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Greetings once more - your favourite supplemental GAD fest is back again, taunting you with prizes you probably won't win like a carrot in front of a donkey. If you didn't love it, you wouldn't keep coming back.
Something a little different this time, in that this competition actually requires you to think a little rather than splatter your 'artistic' daubings on a banner :) What we'd like you to do is come up with some ways in which Special Reserve could promote themselves effectively. Bear in mind we haven't exactly got the backing of the Sultan of Brunei, we'd like you to drop us a few ideas on how best to get across the fact that Special Reserve are cheap, reliable and have a wide product range.
This could be improvements to ways we currently run things, new product ranges you think would appeal to our customers (bear in mind we currently sell rather a lot of stuff - see left sidestrip), new exciting ways to advertise our existing offers or just any ideas that have been floating round your head. Is there some range of products you just can't get hold of that would be perfect for us to sell? Let us know!
Post your ideas in this thread and we'll announce a winner at around the end of February, let's say the 27th. The best suggestions will win whatever prizes we give them, most probably yer standard £25/£50 GAD prize.
(And before anyone brings it up, yes we do think about this stuff ourselves, but we wanted to see what you lot think as well. So button it!)
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And the winner is..... phi11ip, for the following suggestion:
"Here's an idea, and if carried out correctly could be very beneficial. I've got a nice example too just to prove to you just how beneficial it is. www.staghosting.com was a free hosting service set up last year with the intention of boosting the ratings of a a few sites belonging to a company, one of these sites was www.actiondays.co.uk. Basically, unlike your free hosting, this hosting only offered hosting to domain names, you get 200MB disk space and 4 Gig bandwidth a month, you can upload from any connection unlike Freeola. So basically the company which has nothing to do with hosting has just set up a hosting site, sounds stupid doesn't it? What the requirements of this free hosting are though is that you must display a couple of small text links on your site, on mine you can see them on the links section on the side of the page. Google counts each link as a 'vote' and increases the pagerank of the site in question meaning that it shows up higher in searches, I see you've got 'cheap games' pretty much sorted but you don't show up anywhere when 'PS2 games' is typed in. If people were to display these text links on their sites it would soon make you appear high up on the search results. www.actiondays.co.uk was absolutely nowhere when it started, it had a low pagerank and didn't appear on searches. Have a look now though and you'll see that searching for 'corporate event' on Google.com returns the site as number 2 out of 6,500,000. Think about it. You've already got the hosting capabilities, all it would require is a server and someone to monitor the sites every now and then to make sure the links are there."
Congratulations and well done to everyone who entered.
Something a little different this time, in that this competition actually requires you to think a little rather than splatter your 'artistic' daubings on a banner :) What we'd like you to do is come up with some ways in which Special Reserve could promote themselves effectively. Bear in mind we haven't exactly got the backing of the Sultan of Brunei, we'd like you to drop us a few ideas on how best to get across the fact that Special Reserve are cheap, reliable and have a wide product range.
This could be improvements to ways we currently run things, new product ranges you think would appeal to our customers (bear in mind we currently sell rather a lot of stuff - see left sidestrip), new exciting ways to advertise our existing offers or just any ideas that have been floating round your head. Is there some range of products you just can't get hold of that would be perfect for us to sell? Let us know!
Post your ideas in this thread and we'll announce a winner at around the end of February, let's say the 27th. The best suggestions will win whatever prizes we give them, most probably yer standard £25/£50 GAD prize.
(And before anyone brings it up, yes we do think about this stuff ourselves, but we wanted to see what you lot think as well. So button it!)
---------------------------------------------------------
And the winner is..... phi11ip, for the following suggestion:
"Here's an idea, and if carried out correctly could be very beneficial. I've got a nice example too just to prove to you just how beneficial it is. www.staghosting.com was a free hosting service set up last year with the intention of boosting the ratings of a a few sites belonging to a company, one of these sites was www.actiondays.co.uk. Basically, unlike your free hosting, this hosting only offered hosting to domain names, you get 200MB disk space and 4 Gig bandwidth a month, you can upload from any connection unlike Freeola. So basically the company which has nothing to do with hosting has just set up a hosting site, sounds stupid doesn't it? What the requirements of this free hosting are though is that you must display a couple of small text links on your site, on mine you can see them on the links section on the side of the page. Google counts each link as a 'vote' and increases the pagerank of the site in question meaning that it shows up higher in searches, I see you've got 'cheap games' pretty much sorted but you don't show up anywhere when 'PS2 games' is typed in. If people were to display these text links on their sites it would soon make you appear high up on the search results. www.actiondays.co.uk was absolutely nowhere when it started, it had a low pagerank and didn't appear on searches. Have a look now though and you'll see that searching for 'corporate event' on Google.com returns the site as number 2 out of 6,500,000. Think about it. You've already got the hosting capabilities, all it would require is a server and someone to monitor the sites every now and then to make sure the links are there."
Congratulations and well done to everyone who entered.
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Set up an online mail order company selling computer games.
I think snuggly should stay in a glass box, elivated 50ft off the floor, near the tower bridge and not eat anything for 44 days, and survive just on water.
Avoiding the odd golf ball, holding a sign of SR should do the job quite nicely.
CONSIDER IT. Before you laugh. I'm not joking.
Avoiding the odd golf ball, holding a sign of SR should do the job quite nicely.
CONSIDER IT. Before you laugh. I'm not joking.
Try submitting banners to big websites, or a comeercial ad. Try advertising in gamespy, they have tons of people that go there every hour. Maybe creadt a SR video game, that will be cool. Another way would to be open up a shop in a downtown area, with lots of traffic.
"Forum moderating for dummies" ?
I dunno man, Snuggly reads BOOKS
Do you think the people working at SR know what cryogenics are? I mean, they're working at SR, they probably think its a brand of yoghurt.
"I present to you the future of internet and megastore retail: cryogenics."
I wasnt aware you were on heroin, blokey.
As we head into the twenty second century (which is only 96 years away), soon worrying about buying cheap scart cables and affordable blank CD-R spindles will become a thing of the past, and the big money will no longer be in videogames, DVDs or BB guns...no, Tony, Snuggly, and that weird one that never leaves Site Bugs, I present to you the future of internet and megastore retail:
Cryogenics.
What goes up must come down, and Microsoft wading into the console war is a sure indicator that the gaming business is as up as English_Bloke when he has to arrest a pair of scantily clad prostitutes. Sony has done the impossible, i.e. make videogaming, a hobby reserved alongside Dungeons and Dragons and chronic masturbation for the inherently nerdy, cool. The PSP is set to be the new walkman, the new sliced bread, the latest opposable thumb. So when gaming becomes so popular, so popular infact that it replaces television as the main means of entertainment, attention will eventually fade away to the next fad.
But ultimately, these games are a mere diversion. As with films, TV shows, music and chat rooms where you can meet young nubile girls from Cali who will send u pix...where was I? Entertainment is not essential. It is an optional upgrade - but wouldn't we all trade it in, ultimately, for a longer life? And so as we hurtle along through space both on our planet and beyond, eventually living on the moon, and finding the mangled body of Beagle 2 on Mars, technology will constantly advance. Apple are already making products of high quality. Wolves won a game against Manchester United. There is not much left for man to achieve; not much, that is, excluding eternal life.
Immortality. Given the chance, we all say we wouldn't risk it. Seeing everyone dying, anyone that we're close to, fade away...but COME ON! It's LIVING FOREVER! But bodies tear, break, and degenerate along with the rest of us. Our souls will soon lose their very essence (see John Lydon in I'm A Celebrity)...but if we were to preserve our bodies (and indeed our minds) for use at a later date, surely we could have the possibility to live (technically) forever?
Now, you'd be laughed off the street. But we're about to clone a baby, assuming that some cult or other hasn't done it already. Sony showed that getting there first means getting there best. Or something. Anyway, if you become the first big cryogenics body-storying facility, the world can be your oyster.
Special Reserve is dead; long live Heads We'll Preserve!
Start small - even with your large stores and offices, shelves can easily handle heads in jars, not unlike those seen in Matt Groening's documentary Futurama. Keeping functionality without use of the whole body is still a mighty feat, and with the revenue brought in by charging top dollar for what would be a unique service, you could make millions! Expand, buy bigger premises, move into SCOTLAND.
Now you will have the facilities for whole body storage, full cryogenics. Raise prices slightly in accordance to the fantastic new option of storing your body intact, use the profit to pay your group of scientists, who can research cheaper, more efficient ways of storing people and then bringing them out again. By this time, other companies will not be anywhere near as advanced as We'll Preserve (Heads will be dropped from your name to ring in the new full body treatment), nor will they have access to the staff of consultants, or even the rudimentary technology.
WP will corner the body preservation market. Their name will be uttered in the same breath as Microsoft, Ford, Cadburys and Hoover (it's a brand name you know). Worth will travel into the billions, possibly trillions...
And then, when people come out of preservation, what will they do? Watch the news? Catch a film? No, they will do what people do today - reminisce about their youth. Play retro games.
The games of the 21st century (that's the one we're in now). Move the bodies onto meathooks, freeing up the shelves to be stocked with videogames. As people visit their friends and relatives practically daily in WP, they will pass their favourite videogames of yore. Price them sensibly yet competitively, at around £32.99 a throw, and not only will We'll Preserve be synonymous with cryogenics, but great games at quality prices.
When this approach succeeds, introducing gadgets, DVD players and PC accessories such as case mods and peripherals can take We'll Preserve into a whole new bracket of business. Turnover will go from trillions to zillions, and later squillions. Change the name back again to Special pReserve, and you will have become the greatest games/body storage emporium the world has ever seen.
Thank me with a game.
Cryogenics.
What goes up must come down, and Microsoft wading into the console war is a sure indicator that the gaming business is as up as English_Bloke when he has to arrest a pair of scantily clad prostitutes. Sony has done the impossible, i.e. make videogaming, a hobby reserved alongside Dungeons and Dragons and chronic masturbation for the inherently nerdy, cool. The PSP is set to be the new walkman, the new sliced bread, the latest opposable thumb. So when gaming becomes so popular, so popular infact that it replaces television as the main means of entertainment, attention will eventually fade away to the next fad.
But ultimately, these games are a mere diversion. As with films, TV shows, music and chat rooms where you can meet young nubile girls from Cali who will send u pix...where was I? Entertainment is not essential. It is an optional upgrade - but wouldn't we all trade it in, ultimately, for a longer life? And so as we hurtle along through space both on our planet and beyond, eventually living on the moon, and finding the mangled body of Beagle 2 on Mars, technology will constantly advance. Apple are already making products of high quality. Wolves won a game against Manchester United. There is not much left for man to achieve; not much, that is, excluding eternal life.
Immortality. Given the chance, we all say we wouldn't risk it. Seeing everyone dying, anyone that we're close to, fade away...but COME ON! It's LIVING FOREVER! But bodies tear, break, and degenerate along with the rest of us. Our souls will soon lose their very essence (see John Lydon in I'm A Celebrity)...but if we were to preserve our bodies (and indeed our minds) for use at a later date, surely we could have the possibility to live (technically) forever?
Now, you'd be laughed off the street. But we're about to clone a baby, assuming that some cult or other hasn't done it already. Sony showed that getting there first means getting there best. Or something. Anyway, if you become the first big cryogenics body-storying facility, the world can be your oyster.
Special Reserve is dead; long live Heads We'll Preserve!
Start small - even with your large stores and offices, shelves can easily handle heads in jars, not unlike those seen in Matt Groening's documentary Futurama. Keeping functionality without use of the whole body is still a mighty feat, and with the revenue brought in by charging top dollar for what would be a unique service, you could make millions! Expand, buy bigger premises, move into SCOTLAND.
Now you will have the facilities for whole body storage, full cryogenics. Raise prices slightly in accordance to the fantastic new option of storing your body intact, use the profit to pay your group of scientists, who can research cheaper, more efficient ways of storing people and then bringing them out again. By this time, other companies will not be anywhere near as advanced as We'll Preserve (Heads will be dropped from your name to ring in the new full body treatment), nor will they have access to the staff of consultants, or even the rudimentary technology.
WP will corner the body preservation market. Their name will be uttered in the same breath as Microsoft, Ford, Cadburys and Hoover (it's a brand name you know). Worth will travel into the billions, possibly trillions...
And then, when people come out of preservation, what will they do? Watch the news? Catch a film? No, they will do what people do today - reminisce about their youth. Play retro games.
The games of the 21st century (that's the one we're in now). Move the bodies onto meathooks, freeing up the shelves to be stocked with videogames. As people visit their friends and relatives practically daily in WP, they will pass their favourite videogames of yore. Price them sensibly yet competitively, at around £32.99 a throw, and not only will We'll Preserve be synonymous with cryogenics, but great games at quality prices.
When this approach succeeds, introducing gadgets, DVD players and PC accessories such as case mods and peripherals can take We'll Preserve into a whole new bracket of business. Turnover will go from trillions to zillions, and later squillions. Change the name back again to Special pReserve, and you will have become the greatest games/body storage emporium the world has ever seen.
Thank me with a game.
You could make a DECENT magazine instead of the club magazine. Not something wonderously wonderful like a Gamesmaster or something, but if you remember a good few years ago when CVG cost just £1.50, do something like that.
Instead of just listing loads of your stock, put a bunch of reviews in the magazine, staff reviews and also customer reviews. This could link to the idea of gameaday prizes and bring more people to the forum.
When you're reviewing a game, review them and give a RRP and then a SR price.
You could do a little about hardware releases and banter about Maxx PCs and UKgadgets.com.
Be subtle and people will like you for it. The club mags can only be picked up from the shops which are nowhere near me, thats why theres only 2 people from Leeds on the forum, but like 20 from the Essex area - because you've got the shop and the mags out there.
If you put a decent high quality mag on the shelves at a price than undercuts the rivals, you will not only get a source of revenue to fund more of your crazy money making schemes but you will also be able to plug the site to death.
However, if you don't want to be subtle you can always just make your own games mag (again, decent but cheap enough to be noticably less than a competator) and then bung a comp of the SR magazine inside.
Go Team.
Instead of just listing loads of your stock, put a bunch of reviews in the magazine, staff reviews and also customer reviews. This could link to the idea of gameaday prizes and bring more people to the forum.
When you're reviewing a game, review them and give a RRP and then a SR price.
You could do a little about hardware releases and banter about Maxx PCs and UKgadgets.com.
Be subtle and people will like you for it. The club mags can only be picked up from the shops which are nowhere near me, thats why theres only 2 people from Leeds on the forum, but like 20 from the Essex area - because you've got the shop and the mags out there.
If you put a decent high quality mag on the shelves at a price than undercuts the rivals, you will not only get a source of revenue to fund more of your crazy money making schemes but you will also be able to plug the site to death.
However, if you don't want to be subtle you can always just make your own games mag (again, decent but cheap enough to be noticably less than a competator) and then bung a comp of the SR magazine inside.
Go Team.
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