American Idol: We came, we saw, we fliered.

The last time we blogged about hitting up the American Idol audition line, we thought we had seen it all.

Here's a short recap: San Francisco's Cow Palace. 6,000 people standing, singing, and screaming in line. Sleeping bags, pillows, security guards, and hundreds of parked cars.

We had such a successful marketing outing that we decided to try and go to all of the American Idol auditions. We crunched some numbers, compared calendars, called contacts, drew up battle plans and came to the following conclusion: we would be able to make it to Phoenix (Arizona), Salt Lake City (Utah), and Jacksonville (Florida).

So we did the following: ordered up another 15,000 fliers, booked flights and hotel rooms, (through priceline where we got some killer deals), and put our running shoes on.

Phoenix and Salt Lake City, were both great successes and having done three cities, we thought we had the whole fliering thing down. We knew how many to take, how long it would take us to pass out our supply, and when to go from passing out to people to placing our fliers on cars. We knew our stuff; or thought we did.

Then came Jacksonville. Wow, what a city. It took everything we knew and blew it out of the water. Up til now, the biggest turnout we had seen was probably 6,000 people. Jacksonville was at least 15,000; there were people everywhere! Every previous time we had passed out pretty much every flier we had, give or take a few hundred. In Jacksonville, we came home with empty pockets. Not one flier was left between the two of us.


Now that it's said and done, we were very happy with our marketing efforts. We reached the exact demographic we were after and got some serious branding done. The bottom line is we will see you again next year American Idol!

Allen and Anthony Learn How to Flyer

1. 6,000 people standing in line to audition 8am
2. 60 people standing in line to audition at 8am

Can you guess which one was American Idol and which one was America's Next Top Model?

No, no it's not what you think. Well, actually it is. The Fresno audition of Top Model, had a poor turnout. Even though this was a little disappointing, we were still able to promote Taltopia.com to a very targeted group of models who really wanted to make it in the industry.

American Idol was a little different. By a little, I mean a lot. We arrived to the scene around 2am to see how the line was coming along. Again, we were met by the stern face of disappointment. Only 50 cars were in the parking lot. We decided to lay low for a few hours hoping the situation would change.

Then it happened.

Hundreds of cars started pouring into the Cow Palace parking lot. By 5am there were close to 1000 cars parked with singers jumping 0ut to get in line.

It was time for action. Allen and I stepped out fliers in hand and started to go to work. Cars continued to come into the parking lot, while those who had finished were leaving. After we had finished with the cars, we took a more personal approach and started handing our super awesome fliers (seen below) to talent as they were walking past.

I am happy to report that we passed out all of our fliers and have ordered another 5000. See you at the next audition American Idol!

Taltopia.com Road Trip!

We recently found out that America's Next Top Model is having auditions on Saturday July 12th in Fresno, and that American Idol is having auditions from Tuesday through Thursday the following week in San Francisco - you know what that means....road trip!

We decided that it would be a great opportunity for us to educate (flier) the aspiring talent who will be attending these open auditions about the valuable resources available for them on Taltopia.com!

We will drive out of LA this Friday afternoon and head for Anthony's hometown of Fresno, CA. To save on cash, we will be crashing at Anthony's parent's house and will get up bright and early on Saturday morning to head out to "Island Water Park" which is where Top Model auditions are being held. After that, its off to San Francisco on Monday night for three more fun-filled days of passing out fliers. Here is what the fliers look like:




On a side note, we wanted to let you all know that we saved alot of money by booking our hotel on Priceline.com We were looking for a cheap hotel near Cow Palace (the convention center near SFO where the Idol auditions are going to be held) and decided that we wanted to spend only $90 a night. Neither one of us had used Priceline before, so we decided to give it a shot - not only did we get a room for $90, Priceline upgraded us to the 4-star Sheraton Hotel (a $250 value). Priceline Negotiator rocks!

Check back for updates from our trip!!