Viral Marketing (Online Marketing) in Cosplay events

Here's an interesting material from an interview conducted by Bea to me for her school project last year, and its a Q and A about cosplay and using viral marketing in events. You can understand more why I use the internet in promotion and also my short history of cosplay in the Philippines.

1. How do you define Cosplay here in the Philippines?
Cosplay in the Philippines is a part of a hobby of an anime, manga, movie and video game fan were they wear costumes or make up and act as the real character.

2. When and how did it start?
There is a big debate during the early 2000 on where it started, but according to some local anime group, the 1st anime cosplay gathering was held in some orgs and clubs in UP Diliman. One of them is in UP Tomokai and Anime@ Arki (Animersion), then followed by a small cosplay exhibition at Oracafe monthly anime film showing by Anima Anime, which I’m part of it and I remember that we have a cosplayer first to show up dressed up as Heero Yuy of Gundam Wing. Then we introduced to the public and bring Lea aka The Anime Seamstress to be our guest that night, showing some Rurouni Kenshin and Shinsen-gumi costumes for exhibition.

Then the cosplay scene went to the mainstream at the AnimeXplosion 2000. The first anime convention was conceptualized by me from a piece of paper and after sharing it to Mina Caliguia at the Artfarm studio, they organized it and used my concept for having the 1st anime convention, were Yuu Watase, creator of Fushigi Yuugi was invited.

Then during the production meeting of AnimeXplosion 2000t, Sherwin Nones of Anima Anime suggested to have the first cosplay cosplay/gathering at the event. But then Artfarm didn’t know how to present the Cosplayers on stage or how will it be executed, I suggested and told them to have a “catwalk” on stage and do present like models and act like the anime character. At the event, I managed the stage direction and music sound after some production staff walked out minutes before the main event. Then the cosplay event was followed a year after, Cosplay in Manila was held in Megatrade Hall 3, and followed a week after the AXN – Final Fantasy event at the Atrium of SM Megamall.


3. Who was the first group or organization that started placing “cosplay” in Japanese Anime events?
It will by the ACPI ( Animation Council of the Philippines) they materialized my event concept of the AnimeXplosion, and since the 1st mainstream cosplay was introduced that year of 2000, I consider that the ACPI as the organizer of the event who made it first in public to introduce the art of anime cosplay in the Philippines. But for the fan base edition, credits will be given to Anime@Arki, UP Tomokai and Anime Anime for having it first introduced in a small scale for anime fans before year 2000.

4. How many “cosplay-only” events were promoted through the past years?
For year 2000, there’s 1 event the AnimeXplosion 2000
for year 2001 there’s AXN ANIME FINAL FANTASY Festival, Cosplay Manila, Anime Atsumarou of FEATA bookstore, AnimeQuest
for year 2002 – 2008 events are rapidly promoted with cosplay themes. I think the number grew bigger this year 2008.

5. How do these events coordinate?/What kinds of activities are present?
Events with cosplay coordinates by having a good promotion and contest mechanics, if the organizers knew what they are doing and know about cosplay, it will be easier for them to coordinate this concept to all visitors and participants. Activities for cosplay are having a costume or cosplay contest, role playing or skit, photography contest and original costume designs.

6. Today, what are the major advances in cosplay? (Did the categories became broader? Or people became indept with their costume details? Etc.)
For my experience in handling and organizing a yearly Toy Con event and the OtakonEK, I try to make the rules much more simplier and easy to understand, I don’t like to post a long list of rules for the participants to follow, I just go straight to the point and add a little fun on it and I know everyone enjoys it. The costume is evolving, from sexy costumes to large and humongous costumes. Cosplayers are much now on the details and character, and not by just wearing it, they now know the character and genre they are cosplaying. Unlike in the past, people go in costume just to be in blend with the community, but they are not fans or anime hobbyist, sometimes they didn’t know what they are cosplaying. I’m glad that mentality is gone and the hobby of cosplaying is evolving as an art form and being done by real anime fans.


MARKETING AND COSPLAY EVENTS:
1. What cosplay event/s did you help promote/organized here in the Philippines?
I started in AnimeXplosion 2000 and 2005,
AXN Anime Fantasy Convention 2001
Toy Con event from 2003-2008,
OtakonEK 2008
New Worlds : Sci fi and Fantasy Convention 2003-2005
Cosplay Christmas Catwalk Show 2006-2008,
Cosplay Fashion Show 2007-2008,
And some other events like the MU Online Battle Soccer Tournament,
and other small events.

2. With the given events, what kind of marketing material did you use? And why?
I used the internet as my primary marketing material, well its email blast, forums, website and blogs. I used those because everyone now is using the internet, and it is very cheap but time consuming, the communication and feedback from the participants are fast, and I can coordinate with them much easy than having an office based for inquiry or telephone calls.

3. Did you ever use viral marketing in promoting these events? Y/N
Yes, I did use promoting the event in viral marketing. And its fun using it to tease everyone.

4. In viral marketing, what websites did you use to market the event? Own website or through others?
I used my blog website for the viral marketing of the event, use the social networking websites like Friendster, Multiply, DeviantART and many more, Youtube, mailing list. And also our own website too. It’s a best way to use them all, because the target market is already in there and much easy to connect with them, because all of them are already in my networks.

5. What drawbacks did you encounter from using viral marketing?
The drawback is that some corporate company see that viral marketing is not a very professional in approaching a customer, sometimes they call it spamming or viral spam messages, but if you deliver that viral marketing to a correct target market, then you are now putting it in a good side, and not consider it as a spam marketing.

6. In a general manner, what problems did you face while marketing the event?
Problems are that the information and details being delivered are being sent to others or posted in the forums and websites with the different information. The viral marketing stands for having a big word of mouth using the internet, but some people didn’t get the idea on the first place, and give it a bad impression on it.

7. Do you think that viral marketing is the best marketing tool for such a unique event?
YES! And I highly recommend it. Have a right viral marketing on the target market, this will create buzz and also grab attention. It can be funny, serious or weird. The most important is that.. you got their attention and they know about it just in a split seconds.