Vegas Video from HyBrid Foto
Saturday, January 14th, 2012One of our latest videos
Archive for the ‘paintball’ CategoryHappy 2012Monday, January 2nd, 2012It’s hard to believe that another year has flown by! This year I made a resolution to not make any resolutions, most are never kept. However I’ve made a few goals, both short term and long term. One major goal is to get my Swedish drivers license. That in itself will open up more doors for us. It feels a bit constraining to have to depend on bus, train or someone else to get us from point A to point B. In 5 weeks we are heading to Moscow for a few days! First time since 1995 that i’ve been in Russia! Im looking forward to it. It seems that we will be going there a few times. Paintball seems to be changing guard in Sweden so will see what role we will have the opportunity to play in the new organization. The dates are starting to roll in now and we are making traveling plans! Its wonderful to see all the new teams turning to us for support. 2012 is going to be a successful season for us. New opportunities keep coming our way looking forward to hearing about grants and new equiptment for us. Who is exploiting who?Thursday, October 20th, 2011A friend of mine who runs a popular social paintball site (*cough*www.socialpaintball.com*cough*) asked me what I thought of his new feature Paintmates. In fact Iz asked many females in paintball what they thought. As I sat back and watched their video confessions of what they thought of the series both good an bad one word came up often in a couple of the responses – EXPLOTATION. Hmm…thats a good one. But did they really know what it means? Highly doubt it. They used the word loosely and in a negitive manner to which the subject it was pointed at. (just a reminder this is a FEMALE point of view of the controversial situation). Im not against the videos yet not totally for them either. Read on for futher explantion. BTW…if you are easily offended then close this browser window NOW! I think what I want and I say what I think…sometimes I’m wrong but this is my blog and I write what I think. According to Wikipedia: “unjust benifit”
According to Dictionary.com
Lets take a closer look at the defination of exploitation and how it applies to this situation.
Now that I’ve clarified that a bit I need to continue my rant about this. Sex sells. End of story. In marketing and advertising the utilization of attractive objects, whether it be a nice shiny sports car, or a lovely half dressed girl on that shiny sports car, attraction is the name of the game. Making a person desire or want a product. In the paintmate videos thus far the site has utilized the attraction of women to the predominatly male dominated sport of paintball. The site has made very good use of its cooperative partners products in the videos as 95-99% of the entire video the paintmate is holding, wearing or using a partnered product. From an advertising-marketing standpoint I’d say the goal was achieved. I agree with some of the responses in general such as maybe the girls should have atleast TRIED the sport first before modeling for it. A suggestion is maybe have some clips in the video that includes them actually playing.
However there are people in the sport whom I would say exploit the sport to their benifit. Keep in mind this hypothetical person in my example is a mixture of several people I know in paintball and does not point directly or call out one specific person. For the sake of the example we will call this person Andi. Andi is a somewhat young cute girl who has been in paintball for a few years. She has a hugely sucessful following on all the social sites. She “reps” a couple of different clothing sites. Andi is nice to those who have something or think they can help her futher her celeb status. She tweets what seems like philisophical tirades but are more or less words of a spoiled brat who did not get their way. Those who disagree with Andi become the enemy and usually blocked from her social sites. Is Andi the one exploiting the sport? What does she do for these companies? Does she give anything back? We see Andi’s like this at every event. They bat their lashes, wear tight clothing, get free stuff, hang around the pros – but for what reason? Do the people on the receiving end of the batting eyelashes get something in return – such as photos or product review on a popular website or in a magazine? Yes I know MANY Andi’s. I have know whole teams of Andi’s. People who thought that everything should be handed to them because they are Andi. Nothing to offer to the sport/company/team in return. They manulipate people to get what they want when they want with no intention or missguided intentions of returning the favor. I see Andi’s at every event I go to. Usually walking around in free jereys, holding stacks of free merchandise pretending to represent this company or that company but in reality its just a ploy for attention. I’ve seen Andi’s on the net. Leaving messages on pages like “Hey XX , where’s my stuff? Did you send it yet? I gotta have it by such and such day!” To me its a bit tacky. If one has a geniune business relationship/sponsorship with a company send a email not blab it across the whole social community. My advice to the Andi’s out there – either help out the sport or get out of the sport. Give more than what you take, and when you get something atleast have the courtesy to say thank you and lend a hand. Whether it be a few minutes in a vendors booth or maybe handing out flyers/stickers/promotions at an event. Every little bit counts.
So who’s exploiting who?
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