In yesterday’s post, “6 Easy Tips For Making a Viral Video” (robot55.jp/blog/6-easy-tips-for-making-a-viral-video/) I mentioned that after making your video, you simply must have a promotion plan. Here is a snippet from that article:

Once the video is made, you must promote! And that means getting everyone down to the computer keyboards and posting the video link anywhere and everywhere possible. And I don’t mean just do it one day and then drop it; you must have a thought out plan of action that runs a few months. Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know! This doesn’t happen by magic, it takes effort. The video on the company webpage, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, company blogs, Linkedin, all social media and everywhere is critical for your success. Get your team to think about possibilities. Make a daily schedule showing assignments.

Of course you could spend a ton of money on promoting your video, but, then again, doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose? You intend upon making a viral because it is great promotion; it is believable (because regular people are promoting you) and, so, it is cost effective. So we don’t want to spend a ton of money on advertising for our advertisement (sounds absurd when it is put that way, doesn’t it?)

To that end (not spending a ton of money and making an effort) I then introduced dear reader to an artist named Stefano who has made the effort to make a name for himself by making drawings on Euro Bank Notes to promote himself and to make his artistic impression (and protest). His costs must be close to a few dollars but the biggest cost is time, toil and sweat…. But what is the price of fame? Today, Stefano is all over the news and has a reputation of ill-repute, or honor – depending on who you talk to. He is a big name all over the European press.

Stefano Art: No Trespassing!

Now, I hear that defacing or drawing on a Euro Bank Note is not a crime, so I think this is a great way to Guerilla Market your name. Even if it were a crime, good art offends someone and good art might often be considered “dangerous” to the Powers that Be. So I don’t want to get into a discussion on the morality of drawing on bank notes or spray painting trains (that’s a subject for discussion concerning private property rights and not for this space!) After all, wasn’t Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Sex Pistols all considered dangerous at their time and they were subject to book burnings and bans?

Stefano, just by himself drawing on bank notes, isn’t such an original idea. In fact, I remember seeing bank notes that had illustrations on them when I was a child. In my teens, I used to draw pictures on bank notes hoping that, someday, they’d come back to me and I’d see them. I never did see any because they never came back and I drew on hundreds of them.

The point I want to make in showing Stefano is that he made the effort. Can you imagine how many bank notes and how long and how often he had to draw on them, over and over and over? How tedious it must be. Is he still doing it? Yes, it seems. Stefano has been doing this since Feb. 2014. He draws his art and then scans it and then puts the notes back out into the public!

Genius! See? He used the internet to promote his art. By scanning it, the images wind up all over the news, blogs, and social media such as Facebook. I love it!

Interestingly, there is another “Buzz” going in related to bank notes, and drawing on them. This time from Canada! Everyone knows who Mr. Spock is, right? Well, the guy who played Mr. Spock in TV and movies, Leonard Nimoy, passed away a few weeks ago. Rest in Peace.

Well, as with many cultural icons of the modern age, it seems, in some places, especially Canada, Mr. Spock might be more famous in death than in life.

The Canadian government has asked people to stop drawing Mr. Spock on $5 dollar Canadian bank notes. The practice of doing so has become so popular that there is even a name for it and it is called, “Spocking.”

Sky News reports: Canadians Asked To Stop ‘Spocking’ Bank Notes (news.sky.com/story/1438456/canadians-asked-to-stop-spocking-bank-notes).

From the article:

Canadians have been asked to stop drawing Leonard Nimoy-inspired Mr Spock pictures on their $5 bank notes. For years, fans of the famous Star Trek character have been scribbling on the face of former PM Wilfrid Laurier – Canada’s first Francophone prime minister – on $5 banknotes. This gathered pace last week with the death of the actor. Canada’s central bank said earlier in the week that it was not illegal to add Spock’s pointy Vulcan ears, sharp eyebrows and signature bowl haircut to the notes. However, it did encourage citizens to stop their scribbling.

Yeah. The government of the EU and Canada are destroying the value of their respective currencies by money printing and deficit spending, but they don’t want you scribbling doodles on the money. Ha!

Canada destroys the value of the currency by money printing but they don’t want you scribbling doodles on the money. Ironic?

Anyone else see the irony in all this?

Anyway, enough of my political statements. I merely wanted to show you these things and perhaps help kick-start your creative mind to think of new and novel ways to promote without spending so much money! I hope these ideas help you.

See you next time….

Now where is that stack of ¥1000 yen bills and that permanent black marker I bought the other day?