Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Still No F'n "Liberal Store"???@@@!!!

What gives? Who's the "marketing genius/idiot" in charge? WTF. WHY, oh why, is there no "Liberal Store" online? Selling merchandise that members would wear is the BEST free advertising. We have tens of thousands of "walking billboards" across the land, at a time when we need to elevate visibility of the Liberal "brand".

Our Nat Exec doesn't seem to get it. It was easy to sell your brand when you were government, and your logo appeared everywhere. Now - in opposition - we need to make extra efforts to be noticed. There are great examples down South of what works.

So... WesternGrit is taking this on himself. Here's what I have "in store":

- t-shirts: "Iggy" written Ozzy style on a red t-shirt (also in black). "Iggy" written in cyrillic script; a "rock the vote with Iggy" t-shirt, and others. All shirts come in small, large, and x-large. All t-shirts have a stylized "Iggynation" logo in small script at shoulder level on the back, written in the style of the LPC logo

- Thongs and panties. Yes, I'll make these too. The backside says, "Don't Be Bummed, I Voted Liberal", and the front says "Iggy-wear" (a play on "underwear"). Available ONLY in Liberal Red.

If I have enough of a response to this, I'll have someone in my riding set up a Facebook group for "Liberal Swag", and start taking orders. We'll use this as a riding fund-raiser.

The clowns down at LPC headquarters have provoked me a bit much... Not responding to my emails concerning the Liberal Store was the last straw. I am going to actively promote replacing whoever is responsible for things like the store... I'm sure that person isn't involved in any serious "policy discussions" with Iggy... Definitely not too busy to work on promoting the party. There will be changes at the next exec vote - I guarantee it.

I'm really getting sick of "amateur hour". If these schmucks want to run the party into the ground, they should step aside for those of us with ideas, and the experience in the "real" business world in promoting them.

Reply to this post if you are interested in Liberal Swag. WesternGrit will be the new "liberal store". I'll be using small "l" so as not to take away anything from the party...

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VICTORY FUND

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

let's just hope that the merch is "made in Canada"

saii said...

I KNOW!!! I want to have an iggynation shirt. that would be awesome.

I would have to agree with how slow they respond to emails. Who runs these things anyways? I signed up for the victory fund early December and until now I haven't received anything from them (I did get a notification though that I will receive a letter within a "few days" after signing up).

thescottross.blogspot.com said...

I have thought this was always a great idea, however to do the idea justice and to be cost effective I would think a sizeable investment should be made first.

With economies of scale I imagine the price would be cheaper than if one was to make these themselves.

I would also inquire into the legality of making these garments with the liberal brand on them, and if name infringement is avoided, is the resulting brand still an attractive product.

To avoid this, have you received any reply from anyone within the Party on using the official Liberal logo?

WesternGrit said...

This is why (Scott), I'm not using the Liberal logo anywhere. I will also say that my t-shirts will be significantly cooler than any of the LPC ones. The idea for me is to have "cool" shirts that people will wear. If the shirts are too partisan - with official Liberal logos on them - they won't be worn, except at party events or during elections. I want stuff like the "hope" t's that the Obama team put out. The "Ignatieff" Worhol/Trudeau ripoff shirts were fabulous.

I'll be focusing on "liberal" vs. "Liberal", and if the LPC has an issue with that, they can direct their inquiries to my brother's law firm...

thescottross.blogspot.com said...

I guess I'm a bit of a nerd, because I'd wear a shirt with a big Liberal Logo on it.

But just for the sake of it, I'll give a few random ideas for shirts, just for the sake of it.

"It's Liberal Time"

"100% Liberal, 100% Awesome" (Actually have a shirt that says this)

"Don't Make Me Trudeau Your Ass"

"Don't Be Blue"

"The Liberal Party: We Have Cookies"

"The Liberal Party: We Don't Suck"

"Right out of the Blue"

The Mound of Sound said...

Jeebus, WG, I'll have to think on this one a while. I'm just not sure what I'm going to look like in a red thong. I mentioned it to the missus and she said she won't be having dinner tonight.

Anonymous said...

two words: Cafe Press

Anonymous said...

Merchandise? Nuts!
Try making an anonymous donation; it can't happen in Liberaldumb. Get the 'collection bucket' fixed first.

William Norman said...

I asked a couple of high levelish exec members once about this very issue, and they said everytime they examinded it, the start-up and associated costs were not worth it. I think an independently run, but affiliated store might be the way to go.

Anonymous said...

sounds like a plan! I'm in! :)

uranowski said...

I want a shirt, hat, gloves and you should also make boxers for men.

Anonymous said...

Totally a great idea, I'd go for a t-shit...but would love a touque (for those of us not in sunny Vancouver!) or a hoodie! So many possibilities. Have you looked at cafepress.com to perhaps produce these items?

Anonymous said...

We can't organize an online leadership vote so what makes you think we can do online retailing?

penlan said...

I'd take a T-shirt & a hat, if you can do one. A winter one (toque0 & a summer one (ballcap).

One thing, though, is that I have heard Iggy does NOT like the "Iggy" moniker.

WesternGrit said...

He hates it, but this is about raising money, and selling him... Not really too worried about his sensitivity to the nickname right now (I think it was originally meant for his brother, or something)...

We can make some money for our riding, and ... lol... based on the 308 concept, this riding is going to be fairly well taken care of...

I'm meeting with some riding folks this next week, so will have further details on the shirts/hats, etc. soon... Stay tuned - and THANKS for the interest!

WesternGrit said...

Great response so far... I've looked at cafe press, but it's too expensive. I have another source that uses quality materials, and the costs are much lower (even with print on front and back). I think the exec talking about "too costly to start up" is a bit of a joke - little league ball clubs do this, as does your local insurance agent, realtor, etc.

I will be working on this over the next few weeks. Looking at an ecommerce portal as well... Paypal will be the route we take.

I'm considering more than just Liberal messages... There are lots of American political message and environmental message shirts out there, but very few - if any - Canadian ones, and the one's I have seen have 2 or 3 shirts, no hats, toques, thongs (Mound, I don't wanna picture that...), etc.

penlan said...

MoS wrote"

"Jeebus, WG, I'll have to think on this one a while. I'm just not sure what I'm going to look like in a red thong. I mentioned it to the missus and she said she won't be having dinner tonight."

LOL....