On Locust, the roles are clear. If you’re walking, you’re dodging — burying your head in your phone or your hands in your pockets. But if you’re promoting your event, you’re primed for attack. You call out your program’s name like a chant and single out vulnerable passersby that look like they’ve got one flyer too few. Here are some tactics these familiar Locust dwellers use to get noticed.
Community School Student Partnership Locust marketing is all about grabbing attention. That’s why Lee Marcus (C’13), who was promoting Community School Student Partnership, sometimes calls out: “Money, Kids, Girls.” CSSP is a mentoring program for Penn students to work with area kids, offering good work–study pay. But as of now, most of the volunteers are female. Their goal, Amanda Parks (C’13) said, was to “get guys involved.”
Pan–Asian Dance Troupe Jiying Zhang (W ‘11) was stationed by the Pan–Asian Dance Troupe poster. This year’s campaign has just begun, but last year, they had “fans and swords.” They’re planning on calling out “Do you have Yellow Fever?” to turn heads. But even though their group has divvied up walk shifts and designed a poster that was billowing nautically in the wind at their performance, all of this Locust time might not mean anything. Zhang said that only 20 percent of their audience each year learned about their group on the walk.
Mask and Wig The men of Mask and Wig are out there every weekday from ten to four, so they get to know their audience. Harrison Lieberfarb (C’13), who has the noon–to–one shift on Mondays, said, “One kid has a class 12:30 at Annenberg, so any minute now he’s going to walk by.” To attract attention, they dress in cloud costumes and set up cast–member obstacle courses for passersby. But most of all, said Zach Tomasovic (C’14), it’s helpful to “be friendly.” After all, they acknowledge that they can't compete with vaginas.
Shipfaced The girls advertising Shipfaced, a party on a boat and a collaboration of Asian cultural groups, had it easy. “Wanna get Shipfaced?” they called out, and pretty much everyone turned their head, because apparently, pretty much everyone does. “It really helps that our party’s called Shipfaced,” said Christine Alea (N’13).
