of a fa*got!" She snarls, venom dripping from her words. “You owe me three years of my life, Agreste!”

There is a shocked silence from everyone. Even from Marinette and friends. They didn't think Lila could be so rotten and ugly inside.

Marinette puts Cassandra on Damian's arms and walks slowly to the Italian. She seemed to be marching to war.

"What the hell did you say?" The voice came out dangerous.

"What? That he's a fag—” A slap popped on the girl's cheek before she could finish.

The force of the blow caused her to become unbalanced and fall to the floor.

They all walked away giving them both space.

"I dare you to repeat that."

She approaches once more, but Damian stops her. Cassandra in Dick's arms.

"Don't do anything you'll regret later, angel." He whispers and she sighs, moving away from the Italian on the floor. “Drake, do something useful as a CEO and call security. I want this person out of here as soon as possible.”

“You'll pay for it, Marinette Dupain-Cheng!” Lila growls, the hand gripping her bruised cheek. "If you think you're going to get rid of it, you're very wrong!"

Bruce, who remained quiet, bent down to pull the girl by the arm. Fed up with all the drama.

"Enough!" He says. “Ms. Rossi you will do nothing. Otherwise, I will be required to report you.”

Lila snorts offended and tries to release her arm from his grasp.

“Do you really think that just because you have money, will you get away with it?” She attacks, the eyes wide and crazy. “I have diplomatic immunity! You just became complicit with this disgusting muso giallo*!”

Marinette notices Bruce's knuckles go white from the grip and decides to separate the two.

“Dad, please let her go.” She grabs his arm, stepping between Lila and Bruce. "If you keep going, it might be worse later." But he doesn't even blink. Lila begins to moan in pain.

Five security guards enter the cafeteria, all huge and serious.

“Father, the security mans are here. You can let her go.” Damian puts his hand on the man's shoulder and only then does he move again, releasing the Italian's arm.

She drops to the floor, crying while holding her arm.

"I'm sorry, I blacked out for a second there." Bruce sighs, patting his head.

Marinette hugs the man, comforting him. She knew he had some problems after years of fighting crime, especially fighting the Joker. Sometimes he was a little more blunt and rude, unaware of it. It was sad for her to see him in this state.

But unfortunately, it was a side effect of having to save the world every time.

"Mr. Wayne, we were asked." One of the security guards says. "Who would be the person to be escorted?"

Timothy points to Lila who was still on the floor, but this time Alya was by her side, helping her.

"She." Answer. "The sausage hair."

The security guards do not hesitate to pull Lila away from Alya, dragging the Italian out when she strained and stood still.

"HEY! Let me go!” She leaves screaming. WI employees don't even look twice at the scene, seeming used to it.

"You can't do this to her!" Alya complains. "Where is Ms. Bustier?!"

“We can and are doing it. It amazes me that you're defending her after finding out that besides being a liar and a racist, she's homophobic.” Jason says, no humor in his tone. "And your teacher is already on a plane to Paris."

The whole class chokes on surprise. The whole class.

“What?!” Adrien shouts and Titus cries at the loud noise. He quickly caresses the dog, apologizing. "Sorry buddy." Jon smiles, in love with the blonde.

“She had to go back to Paris for an audience with the minister of education.” Tim replies. “She and Dupont's principal have been charged with negligence and cover-up. If they are found guilty, both will face the law “

"And they'll be fired." Damian adds. The morbid pleasure shining in his eyes.

"But why? She did nothing!” Rose complains. Her face was red from crying.

“Exactly, Tinker Bell. She did nothing.” Duke says. “She saw bullying, witnessed it and never did anything to help or try to stop. She just threw all the responsibility on one person thinking she was making the choice of the year.”

"And what does the principal have to do with it?" Nino asks. He was the only one who seemed to have understood the gravity of the situation, but was slow to believe.

“Dupont's principal has been a coward for a long time. He left a lot behind the scenes because he didn't want problems with people bigger than him and that was his mistake.” Bruce replies.

Everyone in the class is silent for a while. Each in their own thoughts, digesting everything that had happened. Meanwhile, Marinette and her friends were talking animatedly to Jonathan, who had his arms around Adrien like a koala.

“So… did Lila really lie to us all this time?” Mylene asks, her voice barely coming out.

"Unfortunately, Ms. Haprèle." Bruce says. The solemn face.

Nathaniel puts the hands to his mouth, the eyes wide with dread and everyone looks at him.

“I-I didn't send my portfolio to the university I wanted to get into because Lila had promised me an interview with a famous comic book author!”

And there is a mass reaction of the same kind.

Apparently, Lila had promised to help them in their careers, with their supposed connections in high places. Which now, they saw how fake it had been, since Lila had promised to introduce Nino to Steven Spielberg since Dupont's sophomore year, but it was years and she always made an excuse for not having happened yet.

Alya fell to her knees, devastated.

"T-that's why they turned me down." She says tearfully. “They said they couldn't accept someone who published gossip and lies, but I never understood what they meant. Until now. "

Marinette felt bad for them. She didn't think Lila had clenched her claws so deeply that it would damage their future. She knew Alya would have complications to be taken seriously, but she didn't think it would be to the point of refusing her university entrance.

"I-" Alya mumbles and looks up at Marinette. "Mari."

Marinette shakes her head.

“No.” She says. “I'm so sorry for you guys. Really. I hope you can follow your dream, but I don't want your apologies.”

“But-” Juleka protests.

“I spent years being trampled and scorned by you because someone you barely knew accused me of bullying and being a jealous bitch. I will not accept your apologies. I'm glad you finally opened your eyes, but that's all.”

“Are you going to throw years of friendship in the trash just to punish us?” Nino attacks.

“What friendship?” Marinette says. “All I remember about this supposed friendship, is to do everything for you and you not repaying even 1% of it.”

"You forgave Chloe after all she did, so why not us?" Nathaniel points out.

“Because she was honest with me. Because she sought help. Because she got better and was genuine for it.”

"And we're not?" Rose whimpers.

"No. You're apologizing because you saw your golden ticket was false.” Growls and everyone shuts up.

They shut up because she was right. They were not genuinely sorry for what they did. They didn't feel guilty about it because it was Lila's fault! Only hers. She deceived them, she who lied. Not them. So why feel guilty about something they didn't do?

But they were guilty. Lila only gave the wick, but they came with the lighter, set it on fire and sat down to watch the candle melt. She didn't force them. They did it willingly and with unprecedented excitement.

"I think we're done for today." Bruce Wayne interrupts the moment. "They'd better be taken back to the hotel." He was talking to Duke, who quickly put the phone to his ear and spoke to someone.

"Come on, I'll take you back to the bus." Dick says, helping Alya to her feet.

The class begins to move, following him out of the cafeteria, but they notice the absence of the others.

"Mr. Grayson, aren't Marinette and the others coming too?” Ivan asks.

Dick glances over his shoulder before looking forward again.

"No. They will stay with the family for the rest of the trip.”

Because Bruce Wayne was so protective of those he loved and Dick doubted he would let Lila Rossi get close to Marinette again. Not when he had the power and influence to prevent it.

But then he would have to face Damian in the witch hunt. Dick was sure the young man already had at least two plans underway. One fatal and one less fatal.

Because that was how their family was.

And Lila Rossi was nothing more than a gum stuck in the sole of their shoe.

EXTRA 1:

"Okay, whose idea was it to bring everyone to WI?" Marinette questions idly.

"Dick." Damian replies without bothering to toss his brother under the bus.

“DAMIAN!” The eldest complains.

"What? I'd rather you angry than Marinette.”

"Okay, fair." Dick sighs. “But the idea was not mine. I just passed it on.”

Marinette raises her eyebrow, demanding.

"And who did?"

"Tikki."

"WHAT?! I'LL KILL TIKKI!” Marinette shouts and everyone runs away from her fury.

×××

In Paris, more precisely in the box of the Miraculous, the kwami of creation stops playing with others to sneeze.

"Wow, I think I'm getting sick."

"Or maybe someone is talking about you." Mullo answers.

“But who-” She widens her eyes in panic.

Plagg begins to laugh wildly.

“Looks like we'll have kwami barbecue soon.”

“PLAGG!”

×××

They didn't have kwami barbecue, but it was pretty close.

EXTRA 2:

"Do you think she would have gone crazy right there if I said you're not my only boyfriend?" Adrien asks.

"... It would have been awesome!" Jonathan responds dreamily.

"Can you pay attention to me? I'm feeling left out." Luka complains.

"Sorry sweetie!" Jonathan smiles.

Adrien thinks he wouldn't trade it for anything in this world. Not even if his lady showed up asking him in marriage.

... Which would not be a bad image. The four together.

×××

Probably Damian would kill him if he accepted.

×××

But still a good image.

[glossary]

Muso giallo – literally "yellow muzzle". It is an offensive term used to refer to Chinese people, sometimes to Asian in general, with intent to point out their yellowish complexion as an indication of racial inferiority. The use of the word "muzzle" is in order not to consider them humans, but animals.

I searched for racial slurs, but I was so pissed off at what I found that I needed to scream at the pillow.

[tag list]

@spicybelladonna​ @mystery-5-5​ @captainmac6​  @theatreandcomicfreak  @politelyvicious  @thepeacetea  @violatiger8  @vixen-uchiha  @officiallyathiana  @beautym3  @slytherin-heartthrob  @bluerosette23   @g-arya  @sassdowflame  @sunkenshipsanddreams @magicalfirebird @miraculous786  @emjrabbitwolf 

[dwkinternational]

DWK Podcast - recap

Mika Braun is the costume designer since the very beginning. She created the Look of the wild soccer bunch in the first, second, third and fifth movies. Her costumes influenced and even changed the book covers and the Illustrations of Jan Birck. When it came to the creation of your own world, she was a great teacher for Joachim Masannek.

She basically created the whole look of the wild soccer bunch, according to Masannek

He distinctively remembers their trial and error while trying to get a hairstyle for Leons character, because they wanted him to look like the real Leon and he and Jimi didn’t really look alike (They even tried to colour his hair blonde)

Joachim Masannek and Mika Braun first met at Samfilm

She originally was there for a meeting to talk about a different Movie that was going to be produced, but the people in charge didn’t think she was capable enough, she hadn’t brought her portfolio with her because it was all very rushed

When she met with Joachim however they instantly clicked, they got along great and knew what they wanted to make was going to be Mad Max for Kids. She did bring her portfolio with her this time but he didn’t even want to take a look inside

Because she had worked on a lot of projects regarding TV and advertisements he had a lot of respect for her previous work and felt like he couldn’t judge it as he had never made a movie before, only short films

To him it only mattered that they got along and that he had the feeling he could trust her since they were making something new that may have been made before, but not in that way

She also felt that they were eye to eye as she had also never done a movie for cinemas before. The whole process was not about her experiences and what she was capable of or not capable of, but about him developing this Idea and how they were adapting that together. To her that was so special about these movies, that you could see that everyone put their heart and soul into it

At least you saw it with the german crew. When they were shooting in Prag, they had a few problems. One of the Camera assitants just forgot that the camera was running and when Masannek reviewed the footage (back then it was on VHS) the take was 20 Minutes long.

Another example is one Woman in the costume department who always called people “Darling”:

They were searching for the kids helmets one time and the Woman kept saying the helmets are props and the backpacks are part of the costume, darling until Masannek got so fed up that he took the helmets once they were found and said “Look, darling. I’ll take your darn helmets now and put them into the darn backpacks and then its your problem where they are”

Braun says that that happens quite often during shooting in foreign countrys, because they have differently distributed teams and work with different systems

It just happened to Mika that she was baffled that the crew she was working in had no Parasols for the actors even in 40 degree heat or if it was raining, they didn’t care and said that its not their job. Even though in america for example they have a position (personl assistant) just for that. Or you have someone for directing assistance or Script or Continuity. But to her suprises like that are whats so nice about the job

During Masanneks last Movie Luliane Susewind they were shooting in Aachen but also in Belgium and he also had to learn a few things:

the first one was that the Makeup artist didn’t do the hair of the actors, they found out two to three weeks before the shooting started and had to hire an extra Hair stylist

the second things was that part of the crew just take three weeks of vacation unannounced and their replacement doesn’t have a clue about anything and Masannek showed up at the set one day and his costume designer was nowhere to be found and when he asked where she is he got told “Uh...shes on vacation”

Mika was very glad that the second wild soccer bunch movie was shot in Bavaria, not in the Czech Republic, because she was able to bring her team with her.

To the kids the shooting of the second movie was the most fun, but to Masannek it was the most exhausting to the point he thought he never wanted to make a kids movie again

He was like, well, the first movie was so exhausting and complicated and he wouldn’t have to work as hard with the second one.He worried that that movie wouldn’t be as good because he felt like he wasn’t putting enough effort into it and it didn’t seem as complicated

but then Mika Braun invited him to a flea market in Braunau and he thought it would be great to do something else than the movie for a day, he would find something nice to buy and she showed him a lot of nice stuff

that day Masannek found out what making a movie does to someone because he was going through the flea market but couldn’t see anything other than the movie and couldn’t focus on anything

although he did buy something that he found ten years later in his basement when he moved (it was around a 120 Whistles although he does not remember why he bought them)

They mentioned their Vision of Mad Max earlier and Sascha Heimanns asks them how they get from an Idea to the finished product, like the helmets they talked about or the necklaces

Mika answers that there is a whole development process behind everything. It starts with her reading the script and getting an Idea of what something looks like, she discusses that with Joachim who tells her about how they are basically all in black and have these logos, but everyone has their special thing and they search together for what fits best

She will never forget the discussion about Staraja Riba. Originally she thought that the witch was supposed to be big and terrifying like the thunderbolt giants, so that the kids would feel small next to her or no one would be afraid of her

Joachim insisted that she should crawl over the ground like a spider and in the end she thought it was good that they did it his way because it was the scariest thing in the whole movie series to her and that was one instance where they didn’t have the same opinion

The Staraja Riba thing was overall difficult to get righ tin the end

Because Buena Vista didn’t want the director to attend the test screening ( although he was present during the screening of the first movie and that went pretty well) Masannek was offended and they hired a different director who went to cut the scene differently. The producers said that the scene with the witch wasn’t believable or scary anymore and Joachim got to fix it

He thinks the bravest thing they did was the scene with the love letter and the glowing hearts, he originally wasn’t allowed to do that scene because it was a “boys movie” and the audience wouldn’t like it

They did a test screening for an audience that only consisted of boys without approval of the producers and the feedback was good except for the love letter scene which the boys didn’t like

Another thing that was difficult was the paint the actors had on during the scene where the bunch plays against the SV 1906. That originally took too much effort and time to do (because drawing the markings for everyone took 4 hours and taking it off took 4 hours also Sarah was allergic to the paint) but Joachim just decided they were going to do it anyways

Mika said that she appreciated the fantastical aspect of the movies, to try something that hasn’t been done before and that that was probably what the kids found so fascinating and fun

To her it was very special to work on it even though it was relatively low-budget

because of that for example they spent whole nights painting Logos on T-Shirts

Joachim said that she played a huge role in the evolution of the Logo itself, the first thing she put the minimalistic Logo on was the black shirt Maxi wears at the beginning of the third Movie

It was her idea to only put the eye and the teeth on there and that has been adapted for Merchandise ever since

Sascha asks why Mika hasn’t worked on the fourth and sixth movie

When they were shooting the fourth movie in Mai 2006 she was in Kenia to adopt her daughter and because she spent 7 Months there she wasn’t able to work on the movie

But she said Susann Bieling did a great job with that movie

She shared the 5th one with Andrea Spanier because her daughter was still so small that she felt like she wouldn’t be able to do it alone

These are some of her costume designs for the 5th movie, for Leon and Klette

They worked so well together that Mika sais she was spoiled afterwards and when she went on to another production it didn’t go as smoothly anymore

That production was Gangs, for which they also asked Joachim Masannek if he wanted to work on it, but he was in contract with Constantin Film for Wildernacht

For the sixth movie Mika was also unavailable due to another production she had already agreed to

Question:

Sibille 24 years old: She grew up with the wild soccer bunch and because they talked about the new series in the last podcast episode, she wanted to say that she thinks the idea is great. The bunch has been inspiring to her back then and thinks that the bunch is a great role-model with their creativity and bravery. She would be thrilled about a new series.

Answer:

The Procuders originally wanted to retell a story in the vein of the first and second movies but Joachim said he is sick of writing that fight against fat Michi over and over so they decided on something new

The story will take place in Berlin

The Kids will come from different social backgrounds

One boy will be the son of a Maori Woman, who came to germany when she was 17 years old and pregnant

His dad was a german tourist but he dumped his Mom

She currently lives in Marzahn and has her own Tattoostudio

The boy wants to become the best Goalkeeper in the World

hes very stubborn but a great guy overall

Then there is a girl whose Mother is a turkish Policewoman and she lives in an allotment garden

they hear about this hidden world of the wild bunch in which Kids can fight to do what what they believe in

The series will be called “Forever wild”

Its still rooted in what has already been established

there will be some characters from the movies but they will appear in a different way than how we know them

He said that the girl that asked the question is over 20 and that generation is exactly who they want to do the series for

Mika chimes in to say that back then the movies created a boom and more girls started to play soccer

She said its never wrong to challenge society and gender stereotypes

Joachim says that to him its very fascinating that times are getting more conservative and we are not living in a world anymore where little boys have to be raised by a woman

He said that the perspective of society is different right now with metoo for example and that its an exciting challenge to define what a role model is

To question what is a boy, what is a girl, what is a man or woman?

One family in the series he is planning consists of a native american father and a mother who is a descendant of the Aborigines

They live in Spandau and have an indian daughter and a son who is african

The parents take turns on who is leading the company and who is taking care of the kids, to them every job is equal and everyone has to take on some responsibility

Masannek says he notices even with his little Kids (his 9 years old daughter and his 2 years old son) that they already want to know what exactly a woman is or a man is

He wants his kids to develop freely and once they know what the stereotypes are they can decide to not support these stereotypes anymore

Mika Braun agrees that these topics are very important right now and that it is a responsibility of all creatives and all the tolerant folks to take on these kinds of topics so that the conservative ideals don’t take root

And thats it for Episode 29!

[lady-charinette]

idk if you've done this already— and if you're still accepting ideas and such but— Lukanette: wherein Mari goes to one of Luka's gigs and be the supportive wife/gf that she is? also Mari designed the outfit Luka's wearing— and lowkey advertising her works (even if she's known djwjjcjwjdj) sobs in please thanks

Hey anon!! Thank you so much for the cool prompt! I loved it! I hope you'll like this piece, I wrote it late at night and I think there are some mistakes here and there, but I really hope it's okay-ish! Feel free to send more prompts my way! :3

Rocking their World

They were walking through a narrow corridor, the booming of the crowd was so loud it left the floor shaking.

Marinette sensed her husband's mild trepidation, his guitar was a bit too tightly wound around his neck and the constant rolling of his ring on his finger was too fast to be casual.

They were nearing the backstage area, people rushing left and right, lights of all colors flashing even through the blinds hiding the backstage area from the wild crowd.

Marinette smiled, dressed in a shirt representing her husband's band, the words 'wuw you papa' messily scrawled on the entire front of it, partly covering the band logo, but neither parents could care about that.

She grasped Luka's hand and stopped, feeling resistance before Luka finally stopped a step in front of her, turning back to look at her. "What's wrong, Marinette?" Concern twisted his handsome features and Marinette shook her head.

He still thought of others even when he was a mess.

She lovingly adjusted his shirt and jacket, checking the mic on his shirt, running a hand through his already messy hair to calm him.

It helped, if the deep exhale was any indication.

Part of his weight melted against her, Marinette's hands skillfully rubbing the singer's back, voice humming his song, one she thought of years ago on their wedding day, into his ear.

He sagged against her, strong arms coming up to press her tightly against himself, drawing energy from her silent strength. She was so strong, he still sometimes couldn't believe how lucky he managed to be in life.

Marinette kissed his cheek and the couple broke their embrace to stare at each-other. Luka took a deep breath, before he opened his eyes again and nodded.

The shorter woman grinned, hands resting on his chest, over his heart, where the previously wild pace settled into a more calming beat. "You'll be great Luka, just like you always are. You'll see, their attention will be all on you."

A smile stretched his lips and his aqua eyes turned impossibly soft, leaning down to lovingly kiss her forehead. "If I manage to just capture your attention, that's all I need."

A blush rose to her cheeks and the sight of her shyness managed to bring some of his confidence back, if the grin on his face was any indication.

Marinette playfully slapped his arm, slapping her own cheeks to curb the sudden wave of shyness, trying to ignore his laughter.

He was her husband for heaven's sake. She was supposed to be over blushing in front of him.

A gentle hand on the back of her head made her focus on him again, staring into aqua eyes that asked for permission, lips only a hair's breath away.

A smile curved her lips and her hands fisted his shirt, pulling him in close. They shared a long, slow kiss, giving each-other strength and support in actions than words.

When they broke apart, before her stood not the nervous musician but the confident rockstar she knew he was.

"Thank you, Nette." she smiled, raising her hand.

Luka mirrored her smile, raising his own hand enveloping her smaller one with his larger hand, wedding rings clinking together when their pinky fingers met.

It was a promise.

A promise to do his best and give his all.

A promise to cheer him on and support him all the way until the end.

Just like they did now, just like they always have.

They could hear the crowd's cheers dying down slowly as another announcement was made for the arrival of the next musician to take the stage and that was Luka's cue to go.

With a fluidity that spoke of years of trust, Marinette and Luka broke apart and walked in different directions, Luka to the stage, Marinette to the crowd.

It was showtime.

The crowd's defening roars increased when Luka's name fell from the announcer's lips, who quickly rushed off stage to escape from the loud screams and to give Luka the spotlight.

Tonight would be his solo performance in a while without his band, he just hoped he wouldn't mess up.

No, he wouldn't mess it up.

Not with Marinette's encouraging words still ringing in his ears and the warmth still blooming brightly in his heart.

He would do this.

He spoke into the microphone and he was surprised to hear his own voice with how loud the audience was. "Hey everyone, thanks for coming to my solo gig tonight. I hope you'll like this single, it's a new song I've been working on after the birth of my kids! Rock on!" he stepped back for a moment, the loud roars and cheers and screams even louder than before, bordering on eardrum breaking proportions.

Luka chuckled when he saw the banners and cloths held up high over people's heads.

'WE LOVE U MAN!'

'LUKA COUFFAINE 4 THE WIN!'

'I'M STILL SINGLE!'

'WE LOVE UR SONGS!!'

'CALL ME XXXX'

'VIPERION IS HOT! HOT! HOT!'

'YOUR KIDS AND WIFE ARE SO CUTE BRO!'

A particularly big one caught his eye and he had to back away from the mic to laugh.

In the middle right, a bit closer to the stage, there was a semi-large group of people wearing the familiar white unicorn masks he remembered Kitty Section wearing when they debuted.

And everyone was there too.

His sister, Rose, Mylene, her boyfriend Ivan, Alya and Nino, Adrien, Kagami, Alix, Kim, Max and of course the most important person, holding the biggest banner someone her size possibly could, with strength gained from years of being a hero.

His wife.

His gaze softened when he managed to catch her eyes and she stretched her arms as far as they could, waving the banner in the air.

That one was his favorite.

'ROCK THEIR WORLD, DEAR!'

Decorated with hearts, her signature flower design and his old Kitty Section mask drawn in the corner.

Luka grinned, taking out his favorite all time guitar pick, which never failed to bring him luck.

He had it custom made.

A picture of his wife and kids on the front, with his sister and mom on the back.

With a final breath, he strummed the pick across the strings of his guitar and the crowd boomed.

A little while later...

Luka Couffaine signed autographs with a smile, meeting each fan's eyes and making silly faces on photographs to make them memorable.

It was his third favorite thing after performing on stage to do.

His most favorite thing was currently running straight at him.

Marinette dived into his already waiting arms, body vibrating with energy, as if his song was still coursing through her veins.

She had a big grin on her face and her eyes shone like stars and Luka found himself falling for his wife all over again.

Their friends in the back were trying to fight their way passed the fans, the Gorilla and Fang, whom Jagged often allowed to accompany Adrien's bodyguard because they made a surprisingly good duo.

Luka still didn't understand how the odd friendship came to be, but it was always entertaining seeing the previously wild crowd of fans parting like the sea when a large hulking man and a equally sizable crocodile marched their way through them.

And then, the fans rounded on them, camera flashes and eager faces in their view.

"OMG! It's Marinette Couffaine-Cheng!!! LUKA IS WEARING HER DESIGN!" one fan screamed, obviously a fan of his wife too, if the red earrings on her ears and a shirt with her signature flower design was any clue.

Marinette laughed, smiling and also signing autographs, fans shouting praises.

Luka kept to the background but remained visible enough for his wife's handy work to be seen.

Everything down to his socks was designed by his wife. A black leather jacket with her pink and white flower design on the breast pocket with a green snake, too similar to Sass to be a coincidence, curling around the sleeves of the jacket. Underneath the jacket was a white shirt with the band's faces drawn in simple but artistic art lines, a nod to his old Jagged Stone shirt he used to wear in his youth.

On the front was the biggest head, his own, accentuated with blue lines, followed on either side by his sister's in purple, Rose's in pink, Ivan's in red, Adrien's in yellow and Alix's in green.

His pants were dark blue denims, ripped at the knees how he liked it, decorated with small subtle music notes here and there, not too many to be tacky, but enough to catch attention, in colors of white and light blue. Simple black boots covered his feet.

His hair, dyed teal blue near the ends, the root with his natural black and the very beginning tips which remained untouched by blue were covered by red instead, completed the look.

Red like a certain heroine's suit.

He smirked proudly at the rightful attention his wife gained, more and more of his fans immediately catering to Marinette, who accepted praise and compliments with a beaming smile and blushing cheeks. He was fully convinced most if not all of his fans were already his wife's, he was also convinced they loved her more than they did him and that was fine by him.

He loved her more than he could ever bring to love himself too.

He caught her flashing her wedding ring a few times in response to male fans with phone numbers plastered to their banners and Luka had to chuckle at that.

He was there to lead her back to their friends waiting patiently in the lounge of the hotel, after having signed some of their own autographs with their fans having accompanied Luka's gig tonight.

He was there when they finally hit the soft, inviting mattress of the hotel bed, chuckling like teenagers when they called their kids, babysat by Nathaniel and Marc, cheering at their parents for their father's performance and scolding them for staying up so late.

Marc had blushed to the roots of his hair for the scolding, with Luka trying to reassure him they weren't scolding him and Nathaniel shaking his head helplessly.

They knew how rowdy their kids could be, despite them being generally well-behaved and sweethearts. They'd inherited both of their parent's more wild streaks; Marinette's impulsiveness and Luka's rebelliousness.

With blown kisses and soft whispers of good night, with plentiful 'thank you's to Nathaniel and Marc for watching over them, they ended the video chat with their kids and set the phone aside.

With the much welcomed silence filling the room, Luka hissed when he rolled onto his back, stretching himself after the strain of the long night.

Marinette scooted closer and rested a hand on her husband's chest, the couple sighing deeply at the other's closeness.

She drew soothing circles on his naked skin, humming a soft tune.

No, not a soft tune, his tune.

He smiled and wrapped an arm around her, gathering her close and kissing his wife's head. "You were amazing Marinette."

She glanced up at him with an amused smile. "Me? You were the one with the hour long gig remember?"

He chuckled and shook his head. "No, I meant before it all started. I was nervous and you calmed me down before I made a fool of myself." He pressed another kiss to the top of her head. "You're always there for me and I can't thank you enough with words."

His wife giggled, raising herself up and kissing his nose before pecking his lips sweetly. "There are many other ways you can thank me other than with words."

Luka smiled and chuckled when his wife kissed him again and he felt like the world was right.

[ttrpg4onlyme]

Benji’s Place: A Last Tea Shop Experience

“Day 18”

- - ┈┈∘┈˃̶༒˂̶┈∘┈┈ - -

Benji was so happy with how many pictures he had now.

The Stablehand.

The Scout.

And now the Outcast.

The only thing he wasn’t happy about was his dwindling supplies but he had to make do with what he had.

The sunbeams that once danced in the alleyway were now choked out by a bruised, purple fog that made Benji feel a little scared.

He had never read about fogs like this before so he decided to just keep calm and continue to serve tea to anyone who came inside.

And someone did.

A woman stumbled into the shop, clutching at her chest before leaning herself against the bar. She was in pain.

Benji quickly rushed over to the door and closed it before any of the purple fog found its way inside and went over to the woman to check on her soon after.

“Don’t worry, kiddo. I’m fine. Nothing I can’t handle.”

Benji could sniff out her lie very quickly and stomped over to his teapot in a huff, mad that she was lying to him in the first place.

The pained woman wore a shirt with the logo of a store on it with very uncomfortable looking pants and shoes.

She was a Merchant and she needed help now.

He didn’t have many ingredients left but he took out the bright gumdrop and dropped it in.

He was told that laughter was the best medicine…maybe now was the best time to see if it was true?

The woman watched as Benji pulled out his notebook and pointed to a question.

‘What was the last thing you remember?’

“I was just…completing my shift for the night. I was closing up when all of a sudden, I heard a bang and my chest began to hurt…”

The Merchant clutched at her chest again and groaned.

Benji furrowed his brow.

He wasn’t equipped to help the Merchant and it made him mad.

He poured the tea and she did her best to drink it.

When she did, she began to chuckle.

She quickly began to forget about the pain and the heaviness that she once felt and now could feel only a light and hearty happiness.

‘You lost something valuable. What happened?’ Benji asked.

After the Merchant settled her laughter a bit, she sighed and proceeded to answer Benji’s question.

“The store’s money. I was the only one watching the store that night so it was my responsibility to keep everything safe and secure, you know? I didn’t know that someone was still in the store…they must have shot me and stole all the store’s cash. I felt so worthless just laying on the floor like that. No one around to save me and I couldn’t save myself. But you know what? I’m not hurting anymore! No need to beat myself up over it. I lived the best life I could.”

The Merchant laughed once more, not feeling the physical or emotional pain anymore.

Benji nodded proudly with her.

She was about to leave when Benji quickly ran over to her with the drawing of the Outcast.

“Hm? Oh yeah!! This girl used to come into the store and buy all of our Fizzy Max! She said she wanted to send some to her boyfriend stationed somewhere. It was his favorite drink so she usually bought out all we had when she came by. Scary looking but she was actually a sweet girl. Hope she’s doing alright.”

The Merchant paused for a moment before pulling something out of her pocket.

“That actually reminds me…she’d always have have these leaves falling off of her when she came into the store. I’d always have to clean them up. Maybe she had a tree or something near her house. Here, you can have it!”

The Merchant pressed the ginkgo leaf into Benji’s hand and grinned the biggest grin he’d ever seen.

She may have been having to go back into the alleyway alone but she was doing it without fear.

Benji hoped he’d have that same amount of courage someday.

[wallflower11simblr]

57 FACTS TAG

Rules: Post 57 facts about yourself and tag at least ten people. When posting include the tag “57 facts” in order for people to find out more about you and perhaps find a kindred spirit to talk to. :)

I was tagged by @yuuletidesimming Check them out! 💕

1. I’m an 18-year-old.

2. I was born in the year 2000.

3. I have Autism.

4. I was diagnosed when I was about 14.

5. I am in college to get my Associates in Communication and New Media. Then I might get a Bachelors in New Media.

6. I am heterosexual. 

7. I love comics.

8. I live in the northeastern United States.

9. I think everyone is valid. (within reason of course.)

10. People are people are people.

11. I’m a Capricorn.

12. My name is Megan.

13. I love art.

14. Realistically, I want to be a graphic designer when I graduate.

15. Unrealistically, I want to write/draw comics or write and produce the stuff in my head.

16. I am an ideas person and am really helpful for my writer friends.

17.  I have ADHD.

18. VACCINES DO NOT CAUSE AUTISM!!!!!! SO VACCINATE YOUR KID.

19. I want to share my opinions with the internet more often but my people pleaser side doesn’t want to offend anyone... (well most people.)

20. I am smart but a total slacker sometimes.

21. I have trouble sticking to things.

22. I used to be on Polyvore.com before it shut down earlier this year. (I was MegieM)

23. My most recent obsession is Supernatural.

24. I spend WAY to much time in cas making fan characters and original story characters I never use in-game and am to afraid to share.

25. I’m horrible at spelling.

26. I will probably end up using this for English homework.

27. I made a logo for a swim team which is on tee shirts and swim caps irl.

28. I love fashion but I put no effort into my look. (though I am trying.)

29. Did I mention I love comics?

30. I am a huge comic book nerd.

31. Favorite superheroes (off the top of my head and in no particular order): Squirrel-girl, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), Booster Gold, Captian America, The entire JSA, Bucky, Ms. America, Groot, Sharon Carter (Agent 13), DC’s Bombshells, John Constantine, Nightwing, Stargirl, Max Mercury, Impulse, Flash, Flash, a bunch of other people who are awesome and don’t get credit, She-hulk, Wonder Woman, Kitty Pride, Wolverine, Groot, a bunch of really obscure heroes no one knows about, The standard superhero go tos etc. (This always just turns into me listing superheroes I know by the end of it.)

32. I really enjoy world building in the stories I read.

33. I have two sisters, one who is 16 months younger than me and a half sister who is 13 and 1/2 years younger than me.

34. My parents are divorced.

35. I’m running out of fact rn, but probably by the end of this, I will think of 5 billion more just to add to the end. 

36. My favorite number is 11.

37. I won silver in a graphic design competition last year. It was by like 4 points and that could have been because my socks weren’t fully black.

38. I use a mac.

39. I have been trying to think about interesting and unique things about me but I have been coming up blank.

40. I don’t finish things that often. (which doesn’t bode well for my nsb, though it may transform into a normal legacy or something.)

41. I tend to jump from one thing to another quite often. (i.e. I may be obsessed with Sims for six months and then drop it for 3 months because now my thing is making mood boards and writing character sheets.)

42. I am allergic to cats and dogs.

43. My dad has two cats and a dog. (but the dog is a sweetheart)

44. Currently, at least for my first semester of college, I am living in a dorm in the same town as both my mom and dad live.

45. I want kids when I grow up. 

46. I’ve never dated anyone.

46. I am a massive dork.

47. I’m not really a gamer though I like the idea of video games, I’m just not that good.

48. Besides Sims my favorite video games that I’ve played are, Endless Ocean: Blue World (Wii), Lego Starwars: The complete saga (Wii), Mario Kart (Wii), Wii Sports Resort (Wii), and the most recent Lego Batman for the Wii U and the Lego Marvel one for the Wii U.

49. I have a rather large birthmark on my right leg.

50. I always used to say I was a blonde but I’m really not but it still kinda bugs me because most of my hairs are thin and light rather than dark and thick.

51. I don’t shave my legs.

52. I am a TMI machine.

53. Irl I will talk your ear off.

54. I am selectively social and I’m not really good at keeping up to date when it comes to correspondences.

55. I am not really a social media person.

56. I think my middle name, Elizabeth, is one of the best and most multipurpose middle name ever.

57. I care a lot about people.

I tag: @darlyssims @rand0msimmer @cowconuts @matchmadeinmaxis @seraphinabelle @existentialisims and anyone else who wants to do this. (sorry If you’ve already been tagged I was kinda late in doing this)

[siphen0]

The Nemesis of Crime is back in a new limited series by writer Max Bemis (Moon Knight, Polarity) this October!

In this series, Bob Benton aka the Black Terror, is living in the 1970s and contending with his post-war mental health as well as the rapidly evolving social landscape around him. Say Anything band frontman and acclaimed comics writer Bemis is joined by artists Matt Gaudio (John Wick, Bettie Page) and Ruairí Coleman (Cloak & Dagger, Turok). Rounding out the team on colors and letters are Brittany Pezzillo (Bettie Page, Green Hornet) and Taylor Esposito.

Each issue of the series acts as both the next chapter and a standalone deep dive into the Black Terror’s life and the chaotic 1970s setting. Fans can expect to see Black Terror’s infamous plain-named sidekick Tim, cult leaders, mobsters, experimental drugs and more. Bemis has described the title as a bit of an Alan Moore take, but less depressing and with some 70s Batman DNA.

Writer Max Bemis said, “I loved working with Dynamite on our take on Atari’s Centipede and they were kind enough to let my imagination run wild in terms of how I interpreted that world. They’ve let me go just as nuts with Black Terror, an awesomely designed and conceived vigilante who has never gotten a chance to venture into weirdness. If you’re a fan of Swamp Thing or Sandman and making a “conventional” superhero go all wacky, but maybe want a bit more humor with your psychedelic, this is the book for you!”

“Being able to work with Max and the whole creative team on this vision of the Black Terror has been an absolute pleasure,” said artist Matt Gaudio. “Those guys allowed me the freedom to interpret it as it played out in my head and I had a lot of fun with it, so I hope that comes through in the art! Without giving away too much, Bob Benton’s got a full plate, and readers are going to get a good look at what makes this guy tick as he deals with all the weird, messed-up things going on around him. It’s dark and it’s funny and it’s Black Terror like we’ve never seen him before.”

“It’s been so much fun drawing Black Terror thanks to Max,” said Ruairi Coleman. “His wicked sense of humor has me drawing some pretty outlandish things that I really didn’t expect. Yet he still manages to keep the stories engaging and meaningful. I can’t recommend this series enough – it’s shaping up to be something special.”

Editor Kevin Ketner added, “I was going to head the route of ultimate cliché and declare, ‘This isn’t your grandfather’s superhero!’ but…it is. It’s the same guy. Just in a different time and place, and we get to see him in a way that we haven’t before. Probably in a way that will make people hope no one they are close to is secretly a crime fighting vigilante. It’s bad for the knuckles. And everyone’s mental health. All that being said, the best part about working on this book is that I pretty much wear a black shirt every day already, so adding Terror’s skull and crossbones logo is not only easy, I can write it off as a business expense. Right?”

Dating back to the Golden Age, the Black Terror was created in 1941 by Richard E. Hughes and Don Gabrielson. Under the hero’s stark costume is pharmacist Bob Benton, who developed a formula which granted him powers. Often joined by his sidekick Tim, the pair vowed to stamp out evil during the war. Such legendary creators as Batman artist and Joker creator Jerry Robinson and world renowned novelist Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mr. Ripley) contributed to his original stories. His tales continue today in series published by Dynamite.

This terrific tale is wrapped in terrifying covers by some of the best artists in comics. Actually, they aren’t too scary. Francesco Francavilla (Shape of Elvira, Black Panther) contributes the most haunting of the bunch. While Jorge Fornés (Batman) has some fun with the skull & crossbones emblem for some pirate themed fun. David Nakayama (Spider-Man: City at War, Ant-Man & the Wasp) inspires some terror with his cover. Erica Henderson (Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Assassin Nation) has Mr. Benton flying high. Adam Gorham (Rocket Raccoon, Jughead: The Hunger) rounds out the superpowered squad with a brooding rooftop Terror.

Black Terror #1 will be solicited in Diamond Comic Distributors’ August 2019 Previews catalog, the premier source of merchandise for the comic book specialty market, and slated for release in October 2019. Comic book fans are encouraged to preorder copies with their local comic book retailers. It will also be available for individual customer purchase through digital platforms courtesy of Comixology, Kindle, iBooks, Google Play, Dynamite Digital, ComicsPlus, and more!

#gallery-0-4 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-0-4 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-4 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

Black Terror is Back in a New Series from Dynamite! The Nemesis of Crime is back in a new limited series by writer Max Bemis (Moon Knight, Polarity) this October!

[thegloober]

A Bread Factory, Part One: For the Sake of Gold

[Editor’s Note: This is a review of Part One of “A Bread Factory,” a matched set of films about an arts center’s effect on a small town in upstate New York, written and directed by Patrick Wang (“In the Family“). Although each part stands alone and can be enjoyed separately, they are meant to be seen together. For a review of Part Two, click here.]

Patrick Wang’s “A Bread Factory Part One: For the Sake of Gold” is half of a matched set of movies that comprises the most original filmgoing experience of the year. Part Two is subtitled “Walk with Me a While.” Each runs two hours. The halves are meant to be shown back-to-back in a theater with an intermission, but you can watch them independently and come away feeling that you’ve seen a complete work. Any way you watch it, “A Bread Factory” is a wildly ambitious yet self-effacing epic about a place and its people, written, directed and acted in the spirit of Robert Altman (“Nashville“), Richard Linklater (“Bernie“) and Edward Yang (“Yi Yi“)—muralists who paint on wide canvases, yet still treat each character as individuals worthy of their own portraits.

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Part One introduces the fictional upstate New York town of Checkford, a place as vivid as Grover’s Corners, Deadwood or Maycomb. The central location is the eponymous arts center, headquartered in a converted bread factory. For forty years the place has been run by its founders, Dorothea (Tyne Daly) and her partner Greta (Elizabeth Henry). Dorothea is a tough, passionate administrator and stage director who doesn’t suffer fools. Greta is a soft-spoken, reflective, Finland-born actress who tries to rein her partner in when she’s about to lose her cool. 

That’s been happening more often recently. A bigger, glitzier arts facility just opened on the other side of Checkford. It serves up flamboyant and shallow work that’s steeped in 1990s conceptual art cliches, shuts the brain down instead of engaging it, and seems designed to pull in tourists and send them home with tote bags and t-shirts. Most of the work is produced or approved by a couple of gimmicky and very successful Chinese performance artists known as May Ray (Janet Hseih and George Young). 

May Ray pipe prerecorded laughter and applause through public address systems to override the crowd’s responses. They dress in outrageous costumes, including a set of retro spacesuits with tiny action figure versions of themselves dangling in front of their faceplates. They are their own logos, branding all they touch. They like to draw the audience into cutesy stunts (like “walking in another person’s shoes,” which are fashioned from hats) that momentarily thrill or amuse, then serve up banalities disguised as wisdom (like “falling is a part of walking”) so that patrons go home knowing not only that they’ve seen Real Art, but what it was supposed to mean. This is a sharp contrast to The Bread Factory, which books some out-of-towners and the occasional big name, but is mainly fueled by local work that’s steeped in a classical liberal arts tradition, and created by local artists for local audiences in a relationship that’s more reciprocal and open-ended, an exchange of traditions and values.

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Dorothea and Greta learn that the town is taking of cutting their educational subsidy— which lets them teach Chatford children and teenagers, thus training a new generations of artists and patrons, and provides the core of their monthly nut—and give to the newcomers, who overmatch them in every area except parking. Suddenly they have to think like tacticians, brainstorming a plan to convince a majority of the city council to leave things as they are.

The new facility’s administrator, Karl (Trevor St. John), is a formidable adversary. He presents himself as a calm, bland, middle manager-type, but he’s smart and ruthless. He’s the kind of guy who’ll reply to a journalist’s carefully researched questions by asking why she’s resorting to personal attacks. Karl has shady funding connections, and seems to have already bought off half the school board. He even tries to strong-arm Dorothea into backing down from the impending board fight by threatening to report The Bread Factory to the state for hiring a felon (albeit one whose conviction was reversed) and employing children (actually volunteers who are being thoughtfully mentored by the staff). 

Dorothea and Greta’s strategizing and politicking is intercut with scenes of the couple workshopping a new production of the Greek tragedy “Hecuba,” directed by Dorothea, translated by a scholar named Elsa (Nana Victor) who shyly declines to call herself a writer, and co-starring Greta and a grand old English actor known as Sir Walter (the late, great Brian Murray, in his last performance). 

Around this core group, Wang spins a constellation of supporting players. Some have stories that intersect with (and comment upon) the main action. Others get one juicy scene or bit, then recede into the chorus. An embittered indie filmmaker named Jordan (Janeane Garofalo) loathes the boring, predictable questions of adults (“What was your budget?”), but roars to life when guest-teaching young children. One of her pupils is so inspired by Jordan’s blistering rant about the importance of passion in art that he goes home and upbraids his own mother for not cooking chicken like she means it. A school union representative named Jason (James Marsters) is secretly comparing notes with a city council member named Mavis (Nan-Lyn Nelson) who happens to be his girlfriend. Sandra, a woman with an operatic voice (played by opera singer Martina Arroyo), loves to watch plays being rehearsed. She regales strangers with stories about her late husband, who wrote appliance manuals (“He told me, ‘Sandra, more people read me than Faulkner”). 

The aforementioned journalist, Jan (Glynnis O’Connor), is also the local newspaper’s editor and only employee. She keeps the tradition of an independent Fourth Estate alive from a windowless basement office. Jan is currently mentoring a teenage intern named Max (Zachary Style), who’s in love with a local library assistant named Teresa (Jessica Pimintel), who’s also acting in “Hecuba,” a production that will eventually be reviewed by a retired Pulitzer-prizewinning critic and scholar named Jean-Marc (Philip Kerr), who’s been been getting the silent treatment from Sir Walter since he panned one of performances fifty years ago.

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“A Bread Factory” is about a lot of things. One is the challenge of succeeding as an artist in a market economy when you have knowledge, enthusiasm, and the loyalty of a core audience, but no money or connections to speak of, and a stubborn determination to let the work speak for itself rather than constantly hyping it. The David and Goliath dynamic between the two facilities is reminiscent of the conflict between Italian restaurants in the classic American 1950s period comedy “Big Night.” One restaurant is run by a showboat who gives the people what they want: spaghetti and meatballs with red sauce, checkered tablecloths, accordion music, and sudden bursts of flame. The other restaurant specializes in Northern Italian food unfamiliar to 1950s Americans, cooked by a uncompromising chef who wants to give every diner a surprising and authentic experience, and would rather brood in his kitchen than put on a show. You can guess which place makes money.

Beyond that, “A Bread Factory” is an idealistic statement about the importance of art in everyday life. It’s about how a scene from a play or a line from a poem can cast a new light on your problems or dreams, maybe put a whole new frame around your life, your community, and the culture and nation that helped shape you. A big part of Dorothea’s frustration—brilliantly communicated by Daly, in a performance that sums up everything that makes her such a treasure—comes from having to explain any of this in the first place. She’s old enough to remember when Americans of all social classes thought of art as a birthright, as integral to life in an advanced democracy as well-funded public schools. 

A major subtext in all the scenes that involve Dorothea, Greta, Karl and May Ray is the way a capitalist economy encourages the public to think of all art as just another product, forcing independent creative artists to package and present themselves like rock-star entrepreneurs, even if they don’t have the temperament for it; and how the postwar tradition of publicly funded art and art education in America has withered in the last 30 years, to the point where many people hear the word “art” and think “decadence” or “indulgence” or “a thing that taxes shouldn’t fund.” 

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“You must have seen rough times before,” a board member tells Dorothea. “Honestly,” she says, “I’ve never seen it worse.” Her pessimism is independently echoed by Jean-Marc, who says of the arts facility, “They once baked bread here, but now we live in an age of crumbs. But what they make of these crumbs is miraculous, and we are lucky to have them.”

This is my favorite film of the year by far—and when I say “film,” singular, I’m referring to both halves of “A Bread Factory,” because they flow together in the mind. As of this writing, I’ve seen both parts three times. With each viewing, I notice new things and am more moved by the characters, who are unique and eccentric in the way that real people are, but written and acted with the economy and directness that distinguishes characters in well-constructed plays or short stories—ones where the storytellers know what they want to say and how best to say it. 

Readers should know going in that this is not a film (or pair of films) that you can half-watch while looking at your phone. You have to give yourself over to the story, characters and atmosphere with an open mind and heart, and be a peace with the fact that the movie is going to throw you into the middle of scenes without immediately spelling out who everyone is, and what, exactly, you’re looking at. Wang takes his sweet time setting up a moment, and the punchlines in comedic scenes are as likely to be visual as verbal (as when the camera stays fixed on Jordan as she sits in a theater where her movie is about to be screened, asking the projectionist to run different parts of it to check the picture and sound; finally, the camera pans up to reveal that the projectionist is an eleven-year old boy). 

To paraphrase a friend who’s a minister as well as a film buff, this is the kind of movie where Mohammed goes to the mountain, not the other way around. But the journey is worth it. This film is miraculous, and we are lucky to have it.

Source: https://bloghyped.com/a-bread-factory-part-one-for-the-sake-of-gold/

[tainghekhongdaycomvn]

The Guide to Local Sponsorship Marketing - The 2018 Edition

The Guide to Local Sponsorship Marketing - The 2018 Edition

Posted by Claudia0428

For most Moz readers, local marketing means content, reviews, AdWords, local listings, and of course citations. If you’re a larger brand, you might be doing outdoor, radio, print, and television advertising as well. Today we’re here to humbly submit that local sponsorships remain the most-overlooked and opportunity-rich channel, and they build real local connections for both large brands and small business alike.

This article is the second edition of the ZipSprout team’s guide to local sponsorships. We wrote the first edition in 2016 after a few months of securing local sponsorship campaigns for a handful of clients. Since then, we’ve tripled our client roster and we’ve worked with more than 8,000 local organizations, donating nearly $1,000,000 in local sponsorships to 1,300+ opportunities. Since then we’ve also learned how to build campaigns for local presence. So we knew the guide was due for a reboot. One of our most significant learnings of the past two years is the understanding of local sponsorships as a channel in their own right. They can be directed toward local SEO or local marketing campaigns, but sponsorships are their own breed of local connection — and just like content campaigns, local PR campaigns, or review management, local sponsorships have their own set of conventions and best practices.

This article is meant for anyone with an eye toward local sponsorships as a marketing channel. Agencies and enterprise organizations may find it particularly helpful, but we’re big believers in encouraging smaller local businesses to engage in sponsorships too. Get out there and meet your neighbors!

The what & why of local sponsorships

Local events, nonprofits, and associations constitute a disjointed but very real network of opportunities. Unlike other channels, local sponsorships aren’t accessible from a single platform, but we’ve found that many sponsorships share similarities. This makes it possible to develop processes that work for campaigns in any metro area.

Local sponsorships are also a unique channel in that the benefits can range from the digital to the analog: from local links to a booth, from social posts to signage on a soccer field. The common thread is joining the community by partnering with local organizations, but the benefits themselves vary widely. We’ve identified and track 24 unique benefits of sponsorships related to local marketing:

Ad (full or partial)

Advertising on event app

Blog post featuring sponsor

Booth, tent, or table at event

Event named for sponsor

Guest post on organization blog

Inclusion in press release

Link in email newsletter

Link on website

Logo on event t-shirt or other swag

Logo on signage

Logo or name on website

Media spots (television/radio/newspaper)

Mention in email newsletter

Mention in publicity materials, such as programs & other printed materials

Networking opportunity

Physical thing (building, etc.) named for sponsor

Social media mention

Speaking opportunity at event

Sponsor & sponsor's employees receive discounts on services/products/events

Sponsor can donate merchandise for goodie bags

Sponsored post (on blog or online magazine)

Tickets to event

Verbal recognition

There are probably more, but in our experience most benefits fall into these core categories. That said, these benefits aren’t necessarily for everyone...

Who shouldn’t do local sponsorships?

1. Don’t do local sponsorships if you need fast turnaround.

Campaigns can take 1–3 months from launch until fulfillment. If you’re in a hurry to see a return, just increase your search ad budget.

2. Don’t do local sponsorships if you’re not okay with the branding component.

Local link building can certainly be measured, as can coupon usage, email addresses gathered for a drawing, etc… But measuring local brand lift still isn’t a perfect art form. Leave pure attribution to digital ads.

3. Don’t do local sponsorships with a "one size fits all" expectation.

The great thing about local events and opportunities is their diversity. While some components can be scaled, others require high touch outreach, more similar to a PR campaign.

Considerations for agencies vs brands in local sponsorship campaigns

Agencies, especially if they’re creating sponsorship campaigns for multiple clients, can cast a wide net and select from the best opportunities that return. Even if a potential partnership isn’t a good fit for a current client, they may work for a client down the road. Brands, on the other hand, need to be a little more goal and mission-focused during prospecting and outreach. If they’re reaching out to organizations that are clearly a bad fit, they’re wasting everyone’s time.

Brands also need to be more careful because they have a consumer-facing image to protect. As with any outreach campaign, there are dos and don’ts and best practices that all should follow (DO be respectful; DON’T over-email), but brands especially have more to lose from an outreach faux pas.

Our process

Outreach

Once we’ve identified local organizations in a given metro area, we recommend reaching out with an email to introduce ourselves and learn more about sponsorship opportunities. In two years, the ZipSprout team has A/B tested 100 different email templates.

With these initial emails, we’re trying to inform without confusing or scaring away potential new partners. Some templates have resulted in local organizations thinking we’re asking them for sponsorship money or that we want to charge them for a service. Oops! A/B tests have helped to find the best wording for clarity and, in turn, response rate.

Here are some of our learnings:

1. Mentioning location matters.

We reached out to almost 1,000 Chicago organizations in the spring of 2017. When we mentioned Chicago in the email, the response rate increased by 20%.

2. Emails sent to organizations who already had sponsorship info on their websites were most successful if the email acknowledged the onsite sponsorship info and asked for confirmation.

These are also our most successful outreach attempts, likely because these organizations are actively looking for sponsors (as signified by having sponsorship info on their site). Further, by demonstrating that we’ve been on their site, we’re signaling a higher level of intent.

3. Whether or not we included an outreacher phone number in email signatures had no effect on response rate.

If anything, response rates were higher for emails with no phone number in signature, at 41% compared with 40.2%.

4. Shorter is better when it comes to outreach emails.

Consider the following two emails:

EMAIL A Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I work to help corporate clients find local sponsorships. We’re an agency that helps our business clients identify and sponsor local organizations like [ORG NAME]. We’re paid by businesses who are looking for local sponsorships. Often, local organizations are overlooked, so my company, ZipSprout, works for businesses who want to sponsor locally, but aren’t sure who to partner with. To that end, I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorship opportunities you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

EMAIL B Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorships you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

In an 800-email test, Email B performed 30% better than Email A.

Matchmaking: How can I choose a sponsorship opportunity that fits my brand?

There are many ways to evaluate potential sponsorships.

These are the questions that help us match organizations with clients:

Who is your brand targeting (women, senior citizens, family-friendly, dog owners, new parents)?

Do you want to tie your brand with a particular cause (eco-friendly, professional associations, awareness foundations, advocacy groups)?

Is your campaign based on location? Are you launching your brand in a particular city? A particular zip code?

What is your total budget and per-sponsorship range? A top max price or a price range is a useful parameter — and perhaps the most important.

Once the campaign goals are determined, we filter through opportunities based partially on their online presence. We look at Domain Authority, location, website aesthetics, and other sponsors (competitors and non-competitors) in addition to Reach Score (details below). Further, we review backlinks, organic traffic, and referring domains. We make sure that this nonprofit partnership is not spammy or funky from an SEO perspective and that is a frequently visited website. A small organization may not have all the juicy digital metrics, but by gauging event attendance or measuring organic traffic we can further identify solid prospects that could have been missed otherwise. We also look at social media presence; event attendance, event dates and how responsive these organizations or event organizers are. Responsiveness, we have learned, is a CRITICAL variable. It can be the determining point of your link going live in 48 hours or less, as opposed to 6+ months from payment.

Reach Score

From a numbers perspective, Domain Authority is a good way to appreciate the value of a website, but it doesn’t tell the whole story when it comes to local marketing. To help fill in the gaps we created Reach Score, which combines virtual measures (like Domain Authority) with social measures (friends/followers) and physical measures (event attendance). The score ranks entities based on their metro area, so we’re not comparing the reach of an organization in Louisville, KY to one in NYC.

As of March 2018, we have about 8,000 organizations with valid Reach Scores across four metro areas — Raleigh/Durham, Boston, Houston, and Chicago. The average Reach Score is 37 out of 100. Of the 34 types of organizations that we track, the most common is Event Venue/Company (average Reach Score of 38), followed by Advocacy Groups (43) and Sports Teams/Clubs/Leagues (22). The types of organizations with the highest Reach Scores are Local Government (64), Museums (63), and Parks and Recreation (55). Thanks to Reach Score, we’ve found differences between organizations from city to city as well. In Raleigh-Durham, the entities with the highest reach tend to be government-related organizations, such as Chambers of Commerce and Parks & Rec Departments.

In Boston, the highest reach tends to fall to arts organizations, such as music ensembles, as well as professional associations. This score serves as a good reminder that each metro area has a unique community of local organizations. (Read more about our Reach Score findings here.)

Fulfillment

Our campaigns used to take several months to complete, from contract to final sponsorship. Now our average fulfillment rate is 18.7 days, regardless of our project size! Staying (politely) on top of the communication with the nonprofit organizations was the main driver for this improvement.

We find further that the first 48 hours from sending a notification of sponsorship on behalf of your brand are crucial to speedy campaigns. Be ready to award the sponsorship funds in a timely manner and follow up with a phone call or an email, checking in to see if these funds have been received.

It's okay to ask when can you expect the sponsorship digital benefits to go live and how to streamline the process for any other deliverables needed to complete the sponsorship.

Applying these simple best practices, our team has been able to run a campaign in a week or less.

Two important concepts to remember about the sponsorship channel from the fulfillment perspective:

It’s difficult to fulfill. If your city project involves any more than two or three sponsorships, you're in for multiple hours of follow ups, reminders, phone calls, etc. There is the desire from most local organizations to honor their sponsors and keep them happy. That said, we've learned that keeping the momentum going serves as an important reminder for the nonprofit. This can involve phone call reminders and emails for links to go live and other benefits to come through. Again, be polite and respectful.

It’s SO worth all the effort though! It shows that your brand cares. A sponsorship campaign is a fantastic way to get in front of your target audience in areas that have a special meaning at a personal level. And not in a broad general scope, but locally. Locally sponsoring a beach cleanup in Santa Monica gives you the opportunity to impact a highly localized audience with a very particular cause in mind that would ultimately affect their everyday life, as opposed to partnering with a huge foundation advocating for clean oceans.

Enhancing a local campaign

Some prefer to use local sponsorships as a link building effort, but there are ways — and ample benefit — to going far beyond the link.

Local event attendance

So, so many local sponsorship campaigns come with the opportunity for event attendance. We currently have 11,345 opportunities in our database (62.2% of our total inventory) that feature events: 5Ks, galas, performances, parades, and even a rubber ducky derby or two! If you’re able to send local team members, find opportunities that match your target audience and test it out — and bring your camera so your social and brand team will have material for publication. If local team members aren’t an option, consider working with a notable and ambitious startup such as Field Day, which can send locals out on behalf of your brand. We’ve spoken with them on several occasions and found them adaptable and wonderful to work with.

Coupons/invitations

One client, FunBrands, used local sponsorships as a way to reach out to locals ahead of stores’ grand re-openings (read the full case study here).

For another client, we created unique coupons for each local organization, using print and social media posts for distribution.

An example coupon — use codes to track attribution back to an event.

Conclusion: Local sponsorships are a channel

Sponsorships are an actionable strategy that contribute to your local rankings, while providing unprecedented opportunities for community engagement and neighborly branding. We hope that this updated guide will provide a strong operational overview along with realistic expectations — and even inspirations — for a local sponsorship campaign in your target cities.

Last but not least: As with all outreach campaigns, please remember to be human. Keep in mind that local engagements are the living extension of your brand in the real world. And if somehow this article wasn’t enough, we just finished up The Local Sponsorship Playbook. Every purchase comes with a 30-minute consultation with the author. We hope everyone chooses to get out, get local, and join the community in the channel that truly benefits everyone.

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[dainiaolivahm]

The Guide to Local Sponsorship Marketing - The 2018 Edition

Posted by Claudia0428

For most Moz readers, local marketing means content, reviews, AdWords, local listings, and of course citations. If you’re a larger brand, you might be doing outdoor, radio, print, and television advertising as well. Today we’re here to humbly submit that local sponsorships remain the most-overlooked and opportunity-rich channel, and they build real local connections for both large brands and small business alike.

This article is the second edition of the ZipSprout team’s guide to local sponsorships. We wrote the first edition in 2016 after a few months of securing local sponsorship campaigns for a handful of clients. Since then, we’ve tripled our client roster and we’ve worked with more than 8,000 local organizations, donating nearly $1,000,000 in local sponsorships to 1,300+ opportunities. Since then we’ve also learned how to build campaigns for local presence. So we knew the guide was due for a reboot. One of our most significant learnings of the past two years is the understanding of local sponsorships as a channel in their own right. They can be directed toward local SEO or local marketing campaigns, but sponsorships are their own breed of local connection — and just like content campaigns, local PR campaigns, or review management, local sponsorships have their own set of conventions and best practices.

This article is meant for anyone with an eye toward local sponsorships as a marketing channel. Agencies and enterprise organizations may find it particularly helpful, but we’re big believers in encouraging smaller local businesses to engage in sponsorships too. Get out there and meet your neighbors!

The what & why of local sponsorships

Local events, nonprofits, and associations constitute a disjointed but very real network of opportunities. Unlike other channels, local sponsorships aren’t accessible from a single platform, but we’ve found that many sponsorships share similarities. This makes it possible to develop processes that work for campaigns in any metro area.

Local sponsorships are also a unique channel in that the benefits can range from the digital to the analog: from local links to a booth, from social posts to signage on a soccer field. The common thread is joining the community by partnering with local organizations, but the benefits themselves vary widely. We’ve identified and track 24 unique benefits of sponsorships related to local marketing:

Ad (full or partial)

Advertising on event app

Blog post featuring sponsor

Booth, tent, or table at event

Event named for sponsor

Guest post on organization blog

Inclusion in press release

Link in email newsletter

Link on website

Logo on event t-shirt or other swag

Logo on signage

Logo or name on website

Media spots (television/radio/newspaper)

Mention in email newsletter

Mention in publicity materials, such as programs & other printed materials

Networking opportunity

Physical thing (building, etc.) named for sponsor

Social media mention

Speaking opportunity at event

Sponsor & sponsor's employees receive discounts on services/products/events

Sponsor can donate merchandise for goodie bags

Sponsored post (on blog or online magazine)

Tickets to event

Verbal recognition

There are probably more, but in our experience most benefits fall into these core categories. That said, these benefits aren’t necessarily for everyone...

Who shouldn’t do local sponsorships?1. Don’t do local sponsorships if you need fast turnaround.

Campaigns can take 1–3 months from launch until fulfillment. If you’re in a hurry to see a return, just increase your search ad budget.

2. Don’t do local sponsorships if you’re not okay with the branding component.

Local link building can certainly be measured, as can coupon usage, email addresses gathered for a drawing, etc… But measuring local brand lift still isn’t a perfect art form. Leave pure attribution to digital ads.

3. Don’t do local sponsorships with a "one size fits all" expectation.

The great thing about local events and opportunities is their diversity. While some components can be scaled, others require high touch outreach, more similar to a PR campaign.

Considerations for agencies vs brands in local sponsorship campaigns

Agencies, especially if they’re creating sponsorship campaigns for multiple clients, can cast a wide net and select from the best opportunities that return. Even if a potential partnership isn’t a good fit for a current client, they may work for a client down the road. Brands, on the other hand, need to be a little more goal and mission-focused during prospecting and outreach. If they’re reaching out to organizations that are clearly a bad fit, they’re wasting everyone’s time.

Brands also need to be more careful because they have a consumer-facing image to protect. As with any outreach campaign, there are dos and don’ts and best practices that all should follow (DO be respectful; DON’T over-email), but brands especially have more to lose from an outreach faux pas.

Our processOutreach

Once we’ve identified local organizations in a given metro area, we recommend reaching out with an email to introduce ourselves and learn more about sponsorship opportunities. In two years, the ZipSprout team has A/B tested 100 different email templates.

With these initial emails, we’re trying to inform without confusing or scaring away potential new partners. Some templates have resulted in local organizations thinking we’re asking them for sponsorship money or that we want to charge them for a service. Oops! A/B tests have helped to find the best wording for clarity and, in turn, response rate.

Here are some of our learnings:

1. Mentioning location matters.

We reached out to almost 1,000 Chicago organizations in the spring of 2017. When we mentioned Chicago in the email, the response rate increased by 20%.

2. Emails sent to organizations who already had sponsorship info on their websites were most successful if the email acknowledged the onsite sponsorship info and asked for confirmation.

These are also our most successful outreach attempts, likely because these organizations are actively looking for sponsors (as signified by having sponsorship info on their site). Further, by demonstrating that we’ve been on their site, we’re signaling a higher level of intent.

3. Whether or not we included an outreacher phone number in email signatures had no effect on response rate.

If anything, response rates were higher for emails with no phone number in signature, at 41% compared with 40.2%.

4. Shorter is better when it comes to outreach emails.

Consider the following two emails:

EMAIL A Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I work to help corporate clients find local sponsorships. We’re an agency that helps our business clients identify and sponsor local organizations like [ORG NAME]. We’re paid by businesses who are looking for local sponsorships. Often, local organizations are overlooked, so my company, ZipSprout, works for businesses who want to sponsor locally, but aren’t sure who to partner with. To that end, I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorship opportunities you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

EMAIL B Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorships you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

In an 800-email test, Email B performed 30% better than Email A.

Matchmaking: How can I choose a sponsorship opportunity that fits my brand?

There are many ways to evaluate potential sponsorships.

These are the questions that help us match organizations with clients:

Who is your brand targeting (women, senior citizens, family-friendly, dog owners, new parents)?

Do you want to tie your brand with a particular cause (eco-friendly, professional associations, awareness foundations, advocacy groups)?

Is your campaign based on location? Are you launching your brand in a particular city? A particular zip code?

What is your total budget and per-sponsorship range? A top max price or a price range is a useful parameter — and perhaps the most important.

Once the campaign goals are determined, we filter through opportunities based partially on their online presence. We look at Domain Authority, location, website aesthetics, and other sponsors (competitors and non-competitors) in addition to Reach Score (details below). Further, we review backlinks, organic traffic, and referring domains. We make sure that this nonprofit partnership is not spammy or funky from an SEO perspective and that is a frequently visited website. A small organization may not have all the juicy digital metrics, but by gauging event attendance or measuring organic traffic we can further identify solid prospects that could have been missed otherwise. We also look at social media presence; event attendance, event dates and how responsive these organizations or event organizers are. Responsiveness, we have learned, is a CRITICAL variable. It can be the determining point of your link going live in 48 hours or less, as opposed to 6+ months from payment.

Reach Score

From a numbers perspective, Domain Authority is a good way to appreciate the value of a website, but it doesn’t tell the whole story when it comes to local marketing. To help fill in the gaps we created Reach Score, which combines virtual measures (like Domain Authority) with social measures (friends/followers) and physical measures (event attendance). The score ranks entities based on their metro area, so we’re not comparing the reach of an organization in Louisville, KY to one in NYC.

As of March 2018, we have about 8,000 organizations with valid Reach Scores across four metro areas — Raleigh/Durham, Boston, Houston, and Chicago. The average Reach Score is 37 out of 100. Of the 34 types of organizations that we track, the most common is Event Venue/Company (average Reach Score of 38), followed by Advocacy Groups (43) and Sports Teams/Clubs/Leagues (22). The types of organizations with the highest Reach Scores are Local Government (64), Museums (63), and Parks and Recreation (55). Thanks to Reach Score, we’ve found differences between organizations from city to city as well. In Raleigh-Durham, the entities with the highest reach tend to be government-related organizations, such as Chambers of Commerce and Parks & Rec Departments.

In Boston, the highest reach tends to fall to arts organizations, such as music ensembles, as well as professional associations. This score serves as a good reminder that each metro area has a unique community of local organizations. (Read more about our Reach Score findings here.)

Fulfillment

Our campaigns used to take several months to complete, from contract to final sponsorship. Now our average fulfillment rate is 18.7 days, regardless of our project size! Staying (politely) on top of the communication with the nonprofit organizations was the main driver for this improvement.

We find further that the first 48 hours from sending a notification of sponsorship on behalf of your brand are crucial to speedy campaigns. Be ready to award the sponsorship funds in a timely manner and follow up with a phone call or an email, checking in to see if these funds have been received.

It's okay to ask when can you expect the sponsorship digital benefits to go live and how to streamline the process for any other deliverables needed to complete the sponsorship.

Applying these simple best practices, our team has been able to run a campaign in a week or less.

Two important concepts to remember about the sponsorship channel from the fulfillment perspective:

It’s difficult to fulfill. If your city project involves any more than two or three sponsorships, you're in for multiple hours of follow ups, reminders, phone calls, etc. There is the desire from most local organizations to honor their sponsors and keep them happy. That said, we've learned that keeping the momentum going serves as an important reminder for the nonprofit. This can involve phone call reminders and emails for links to go live and other benefits to come through. Again, be polite and respectful.

It’s SO worth all the effort though! It shows that your brand cares. A sponsorship campaign is a fantastic way to get in front of your target audience in areas that have a special meaning at a personal level. And not in a broad general scope, but locally. Locally sponsoring a beach cleanup in Santa Monica gives you the opportunity to impact a highly localized audience with a very particular cause in mind that would ultimately affect their everyday life, as opposed to partnering with a huge foundation advocating for clean oceans.

Enhancing a local campaign

Some prefer to use local sponsorships as a link building effort, but there are ways — and ample benefit — to going far beyond the link.

Local event attendance

So, so many local sponsorship campaigns come with the opportunity for event attendance. We currently have 11,345 opportunities in our database (62.2% of our total inventory) that feature events: 5Ks, galas, performances, parades, and even a rubber ducky derby or two! If you’re able to send local team members, find opportunities that match your target audience and test it out — and bring your camera so your social and brand team will have material for publication. If local team members aren’t an option, consider working with a notable and ambitious startup such as Field Day, which can send locals out on behalf of your brand. We’ve spoken with them on several occasions and found them adaptable and wonderful to work with.

Coupons/invitations

One client, FunBrands, used local sponsorships as a way to reach out to locals ahead of stores’ grand re-openings (read the full case study here).

For another client, we created unique coupons for each local organization, using print and social media posts for distribution.

An example coupon — use codes to track attribution back to an event.

Conclusion: Local sponsorships are a channel

Sponsorships are an actionable strategy that contribute to your local rankings, while providing unprecedented opportunities for community engagement and neighborly branding. We hope that this updated guide will provide a strong operational overview along with realistic expectations — and even inspirations — for a local sponsorship campaign in your target cities.

Last but not least: As with all outreach campaigns, please remember to be human. Keep in mind that local engagements are the living extension of your brand in the real world. And if somehow this article wasn’t enough, we just finished up The Local Sponsorship Playbook. Every purchase comes with a 30-minute consultation with the author. We hope everyone chooses to get out, get local, and join the community in the channel that truly benefits everyone.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2pZ2a74

[christinesumpmg1]

The Guide to Local Sponsorship Marketing - The 2018 Edition

Posted by Claudia0428

For most Moz readers, local marketing means content, reviews, AdWords, local listings, and of course citations. If you’re a larger brand, you might be doing outdoor, radio, print, and television advertising as well. Today we’re here to humbly submit that local sponsorships remain the most-overlooked and opportunity-rich channel, and they build real local connections for both large brands and small business alike.

This article is the second edition of the ZipSprout team’s guide to local sponsorships. We wrote the first edition in 2016 after a few months of securing local sponsorship campaigns for a handful of clients. Since then, we’ve tripled our client roster and we’ve worked with more than 8,000 local organizations, donating nearly $1,000,000 in local sponsorships to 1,300+ opportunities. Since then we’ve also learned how to build campaigns for local presence. So we knew the guide was due for a reboot. One of our most significant learnings of the past two years is the understanding of local sponsorships as a channel in their own right. They can be directed toward local SEO or local marketing campaigns, but sponsorships are their own breed of local connection — and just like content campaigns, local PR campaigns, or review management, local sponsorships have their own set of conventions and best practices.

This article is meant for anyone with an eye toward local sponsorships as a marketing channel. Agencies and enterprise organizations may find it particularly helpful, but we’re big believers in encouraging smaller local businesses to engage in sponsorships too. Get out there and meet your neighbors!

The what & why of local sponsorships

Local events, nonprofits, and associations constitute a disjointed but very real network of opportunities. Unlike other channels, local sponsorships aren’t accessible from a single platform, but we’ve found that many sponsorships share similarities. This makes it possible to develop processes that work for campaigns in any metro area.

Local sponsorships are also a unique channel in that the benefits can range from the digital to the analog: from local links to a booth, from social posts to signage on a soccer field. The common thread is joining the community by partnering with local organizations, but the benefits themselves vary widely. We’ve identified and track 24 unique benefits of sponsorships related to local marketing:

Ad (full or partial)

Advertising on event app

Blog post featuring sponsor

Booth, tent, or table at event

Event named for sponsor

Guest post on organization blog

Inclusion in press release

Link in email newsletter

Link on website

Logo on event t-shirt or other swag

Logo on signage

Logo or name on website

Media spots (television/radio/newspaper)

Mention in email newsletter

Mention in publicity materials, such as programs & other printed materials

Networking opportunity

Physical thing (building, etc.) named for sponsor

Social media mention

Speaking opportunity at event

Sponsor & sponsor's employees receive discounts on services/products/events

Sponsor can donate merchandise for goodie bags

Sponsored post (on blog or online magazine)

Tickets to event

Verbal recognition

There are probably more, but in our experience most benefits fall into these core categories. That said, these benefits aren’t necessarily for everyone...

Who shouldn’t do local sponsorships?1. Don’t do local sponsorships if you need fast turnaround.

Campaigns can take 1–3 months from launch until fulfillment. If you’re in a hurry to see a return, just increase your search ad budget.

2. Don’t do local sponsorships if you’re not okay with the branding component.

Local link building can certainly be measured, as can coupon usage, email addresses gathered for a drawing, etc… But measuring local brand lift still isn’t a perfect art form. Leave pure attribution to digital ads.

3. Don’t do local sponsorships with a "one size fits all" expectation.

The great thing about local events and opportunities is their diversity. While some components can be scaled, others require high touch outreach, more similar to a PR campaign.

Considerations for agencies vs brands in local sponsorship campaigns

Agencies, especially if they’re creating sponsorship campaigns for multiple clients, can cast a wide net and select from the best opportunities that return. Even if a potential partnership isn’t a good fit for a current client, they may work for a client down the road. Brands, on the other hand, need to be a little more goal and mission-focused during prospecting and outreach. If they’re reaching out to organizations that are clearly a bad fit, they’re wasting everyone’s time.

Brands also need to be more careful because they have a consumer-facing image to protect. As with any outreach campaign, there are dos and don’ts and best practices that all should follow (DO be respectful; DON’T over-email), but brands especially have more to lose from an outreach faux pas.

Our processOutreach

Once we’ve identified local organizations in a given metro area, we recommend reaching out with an email to introduce ourselves and learn more about sponsorship opportunities. In two years, the ZipSprout team has A/B tested 100 different email templates.

With these initial emails, we’re trying to inform without confusing or scaring away potential new partners. Some templates have resulted in local organizations thinking we’re asking them for sponsorship money or that we want to charge them for a service. Oops! A/B tests have helped to find the best wording for clarity and, in turn, response rate.

Here are some of our learnings:

1. Mentioning location matters.

We reached out to almost 1,000 Chicago organizations in the spring of 2017. When we mentioned Chicago in the email, the response rate increased by 20%.

2. Emails sent to organizations who already had sponsorship info on their websites were most successful if the email acknowledged the onsite sponsorship info and asked for confirmation.

These are also our most successful outreach attempts, likely because these organizations are actively looking for sponsors (as signified by having sponsorship info on their site). Further, by demonstrating that we’ve been on their site, we’re signaling a higher level of intent.

3. Whether or not we included an outreacher phone number in email signatures had no effect on response rate.

If anything, response rates were higher for emails with no phone number in signature, at 41% compared with 40.2%.

4. Shorter is better when it comes to outreach emails.

Consider the following two emails:

EMAIL A Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I work to help corporate clients find local sponsorships. We’re an agency that helps our business clients identify and sponsor local organizations like [ORG NAME]. We’re paid by businesses who are looking for local sponsorships. Often, local organizations are overlooked, so my company, ZipSprout, works for businesses who want to sponsor locally, but aren’t sure who to partner with. To that end, I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorship opportunities you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

EMAIL B Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorships you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

In an 800-email test, Email B performed 30% better than Email A.

Matchmaking: How can I choose a sponsorship opportunity that fits my brand?

There are many ways to evaluate potential sponsorships.

These are the questions that help us match organizations with clients:

Who is your brand targeting (women, senior citizens, family-friendly, dog owners, new parents)?

Do you want to tie your brand with a particular cause (eco-friendly, professional associations, awareness foundations, advocacy groups)?

Is your campaign based on location? Are you launching your brand in a particular city? A particular zip code?

What is your total budget and per-sponsorship range? A top max price or a price range is a useful parameter — and perhaps the most important.

Once the campaign goals are determined, we filter through opportunities based partially on their online presence. We look at Domain Authority, location, website aesthetics, and other sponsors (competitors and non-competitors) in addition to Reach Score (details below). Further, we review backlinks, organic traffic, and referring domains. We make sure that this nonprofit partnership is not spammy or funky from an SEO perspective and that is a frequently visited website. A small organization may not have all the juicy digital metrics, but by gauging event attendance or measuring organic traffic we can further identify solid prospects that could have been missed otherwise. We also look at social media presence; event attendance, event dates and how responsive these organizations or event organizers are. Responsiveness, we have learned, is a CRITICAL variable. It can be the determining point of your link going live in 48 hours or less, as opposed to 6+ months from payment.

Reach Score

From a numbers perspective, Domain Authority is a good way to appreciate the value of a website, but it doesn’t tell the whole story when it comes to local marketing. To help fill in the gaps we created Reach Score, which combines virtual measures (like Domain Authority) with social measures (friends/followers) and physical measures (event attendance). The score ranks entities based on their metro area, so we’re not comparing the reach of an organization in Louisville, KY to one in NYC.

As of March 2018, we have about 8,000 organizations with valid Reach Scores across four metro areas — Raleigh/Durham, Boston, Houston, and Chicago. The average Reach Score is 37 out of 100. Of the 34 types of organizations that we track, the most common is Event Venue/Company (average Reach Score of 38), followed by Advocacy Groups (43) and Sports Teams/Clubs/Leagues (22). The types of organizations with the highest Reach Scores are Local Government (64), Museums (63), and Parks and Recreation (55). Thanks to Reach Score, we’ve found differences between organizations from city to city as well. In Raleigh-Durham, the entities with the highest reach tend to be government-related organizations, such as Chambers of Commerce and Parks & Rec Departments.

In Boston, the highest reach tends to fall to arts organizations, such as music ensembles, as well as professional associations. This score serves as a good reminder that each metro area has a unique community of local organizations. (Read more about our Reach Score findings here.)

Fulfillment

Our campaigns used to take several months to complete, from contract to final sponsorship. Now our average fulfillment rate is 18.7 days, regardless of our project size! Staying (politely) on top of the communication with the nonprofit organizations was the main driver for this improvement.

We find further that the first 48 hours from sending a notification of sponsorship on behalf of your brand are crucial to speedy campaigns. Be ready to award the sponsorship funds in a timely manner and follow up with a phone call or an email, checking in to see if these funds have been received.

It's okay to ask when can you expect the sponsorship digital benefits to go live and how to streamline the process for any other deliverables needed to complete the sponsorship.

Applying these simple best practices, our team has been able to run a campaign in a week or less.

Two important concepts to remember about the sponsorship channel from the fulfillment perspective:

It’s difficult to fulfill. If your city project involves any more than two or three sponsorships, you're in for multiple hours of follow ups, reminders, phone calls, etc. There is the desire from most local organizations to honor their sponsors and keep them happy. That said, we've learned that keeping the momentum going serves as an important reminder for the nonprofit. This can involve phone call reminders and emails for links to go live and other benefits to come through. Again, be polite and respectful.

It’s SO worth all the effort though! It shows that your brand cares. A sponsorship campaign is a fantastic way to get in front of your target audience in areas that have a special meaning at a personal level. And not in a broad general scope, but locally. Locally sponsoring a beach cleanup in Santa Monica gives you the opportunity to impact a highly localized audience with a very particular cause in mind that would ultimately affect their everyday life, as opposed to partnering with a huge foundation advocating for clean oceans.

Enhancing a local campaign

Some prefer to use local sponsorships as a link building effort, but there are ways — and ample benefit — to going far beyond the link.

Local event attendance

So, so many local sponsorship campaigns come with the opportunity for event attendance. We currently have 11,345 opportunities in our database (62.2% of our total inventory) that feature events: 5Ks, galas, performances, parades, and even a rubber ducky derby or two! If you’re able to send local team members, find opportunities that match your target audience and test it out — and bring your camera so your social and brand team will have material for publication. If local team members aren’t an option, consider working with a notable and ambitious startup such as Field Day, which can send locals out on behalf of your brand. We’ve spoken with them on several occasions and found them adaptable and wonderful to work with.

Coupons/invitations

One client, FunBrands, used local sponsorships as a way to reach out to locals ahead of stores’ grand re-openings (read the full case study here).

For another client, we created unique coupons for each local organization, using print and social media posts for distribution.

An example coupon — use codes to track attribution back to an event.

Conclusion: Local sponsorships are a channel

Sponsorships are an actionable strategy that contribute to your local rankings, while providing unprecedented opportunities for community engagement and neighborly branding. We hope that this updated guide will provide a strong operational overview along with realistic expectations — and even inspirations — for a local sponsorship campaign in your target cities.

Last but not least: As with all outreach campaigns, please remember to be human. Keep in mind that local engagements are the living extension of your brand in the real world. And if somehow this article wasn’t enough, we just finished up The Local Sponsorship Playbook. Every purchase comes with a 30-minute consultation with the author. We hope everyone chooses to get out, get local, and join the community in the channel that truly benefits everyone.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2pZ2a74

[fairchildlingpo1]

The Guide to Local Sponsorship Marketing - The 2018 Edition

Posted by Claudia0428

For most Moz readers, local marketing means content, reviews, AdWords, local listings, and of course citations. If you’re a larger brand, you might be doing outdoor, radio, print, and television advertising as well. Today we’re here to humbly submit that local sponsorships remain the most-overlooked and opportunity-rich channel, and they build real local connections for both large brands and small business alike.

This article is the second edition of the ZipSprout team’s guide to local sponsorships. We wrote the first edition in 2016 after a few months of securing local sponsorship campaigns for a handful of clients. Since then, we’ve tripled our client roster and we’ve worked with more than 8,000 local organizations, donating nearly $1,000,000 in local sponsorships to 1,300+ opportunities. Since then we’ve also learned how to build campaigns for local presence. So we knew the guide was due for a reboot. One of our most significant learnings of the past two years is the understanding of local sponsorships as a channel in their own right. They can be directed toward local SEO or local marketing campaigns, but sponsorships are their own breed of local connection — and just like content campaigns, local PR campaigns, or review management, local sponsorships have their own set of conventions and best practices.

This article is meant for anyone with an eye toward local sponsorships as a marketing channel. Agencies and enterprise organizations may find it particularly helpful, but we’re big believers in encouraging smaller local businesses to engage in sponsorships too. Get out there and meet your neighbors!

The what & why of local sponsorships

Local events, nonprofits, and associations constitute a disjointed but very real network of opportunities. Unlike other channels, local sponsorships aren’t accessible from a single platform, but we’ve found that many sponsorships share similarities. This makes it possible to develop processes that work for campaigns in any metro area.

Local sponsorships are also a unique channel in that the benefits can range from the digital to the analog: from local links to a booth, from social posts to signage on a soccer field. The common thread is joining the community by partnering with local organizations, but the benefits themselves vary widely. We’ve identified and track 24 unique benefits of sponsorships related to local marketing:

Ad (full or partial)

Advertising on event app

Blog post featuring sponsor

Booth, tent, or table at event

Event named for sponsor

Guest post on organization blog

Inclusion in press release

Link in email newsletter

Link on website

Logo on event t-shirt or other swag

Logo on signage

Logo or name on website

Media spots (television/radio/newspaper)

Mention in email newsletter

Mention in publicity materials, such as programs & other printed materials

Networking opportunity

Physical thing (building, etc.) named for sponsor

Social media mention

Speaking opportunity at event

Sponsor & sponsor's employees receive discounts on services/products/events

Sponsor can donate merchandise for goodie bags

Sponsored post (on blog or online magazine)

Tickets to event

Verbal recognition

There are probably more, but in our experience most benefits fall into these core categories. That said, these benefits aren’t necessarily for everyone...

Who shouldn’t do local sponsorships?1. Don’t do local sponsorships if you need fast turnaround.

Campaigns can take 1–3 months from launch until fulfillment. If you’re in a hurry to see a return, just increase your search ad budget.

2. Don’t do local sponsorships if you’re not okay with the branding component.

Local link building can certainly be measured, as can coupon usage, email addresses gathered for a drawing, etc… But measuring local brand lift still isn’t a perfect art form. Leave pure attribution to digital ads.

3. Don’t do local sponsorships with a "one size fits all" expectation.

The great thing about local events and opportunities is their diversity. While some components can be scaled, others require high touch outreach, more similar to a PR campaign.

Considerations for agencies vs brands in local sponsorship campaigns

Agencies, especially if they’re creating sponsorship campaigns for multiple clients, can cast a wide net and select from the best opportunities that return. Even if a potential partnership isn’t a good fit for a current client, they may work for a client down the road. Brands, on the other hand, need to be a little more goal and mission-focused during prospecting and outreach. If they’re reaching out to organizations that are clearly a bad fit, they’re wasting everyone’s time.

Brands also need to be more careful because they have a consumer-facing image to protect. As with any outreach campaign, there are dos and don’ts and best practices that all should follow (DO be respectful; DON’T over-email), but brands especially have more to lose from an outreach faux pas.

Our processOutreach

Once we’ve identified local organizations in a given metro area, we recommend reaching out with an email to introduce ourselves and learn more about sponsorship opportunities. In two years, the ZipSprout team has A/B tested 100 different email templates.

With these initial emails, we’re trying to inform without confusing or scaring away potential new partners. Some templates have resulted in local organizations thinking we’re asking them for sponsorship money or that we want to charge them for a service. Oops! A/B tests have helped to find the best wording for clarity and, in turn, response rate.

Here are some of our learnings:

1. Mentioning location matters.

We reached out to almost 1,000 Chicago organizations in the spring of 2017. When we mentioned Chicago in the email, the response rate increased by 20%.

2. Emails sent to organizations who already had sponsorship info on their websites were most successful if the email acknowledged the onsite sponsorship info and asked for confirmation.

These are also our most successful outreach attempts, likely because these organizations are actively looking for sponsors (as signified by having sponsorship info on their site). Further, by demonstrating that we’ve been on their site, we’re signaling a higher level of intent.

3. Whether or not we included an outreacher phone number in email signatures had no effect on response rate.

If anything, response rates were higher for emails with no phone number in signature, at 41% compared with 40.2%.

4. Shorter is better when it comes to outreach emails.

Consider the following two emails:

EMAIL A Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I work to help corporate clients find local sponsorships. We’re an agency that helps our business clients identify and sponsor local organizations like [ORG NAME]. We’re paid by businesses who are looking for local sponsorships. Often, local organizations are overlooked, so my company, ZipSprout, works for businesses who want to sponsor locally, but aren’t sure who to partner with. To that end, I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorship opportunities you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

EMAIL B Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorships you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

In an 800-email test, Email B performed 30% better than Email A.

Matchmaking: How can I choose a sponsorship opportunity that fits my brand?

There are many ways to evaluate potential sponsorships.

These are the questions that help us match organizations with clients:

Who is your brand targeting (women, senior citizens, family-friendly, dog owners, new parents)?

Do you want to tie your brand with a particular cause (eco-friendly, professional associations, awareness foundations, advocacy groups)?

Is your campaign based on location? Are you launching your brand in a particular city? A particular zip code?

What is your total budget and per-sponsorship range? A top max price or a price range is a useful parameter — and perhaps the most important.

Once the campaign goals are determined, we filter through opportunities based partially on their online presence. We look at Domain Authority, location, website aesthetics, and other sponsors (competitors and non-competitors) in addition to Reach Score (details below). Further, we review backlinks, organic traffic, and referring domains. We make sure that this nonprofit partnership is not spammy or funky from an SEO perspective and that is a frequently visited website. A small organization may not have all the juicy digital metrics, but by gauging event attendance or measuring organic traffic we can further identify solid prospects that could have been missed otherwise. We also look at social media presence; event attendance, event dates and how responsive these organizations or event organizers are. Responsiveness, we have learned, is a CRITICAL variable. It can be the determining point of your link going live in 48 hours or less, as opposed to 6+ months from payment.

Reach Score

From a numbers perspective, Domain Authority is a good way to appreciate the value of a website, but it doesn’t tell the whole story when it comes to local marketing. To help fill in the gaps we created Reach Score, which combines virtual measures (like Domain Authority) with social measures (friends/followers) and physical measures (event attendance). The score ranks entities based on their metro area, so we’re not comparing the reach of an organization in Louisville, KY to one in NYC.

As of March 2018, we have about 8,000 organizations with valid Reach Scores across four metro areas — Raleigh/Durham, Boston, Houston, and Chicago. The average Reach Score is 37 out of 100. Of the 34 types of organizations that we track, the most common is Event Venue/Company (average Reach Score of 38), followed by Advocacy Groups (43) and Sports Teams/Clubs/Leagues (22). The types of organizations with the highest Reach Scores are Local Government (64), Museums (63), and Parks and Recreation (55). Thanks to Reach Score, we’ve found differences between organizations from city to city as well. In Raleigh-Durham, the entities with the highest reach tend to be government-related organizations, such as Chambers of Commerce and Parks & Rec Departments.

In Boston, the highest reach tends to fall to arts organizations, such as music ensembles, as well as professional associations. This score serves as a good reminder that each metro area has a unique community of local organizations. (Read more about our Reach Score findings here.)

Fulfillment

Our campaigns used to take several months to complete, from contract to final sponsorship. Now our average fulfillment rate is 18.7 days, regardless of our project size! Staying (politely) on top of the communication with the nonprofit organizations was the main driver for this improvement.

We find further that the first 48 hours from sending a notification of sponsorship on behalf of your brand are crucial to speedy campaigns. Be ready to award the sponsorship funds in a timely manner and follow up with a phone call or an email, checking in to see if these funds have been received.

It's okay to ask when can you expect the sponsorship digital benefits to go live and how to streamline the process for any other deliverables needed to complete the sponsorship.

Applying these simple best practices, our team has been able to run a campaign in a week or less.

Two important concepts to remember about the sponsorship channel from the fulfillment perspective:

It’s difficult to fulfill. If your city project involves any more than two or three sponsorships, you're in for multiple hours of follow ups, reminders, phone calls, etc. There is the desire from most local organizations to honor their sponsors and keep them happy. That said, we've learned that keeping the momentum going serves as an important reminder for the nonprofit. This can involve phone call reminders and emails for links to go live and other benefits to come through. Again, be polite and respectful.

It’s SO worth all the effort though! It shows that your brand cares. A sponsorship campaign is a fantastic way to get in front of your target audience in areas that have a special meaning at a personal level. And not in a broad general scope, but locally. Locally sponsoring a beach cleanup in Santa Monica gives you the opportunity to impact a highly localized audience with a very particular cause in mind that would ultimately affect their everyday life, as opposed to partnering with a huge foundation advocating for clean oceans.

Enhancing a local campaign

Some prefer to use local sponsorships as a link building effort, but there are ways — and ample benefit — to going far beyond the link.

Local event attendance

So, so many local sponsorship campaigns come with the opportunity for event attendance. We currently have 11,345 opportunities in our database (62.2% of our total inventory) that feature events: 5Ks, galas, performances, parades, and even a rubber ducky derby or two! If you’re able to send local team members, find opportunities that match your target audience and test it out — and bring your camera so your social and brand team will have material for publication. If local team members aren’t an option, consider working with a notable and ambitious startup such as Field Day, which can send locals out on behalf of your brand. We’ve spoken with them on several occasions and found them adaptable and wonderful to work with.

Coupons/invitations

One client, FunBrands, used local sponsorships as a way to reach out to locals ahead of stores’ grand re-openings (read the full case study here).

For another client, we created unique coupons for each local organization, using print and social media posts for distribution.

An example coupon — use codes to track attribution back to an event.

Conclusion: Local sponsorships are a channel

Sponsorships are an actionable strategy that contribute to your local rankings, while providing unprecedented opportunities for community engagement and neighborly branding. We hope that this updated guide will provide a strong operational overview along with realistic expectations — and even inspirations — for a local sponsorship campaign in your target cities.

Last but not least: As with all outreach campaigns, please remember to be human. Keep in mind that local engagements are the living extension of your brand in the real world. And if somehow this article wasn’t enough, we just finished up The Local Sponsorship Playbook. Every purchase comes with a 30-minute consultation with the author. We hope everyone chooses to get out, get local, and join the community in the channel that truly benefits everyone.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2pZ2a74

[mariasolemarionqi]

The Guide to Local Sponsorship Marketing - The 2018 Edition

Posted by Claudia0428

For most Moz readers, local marketing means content, reviews, AdWords, local listings, and of course citations. If you’re a larger brand, you might be doing outdoor, radio, print, and television advertising as well. Today we’re here to humbly submit that local sponsorships remain the most-overlooked and opportunity-rich channel, and they build real local connections for both large brands and small business alike.

This article is the second edition of the ZipSprout team’s guide to local sponsorships. We wrote the first edition in 2016 after a few months of securing local sponsorship campaigns for a handful of clients. Since then, we’ve tripled our client roster and we’ve worked with more than 8,000 local organizations, donating nearly $1,000,000 in local sponsorships to 1,300+ opportunities. Since then we’ve also learned how to build campaigns for local presence. So we knew the guide was due for a reboot. One of our most significant learnings of the past two years is the understanding of local sponsorships as a channel in their own right. They can be directed toward local SEO or local marketing campaigns, but sponsorships are their own breed of local connection — and just like content campaigns, local PR campaigns, or review management, local sponsorships have their own set of conventions and best practices.

This article is meant for anyone with an eye toward local sponsorships as a marketing channel. Agencies and enterprise organizations may find it particularly helpful, but we’re big believers in encouraging smaller local businesses to engage in sponsorships too. Get out there and meet your neighbors!

The what & why of local sponsorships

Local events, nonprofits, and associations constitute a disjointed but very real network of opportunities. Unlike other channels, local sponsorships aren’t accessible from a single platform, but we’ve found that many sponsorships share similarities. This makes it possible to develop processes that work for campaigns in any metro area.

Local sponsorships are also a unique channel in that the benefits can range from the digital to the analog: from local links to a booth, from social posts to signage on a soccer field. The common thread is joining the community by partnering with local organizations, but the benefits themselves vary widely. We’ve identified and track 24 unique benefits of sponsorships related to local marketing:

Ad (full or partial)

Advertising on event app

Blog post featuring sponsor

Booth, tent, or table at event

Event named for sponsor

Guest post on organization blog

Inclusion in press release

Link in email newsletter

Link on website

Logo on event t-shirt or other swag

Logo on signage

Logo or name on website

Media spots (television/radio/newspaper)

Mention in email newsletter

Mention in publicity materials, such as programs & other printed materials

Networking opportunity

Physical thing (building, etc.) named for sponsor

Social media mention

Speaking opportunity at event

Sponsor & sponsor's employees receive discounts on services/products/events

Sponsor can donate merchandise for goodie bags

Sponsored post (on blog or online magazine)

Tickets to event

Verbal recognition

There are probably more, but in our experience most benefits fall into these core categories. That said, these benefits aren’t necessarily for everyone...

Who shouldn’t do local sponsorships?1. Don’t do local sponsorships if you need fast turnaround.

Campaigns can take 1–3 months from launch until fulfillment. If you’re in a hurry to see a return, just increase your search ad budget.

2. Don’t do local sponsorships if you’re not okay with the branding component.

Local link building can certainly be measured, as can coupon usage, email addresses gathered for a drawing, etc… But measuring local brand lift still isn’t a perfect art form. Leave pure attribution to digital ads.

3. Don’t do local sponsorships with a "one size fits all" expectation.

The great thing about local events and opportunities is their diversity. While some components can be scaled, others require high touch outreach, more similar to a PR campaign.

Considerations for agencies vs brands in local sponsorship campaigns

Agencies, especially if they’re creating sponsorship campaigns for multiple clients, can cast a wide net and select from the best opportunities that return. Even if a potential partnership isn’t a good fit for a current client, they may work for a client down the road. Brands, on the other hand, need to be a little more goal and mission-focused during prospecting and outreach. If they’re reaching out to organizations that are clearly a bad fit, they’re wasting everyone’s time.

Brands also need to be more careful because they have a consumer-facing image to protect. As with any outreach campaign, there are dos and don’ts and best practices that all should follow (DO be respectful; DON’T over-email), but brands especially have more to lose from an outreach faux pas.

Our processOutreach

Once we’ve identified local organizations in a given metro area, we recommend reaching out with an email to introduce ourselves and learn more about sponsorship opportunities. In two years, the ZipSprout team has A/B tested 100 different email templates.

With these initial emails, we’re trying to inform without confusing or scaring away potential new partners. Some templates have resulted in local organizations thinking we’re asking them for sponsorship money or that we want to charge them for a service. Oops! A/B tests have helped to find the best wording for clarity and, in turn, response rate.

Here are some of our learnings:

1. Mentioning location matters.

We reached out to almost 1,000 Chicago organizations in the spring of 2017. When we mentioned Chicago in the email, the response rate increased by 20%.

2. Emails sent to organizations who already had sponsorship info on their websites were most successful if the email acknowledged the onsite sponsorship info and asked for confirmation.

These are also our most successful outreach attempts, likely because these organizations are actively looking for sponsors (as signified by having sponsorship info on their site). Further, by demonstrating that we’ve been on their site, we’re signaling a higher level of intent.

3. Whether or not we included an outreacher phone number in email signatures had no effect on response rate.

If anything, response rates were higher for emails with no phone number in signature, at 41% compared with 40.2%.

4. Shorter is better when it comes to outreach emails.

Consider the following two emails:

EMAIL A Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I work to help corporate clients find local sponsorships. We’re an agency that helps our business clients identify and sponsor local organizations like [ORG NAME]. We’re paid by businesses who are looking for local sponsorships. Often, local organizations are overlooked, so my company, ZipSprout, works for businesses who want to sponsor locally, but aren’t sure who to partner with. To that end, I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorship opportunities you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

EMAIL B Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorships you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

In an 800-email test, Email B performed 30% better than Email A.

Matchmaking: How can I choose a sponsorship opportunity that fits my brand?

There are many ways to evaluate potential sponsorships.

These are the questions that help us match organizations with clients:

Who is your brand targeting (women, senior citizens, family-friendly, dog owners, new parents)?

Do you want to tie your brand with a particular cause (eco-friendly, professional associations, awareness foundations, advocacy groups)?

Is your campaign based on location? Are you launching your brand in a particular city? A particular zip code?

What is your total budget and per-sponsorship range? A top max price or a price range is a useful parameter — and perhaps the most important.

Once the campaign goals are determined, we filter through opportunities based partially on their online presence. We look at Domain Authority, location, website aesthetics, and other sponsors (competitors and non-competitors) in addition to Reach Score (details below). Further, we review backlinks, organic traffic, and referring domains. We make sure that this nonprofit partnership is not spammy or funky from an SEO perspective and that is a frequently visited website. A small organization may not have all the juicy digital metrics, but by gauging event attendance or measuring organic traffic we can further identify solid prospects that could have been missed otherwise. We also look at social media presence; event attendance, event dates and how responsive these organizations or event organizers are. Responsiveness, we have learned, is a CRITICAL variable. It can be the determining point of your link going live in 48 hours or less, as opposed to 6+ months from payment.

Reach Score

From a numbers perspective, Domain Authority is a good way to appreciate the value of a website, but it doesn’t tell the whole story when it comes to local marketing. To help fill in the gaps we created Reach Score, which combines virtual measures (like Domain Authority) with social measures (friends/followers) and physical measures (event attendance). The score ranks entities based on their metro area, so we’re not comparing the reach of an organization in Louisville, KY to one in NYC.

As of March 2018, we have about 8,000 organizations with valid Reach Scores across four metro areas — Raleigh/Durham, Boston, Houston, and Chicago. The average Reach Score is 37 out of 100. Of the 34 types of organizations that we track, the most common is Event Venue/Company (average Reach Score of 38), followed by Advocacy Groups (43) and Sports Teams/Clubs/Leagues (22). The types of organizations with the highest Reach Scores are Local Government (64), Museums (63), and Parks and Recreation (55). Thanks to Reach Score, we’ve found differences between organizations from city to city as well. In Raleigh-Durham, the entities with the highest reach tend to be government-related organizations, such as Chambers of Commerce and Parks & Rec Departments.

In Boston, the highest reach tends to fall to arts organizations, such as music ensembles, as well as professional associations. This score serves as a good reminder that each metro area has a unique community of local organizations. (Read more about our Reach Score findings here.)

Fulfillment

Our campaigns used to take several months to complete, from contract to final sponsorship. Now our average fulfillment rate is 18.7 days, regardless of our project size! Staying (politely) on top of the communication with the nonprofit organizations was the main driver for this improvement.

We find further that the first 48 hours from sending a notification of sponsorship on behalf of your brand are crucial to speedy campaigns. Be ready to award the sponsorship funds in a timely manner and follow up with a phone call or an email, checking in to see if these funds have been received.

It's okay to ask when can you expect the sponsorship digital benefits to go live and how to streamline the process for any other deliverables needed to complete the sponsorship.

Applying these simple best practices, our team has been able to run a campaign in a week or less.

Two important concepts to remember about the sponsorship channel from the fulfillment perspective:

It’s difficult to fulfill. If your city project involves any more than two or three sponsorships, you're in for multiple hours of follow ups, reminders, phone calls, etc. There is the desire from most local organizations to honor their sponsors and keep them happy. That said, we've learned that keeping the momentum going serves as an important reminder for the nonprofit. This can involve phone call reminders and emails for links to go live and other benefits to come through. Again, be polite and respectful.

It’s SO worth all the effort though! It shows that your brand cares. A sponsorship campaign is a fantastic way to get in front of your target audience in areas that have a special meaning at a personal level. And not in a broad general scope, but locally. Locally sponsoring a beach cleanup in Santa Monica gives you the opportunity to impact a highly localized audience with a very particular cause in mind that would ultimately affect their everyday life, as opposed to partnering with a huge foundation advocating for clean oceans.

Enhancing a local campaign

Some prefer to use local sponsorships as a link building effort, but there are ways — and ample benefit — to going far beyond the link.

Local event attendance

So, so many local sponsorship campaigns come with the opportunity for event attendance. We currently have 11,345 opportunities in our database (62.2% of our total inventory) that feature events: 5Ks, galas, performances, parades, and even a rubber ducky derby or two! If you’re able to send local team members, find opportunities that match your target audience and test it out — and bring your camera so your social and brand team will have material for publication. If local team members aren’t an option, consider working with a notable and ambitious startup such as Field Day, which can send locals out on behalf of your brand. We’ve spoken with them on several occasions and found them adaptable and wonderful to work with.

Coupons/invitations

One client, FunBrands, used local sponsorships as a way to reach out to locals ahead of stores’ grand re-openings (read the full case study here).

For another client, we created unique coupons for each local organization, using print and social media posts for distribution.

An example coupon — use codes to track attribution back to an event.

Conclusion: Local sponsorships are a channel

Sponsorships are an actionable strategy that contribute to your local rankings, while providing unprecedented opportunities for community engagement and neighborly branding. We hope that this updated guide will provide a strong operational overview along with realistic expectations — and even inspirations — for a local sponsorship campaign in your target cities.

Last but not least: As with all outreach campaigns, please remember to be human. Keep in mind that local engagements are the living extension of your brand in the real world. And if somehow this article wasn’t enough, we just finished up The Local Sponsorship Playbook. Every purchase comes with a 30-minute consultation with the author. We hope everyone chooses to get out, get local, and join the community in the channel that truly benefits everyone.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2pZ2a74

[christinesumpmg]

The Guide to Local Sponsorship Marketing - The 2018 Edition

Posted by Claudia0428

For most Moz readers, local marketing means content, reviews, AdWords, local listings, and of course citations. If you’re a larger brand, you might be doing outdoor, radio, print, and television advertising as well. Today we’re here to humbly submit that local sponsorships remain the most-overlooked and opportunity-rich channel, and they build real local connections for both large brands and small business alike.

This article is the second edition of the ZipSprout team’s guide to local sponsorships. We wrote the first edition in 2016 after a few months of securing local sponsorship campaigns for a handful of clients. Since then, we’ve tripled our client roster and we’ve worked with more than 8,000 local organizations, donating nearly $1,000,000 in local sponsorships to 1,300+ opportunities. Since then we’ve also learned how to build campaigns for local presence. So we knew the guide was due for a reboot. One of our most significant learnings of the past two years is the understanding of local sponsorships as a channel in their own right. They can be directed toward local SEO or local marketing campaigns, but sponsorships are their own breed of local connection — and just like content campaigns, local PR campaigns, or review management, local sponsorships have their own set of conventions and best practices.

This article is meant for anyone with an eye toward local sponsorships as a marketing channel. Agencies and enterprise organizations may find it particularly helpful, but we’re big believers in encouraging smaller local businesses to engage in sponsorships too. Get out there and meet your neighbors!

The what & why of local sponsorships

Local events, nonprofits, and associations constitute a disjointed but very real network of opportunities. Unlike other channels, local sponsorships aren’t accessible from a single platform, but we’ve found that many sponsorships share similarities. This makes it possible to develop processes that work for campaigns in any metro area.

Local sponsorships are also a unique channel in that the benefits can range from the digital to the analog: from local links to a booth, from social posts to signage on a soccer field. The common thread is joining the community by partnering with local organizations, but the benefits themselves vary widely. We’ve identified and track 24 unique benefits of sponsorships related to local marketing:

Ad (full or partial)

Advertising on event app

Blog post featuring sponsor

Booth, tent, or table at event

Event named for sponsor

Guest post on organization blog

Inclusion in press release

Link in email newsletter

Link on website

Logo on event t-shirt or other swag

Logo on signage

Logo or name on website

Media spots (television/radio/newspaper)

Mention in email newsletter

Mention in publicity materials, such as programs & other printed materials

Networking opportunity

Physical thing (building, etc.) named for sponsor

Social media mention

Speaking opportunity at event

Sponsor & sponsor's employees receive discounts on services/products/events

Sponsor can donate merchandise for goodie bags

Sponsored post (on blog or online magazine)

Tickets to event

Verbal recognition

There are probably more, but in our experience most benefits fall into these core categories. That said, these benefits aren’t necessarily for everyone...

Who shouldn’t do local sponsorships?1. Don’t do local sponsorships if you need fast turnaround.

Campaigns can take 1–3 months from launch until fulfillment. If you’re in a hurry to see a return, just increase your search ad budget.

2. Don’t do local sponsorships if you’re not okay with the branding component.

Local link building can certainly be measured, as can coupon usage, email addresses gathered for a drawing, etc… But measuring local brand lift still isn’t a perfect art form. Leave pure attribution to digital ads.

3. Don’t do local sponsorships with a "one size fits all" expectation.

The great thing about local events and opportunities is their diversity. While some components can be scaled, others require high touch outreach, more similar to a PR campaign.

Considerations for agencies vs brands in local sponsorship campaigns

Agencies, especially if they’re creating sponsorship campaigns for multiple clients, can cast a wide net and select from the best opportunities that return. Even if a potential partnership isn’t a good fit for a current client, they may work for a client down the road. Brands, on the other hand, need to be a little more goal and mission-focused during prospecting and outreach. If they’re reaching out to organizations that are clearly a bad fit, they’re wasting everyone’s time.

Brands also need to be more careful because they have a consumer-facing image to protect. As with any outreach campaign, there are dos and don’ts and best practices that all should follow (DO be respectful; DON’T over-email), but brands especially have more to lose from an outreach faux pas.

Our processOutreach

Once we’ve identified local organizations in a given metro area, we recommend reaching out with an email to introduce ourselves and learn more about sponsorship opportunities. In two years, the ZipSprout team has A/B tested 100 different email templates.

With these initial emails, we’re trying to inform without confusing or scaring away potential new partners. Some templates have resulted in local organizations thinking we’re asking them for sponsorship money or that we want to charge them for a service. Oops! A/B tests have helped to find the best wording for clarity and, in turn, response rate.

Here are some of our learnings:

1. Mentioning location matters.

We reached out to almost 1,000 Chicago organizations in the spring of 2017. When we mentioned Chicago in the email, the response rate increased by 20%.

2. Emails sent to organizations who already had sponsorship info on their websites were most successful if the email acknowledged the onsite sponsorship info and asked for confirmation.

These are also our most successful outreach attempts, likely because these organizations are actively looking for sponsors (as signified by having sponsorship info on their site). Further, by demonstrating that we’ve been on their site, we’re signaling a higher level of intent.

3. Whether or not we included an outreacher phone number in email signatures had no effect on response rate.

If anything, response rates were higher for emails with no phone number in signature, at 41% compared with 40.2%.

4. Shorter is better when it comes to outreach emails.

Consider the following two emails:

EMAIL A Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I work to help corporate clients find local sponsorships. We’re an agency that helps our business clients identify and sponsor local organizations like [ORG NAME]. We’re paid by businesses who are looking for local sponsorships. Often, local organizations are overlooked, so my company, ZipSprout, works for businesses who want to sponsor locally, but aren’t sure who to partner with. To that end, I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorship opportunities you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

EMAIL B Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorships you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

In an 800-email test, Email B performed 30% better than Email A.

Matchmaking: How can I choose a sponsorship opportunity that fits my brand?

There are many ways to evaluate potential sponsorships.

These are the questions that help us match organizations with clients:

Who is your brand targeting (women, senior citizens, family-friendly, dog owners, new parents)?

Do you want to tie your brand with a particular cause (eco-friendly, professional associations, awareness foundations, advocacy groups)?

Is your campaign based on location? Are you launching your brand in a particular city? A particular zip code?

What is your total budget and per-sponsorship range? A top max price or a price range is a useful parameter — and perhaps the most important.

Once the campaign goals are determined, we filter through opportunities based partially on their online presence. We look at Domain Authority, location, website aesthetics, and other sponsors (competitors and non-competitors) in addition to Reach Score (details below). Further, we review backlinks, organic traffic, and referring domains. We make sure that this nonprofit partnership is not spammy or funky from an SEO perspective and that is a frequently visited website. A small organization may not have all the juicy digital metrics, but by gauging event attendance or measuring organic traffic we can further identify solid prospects that could have been missed otherwise. We also look at social media presence; event attendance, event dates and how responsive these organizations or event organizers are. Responsiveness, we have learned, is a CRITICAL variable. It can be the determining point of your link going live in 48 hours or less, as opposed to 6+ months from payment.

Reach Score

From a numbers perspective, Domain Authority is a good way to appreciate the value of a website, but it doesn’t tell the whole story when it comes to local marketing. To help fill in the gaps we created Reach Score, which combines virtual measures (like Domain Authority) with social measures (friends/followers) and physical measures (event attendance). The score ranks entities based on their metro area, so we’re not comparing the reach of an organization in Louisville, KY to one in NYC.

As of March 2018, we have about 8,000 organizations with valid Reach Scores across four metro areas — Raleigh/Durham, Boston, Houston, and Chicago. The average Reach Score is 37 out of 100. Of the 34 types of organizations that we track, the most common is Event Venue/Company (average Reach Score of 38), followed by Advocacy Groups (43) and Sports Teams/Clubs/Leagues (22). The types of organizations with the highest Reach Scores are Local Government (64), Museums (63), and Parks and Recreation (55). Thanks to Reach Score, we’ve found differences between organizations from city to city as well. In Raleigh-Durham, the entities with the highest reach tend to be government-related organizations, such as Chambers of Commerce and Parks & Rec Departments.

In Boston, the highest reach tends to fall to arts organizations, such as music ensembles, as well as professional associations. This score serves as a good reminder that each metro area has a unique community of local organizations. (Read more about our Reach Score findings here.)

Fulfillment

Our campaigns used to take several months to complete, from contract to final sponsorship. Now our average fulfillment rate is 18.7 days, regardless of our project size! Staying (politely) on top of the communication with the nonprofit organizations was the main driver for this improvement.

We find further that the first 48 hours from sending a notification of sponsorship on behalf of your brand are crucial to speedy campaigns. Be ready to award the sponsorship funds in a timely manner and follow up with a phone call or an email, checking in to see if these funds have been received.

It's okay to ask when can you expect the sponsorship digital benefits to go live and how to streamline the process for any other deliverables needed to complete the sponsorship.

Applying these simple best practices, our team has been able to run a campaign in a week or less.

Two important concepts to remember about the sponsorship channel from the fulfillment perspective:

It’s difficult to fulfill. If your city project involves any more than two or three sponsorships, you're in for multiple hours of follow ups, reminders, phone calls, etc. There is the desire from most local organizations to honor their sponsors and keep them happy. That said, we've learned that keeping the momentum going serves as an important reminder for the nonprofit. This can involve phone call reminders and emails for links to go live and other benefits to come through. Again, be polite and respectful.

It’s SO worth all the effort though! It shows that your brand cares. A sponsorship campaign is a fantastic way to get in front of your target audience in areas that have a special meaning at a personal level. And not in a broad general scope, but locally. Locally sponsoring a beach cleanup in Santa Monica gives you the opportunity to impact a highly localized audience with a very particular cause in mind that would ultimately affect their everyday life, as opposed to partnering with a huge foundation advocating for clean oceans.

Enhancing a local campaign

Some prefer to use local sponsorships as a link building effort, but there are ways — and ample benefit — to going far beyond the link.

Local event attendance

So, so many local sponsorship campaigns come with the opportunity for event attendance. We currently have 11,345 opportunities in our database (62.2% of our total inventory) that feature events: 5Ks, galas, performances, parades, and even a rubber ducky derby or two! If you’re able to send local team members, find opportunities that match your target audience and test it out — and bring your camera so your social and brand team will have material for publication. If local team members aren’t an option, consider working with a notable and ambitious startup such as Field Day, which can send locals out on behalf of your brand. We’ve spoken with them on several occasions and found them adaptable and wonderful to work with.

Coupons/invitations

One client, FunBrands, used local sponsorships as a way to reach out to locals ahead of stores’ grand re-openings (read the full case study here).

For another client, we created unique coupons for each local organization, using print and social media posts for distribution.

An example coupon — use codes to track attribution back to an event.

Conclusion: Local sponsorships are a channel

Sponsorships are an actionable strategy that contribute to your local rankings, while providing unprecedented opportunities for community engagement and neighborly branding. We hope that this updated guide will provide a strong operational overview along with realistic expectations — and even inspirations — for a local sponsorship campaign in your target cities.

Last but not least: As with all outreach campaigns, please remember to be human. Keep in mind that local engagements are the living extension of your brand in the real world. And if somehow this article wasn’t enough, we just finished up The Local Sponsorship Playbook. Every purchase comes with a 30-minute consultation with the author. We hope everyone chooses to get out, get local, and join the community in the channel that truly benefits everyone.

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

https://ift.tt/2pZ2a74

[kraussoutene]

The Guide to Local Sponsorship Marketing - The 2018 Edition

Posted by Claudia0428

For most Moz readers, local marketing means content, reviews, AdWords, local listings, and of course citations. If you’re a larger brand, you might be doing outdoor, radio, print, and television advertising as well. Today we’re here to humbly submit that local sponsorships remain the most-overlooked and opportunity-rich channel, and they build real local connections for both large brands and small business alike.

This article is the second edition of the ZipSprout team’s guide to local sponsorships. We wrote the first edition in 2016 after a few months of securing local sponsorship campaigns for a handful of clients. Since then, we’ve tripled our client roster and we’ve worked with more than 8,000 local organizations, donating nearly $1,000,000 in local sponsorships to 1,300+ opportunities. Since then we’ve also learned how to build campaigns for local presence. So we knew the guide was due for a reboot. One of our most significant learnings of the past two years is the understanding of local sponsorships as a channel in their own right. They can be directed toward local SEO or local marketing campaigns, but sponsorships are their own breed of local connection — and just like content campaigns, local PR campaigns, or review management, local sponsorships have their own set of conventions and best practices.

This article is meant for anyone with an eye toward local sponsorships as a marketing channel. Agencies and enterprise organizations may find it particularly helpful, but we’re big believers in encouraging smaller local businesses to engage in sponsorships too. Get out there and meet your neighbors!

The what & why of local sponsorships

Local events, nonprofits, and associations constitute a disjointed but very real network of opportunities. Unlike other channels, local sponsorships aren’t accessible from a single platform, but we’ve found that many sponsorships share similarities. This makes it possible to develop processes that work for campaigns in any metro area.

Local sponsorships are also a unique channel in that the benefits can range from the digital to the analog: from local links to a booth, from social posts to signage on a soccer field. The common thread is joining the community by partnering with local organizations, but the benefits themselves vary widely. We’ve identified and track 24 unique benefits of sponsorships related to local marketing:

Ad (full or partial)

Advertising on event app

Blog post featuring sponsor

Booth, tent, or table at event

Event named for sponsor

Guest post on organization blog

Inclusion in press release

Link in email newsletter

Link on website

Logo on event t-shirt or other swag

Logo on signage

Logo or name on website

Media spots (television/radio/newspaper)

Mention in email newsletter

Mention in publicity materials, such as programs & other printed materials

Networking opportunity

Physical thing (building, etc.) named for sponsor

Social media mention

Speaking opportunity at event

Sponsor & sponsor's employees receive discounts on services/products/events

Sponsor can donate merchandise for goodie bags

Sponsored post (on blog or online magazine)

Tickets to event

Verbal recognition

There are probably more, but in our experience most benefits fall into these core categories. That said, these benefits aren’t necessarily for everyone...

Who shouldn’t do local sponsorships?1. Don’t do local sponsorships if you need fast turnaround.

Campaigns can take 1–3 months from launch until fulfillment. If you’re in a hurry to see a return, just increase your search ad budget.

2. Don’t do local sponsorships if you’re not okay with the branding component.

Local link building can certainly be measured, as can coupon usage, email addresses gathered for a drawing, etc… But measuring local brand lift still isn’t a perfect art form. Leave pure attribution to digital ads.

3. Don’t do local sponsorships with a "one size fits all" expectation.

The great thing about local events and opportunities is their diversity. While some components can be scaled, others require high touch outreach, more similar to a PR campaign.

Considerations for agencies vs brands in local sponsorship campaigns

Agencies, especially if they’re creating sponsorship campaigns for multiple clients, can cast a wide net and select from the best opportunities that return. Even if a potential partnership isn’t a good fit for a current client, they may work for a client down the road. Brands, on the other hand, need to be a little more goal and mission-focused during prospecting and outreach. If they’re reaching out to organizations that are clearly a bad fit, they’re wasting everyone’s time.

Brands also need to be more careful because they have a consumer-facing image to protect. As with any outreach campaign, there are dos and don’ts and best practices that all should follow (DO be respectful; DON’T over-email), but brands especially have more to lose from an outreach faux pas.

Our processOutreach

Once we’ve identified local organizations in a given metro area, we recommend reaching out with an email to introduce ourselves and learn more about sponsorship opportunities. In two years, the ZipSprout team has A/B tested 100 different email templates.

With these initial emails, we’re trying to inform without confusing or scaring away potential new partners. Some templates have resulted in local organizations thinking we’re asking them for sponsorship money or that we want to charge them for a service. Oops! A/B tests have helped to find the best wording for clarity and, in turn, response rate.

Here are some of our learnings:

1. Mentioning location matters.

We reached out to almost 1,000 Chicago organizations in the spring of 2017. When we mentioned Chicago in the email, the response rate increased by 20%.

2. Emails sent to organizations who already had sponsorship info on their websites were most successful if the email acknowledged the onsite sponsorship info and asked for confirmation.

These are also our most successful outreach attempts, likely because these organizations are actively looking for sponsors (as signified by having sponsorship info on their site). Further, by demonstrating that we’ve been on their site, we’re signaling a higher level of intent.

3. Whether or not we included an outreacher phone number in email signatures had no effect on response rate.

If anything, response rates were higher for emails with no phone number in signature, at 41% compared with 40.2%.

4. Shorter is better when it comes to outreach emails.

Consider the following two emails:

EMAIL A Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I work to help corporate clients find local sponsorships. We’re an agency that helps our business clients identify and sponsor local organizations like [ORG NAME]. We’re paid by businesses who are looking for local sponsorships. Often, local organizations are overlooked, so my company, ZipSprout, works for businesses who want to sponsor locally, but aren’t sure who to partner with. To that end, I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorship opportunities you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

EMAIL B Hi [NAME], I sent an email last week, but in case you missed it, I figured I’d follow up. :) I'd love to learn more about [ORG NAME] and see what sponsorships you have available. Is there a PDF or list of cost and benefits you can share over email or a phone call? Thanks, ___

In an 800-email test, Email B performed 30% better than Email A.

Matchmaking: How can I choose a sponsorship opportunity that fits my brand?

There are many ways to evaluate potential sponsorships.

These are the questions that help us match organizations with clients:

Who is your brand targeting (women, senior citizens, family-friendly, dog owners, new parents)?

Do you want to tie your brand with a particular cause (eco-friendly, professional associations, awareness foundations, advocacy groups)?

Is your campaign based on location? Are you launching your brand in a particular city? A particular zip code?

What is your total budget and per-sponsorship range? A top max price or a price range is a useful parameter — and perhaps the most important.

Once the campaign goals are determined, we filter through opportunities based partially on their online presence. We look at Domain Authority, location, website aesthetics, and other sponsors (competitors and non-competitors) in addition to Reach Score (details below). Further, we review backlinks, organic traffic, and referring domains. We make sure that this nonprofit partnership is not spammy or funky from an SEO perspective and that is a frequently visited website. A small organization may not have all the juicy digital metrics, but by gauging event attendance or measuring organic traffic we can further identify solid prospects that could have been missed otherwise. We also look at social media presence; event attendance, event dates and how responsive these organizations or event organizers are. Responsiveness, we have learned, is a CRITICAL variable. It can be the determining point of your link going live in 48 hours or less, as opposed to 6+ months from payment.

Reach Score

From a numbers perspective, Domain Authority is a good way to appreciate the value of a website, but it doesn’t tell the whole story when it comes to local marketing. To help fill in the gaps we created Reach Score, which combines virtual measures (like Domain Authority) with social measures (friends/followers) and physical measures (event attendance). The score ranks entities based on their metro area, so we’re not comparing the reach of an organization in Louisville, KY to one in NYC.

As of March 2018, we have about 8,000 organizations with valid Reach Scores across four metro areas — Raleigh/Durham, Boston, Houston, and Chicago. The average Reach Score is 37 out of 100. Of the 34 types of organizations that we track, the most common is Event Venue/Company (average Reach Score of 38), followed by Advocacy Groups (43) and Sports Teams/Clubs/Leagues (22). The types of organizations with the highest Reach Scores are Local Government (64), Museums (63), and Parks and Recreation (55). Thanks to Reach Score, we’ve found differences between organizations from city to city as well. In Raleigh-Durham, the entities with the highest reach tend to be government-related organizations, such as Chambers of Commerce and Parks & Rec Departments.

In Boston, the highest reach tends to fall to arts organizations, such as music ensembles, as well as professional associations. This score serves as a good reminder that each metro area has a unique community of local organizations. (Read more about our Reach Score findings here.)

Fulfillment

Our campaigns used to take several months to complete, from contract to final sponsorship. Now our average fulfillment rate is 18.7 days, regardless of our project size! Staying (politely) on top of the communication with the nonprofit organizations was the main driver for this improvement.

We find further that the first 48 hours from sending a notification of sponsorship on behalf of your brand are crucial to speedy campaigns. Be ready to award the sponsorship funds in a timely manner and follow up with a phone call or an email, checking in to see if these funds have been received.

It's okay to ask when can you expect the sponsorship digital benefits to go live and how to streamline the process for any other deliverables needed to complete the sponsorship.

Applying these simple best practices, our team has been able to run a campaign in a week or less.

Two important concepts to remember about the sponsorship channel from the fulfillment perspective:

It’s difficult to fulfill. If your city project involves any more than two or three sponsorships, you're in for multiple hours of follow ups, reminders, phone calls, etc. There is the desire from most local organizations to honor their sponsors and keep them happy. That said, we've learned that keeping the momentum going serves as an important reminder for the nonprofit. This can involve phone call reminders and emails for links to go live and other benefits to come through. Again, be polite and respectful.

It’s SO worth all the effort though! It shows that your brand cares. A sponsorship campaign is a fantastic way to get in front of your target audience in areas that have a special meaning at a personal level. And not in a broad general scope, but locally. Locally sponsoring a beach cleanup in Santa Monica gives you the opportunity to impact a highly localized audience with a very particular cause in mind that would ultimately affect their everyday life, as opposed to partnering with a huge foundation advocating for clean oceans.

Enhancing a local campaign

Some prefer to use local sponsorships as a link building effort, but there are ways — and ample benefit — to going far beyond the link.

Local event attendance

So, so many local sponsorship campaigns come with the opportunity for event attendance. We currently have 11,345 opportunities in our database (62.2% of our total inventory) that feature events: 5Ks, galas, performances, parades, and even a rubber ducky derby or two! If you’re able to send local team members, find opportunities that match your target audience and test it out — and bring your camera so your social and brand team will have material for publication. If local team members aren’t an option, consider working with a notable and ambitious startup such as Field Day, which can send locals out on behalf of your brand. We’ve spoken with them on several occasions and found them adaptable and wonderful to work with.

Coupons/invitations

One client, FunBrands, used local sponsorships as a way to reach out to locals ahead of stores’ grand re-openings (read the full case study here).

For another client, we created unique coupons for each local organization, using print and social media posts for distribution.

An example coupon — use codes to track attribution back to an event.

Conclusion: Local sponsorships are a channel

Sponsorships are an actionable strategy that contribute to your local rankings, while providing unprecedented opportunities for community engagement and neighborly branding. We hope that this updated guide will provide a strong operational overview along with realistic expectations — and even inspirations — for a local sponsorship campaign in your target cities.

Last but not least: As with all outreach campaigns, please remember to be human. Keep in mind that local engagements are the living extension of your brand in the real world. And if somehow this article wasn’t enough, we just finished up The Local Sponsorship Playbook. Every purchase comes with a 30-minute consultation with the author. We hope everyone chooses to get out, get local, and join the community in the channel that truly benefits everyone.

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