Anime Club trouble and planning to show Utena

Zalor

Excuse the long post, but I have a bit of a problem on my hands.

A few months ago I took up leadership of the anime club at my school. I was appointed by the previous leader, but unfortunately most people who attended last year were seniors. So I basically took up the club with almost no remaining members. I've been having difficulty attracting/keeping members. I wanted the position because I take anime quite seriously, (unlike the previous leader) and wanted to showcase older and hidden gems to casuals who only watch contemporary stuff. Basically I wanted to get causal anime fans to to watch stuff they other wise wouldn't. I've discovered that my serious, almost academic approach to anime is not a popular one. Apparently most people who attended the first few sessions wanted something more than watching and discussing anime. Again, for a pretentious and critical anime viewer as myself I couldn't understand this. I had always wanted the previous leader to do this, as he mostly used the club as a hang out for his other senior friends. He didn't take anime seriously and almost all of the last year attenders did not show up for anime related reasons. I thought I could attract new members by doing the opposite, taking anime seriously. That doesn't work much better though.

As a final scheme before I just give up, I want to attract non-anime fans to the club. This is where Utena comes into play. The Gay Straight Allince and LGBT is pretty prominent at my school. I also know that there are many passionate feminists at my school. Considering that Utena is an anime that deals with the themes of gender and sexuality, I was thinking of advertising anime club's airing of it to them. Anime casuals may not want to discuss sexuality and gender in anime, but I'm sure feminists and the GSA will.

Here are images of the fliers I plan on putting up:

1) http://i938.photobucket.com/albums/ad226/Thezalor/Utenaflierdraft2.png

2)http://i938.photobucket.com/albums/ad226/Thezalor/Utenaflier2.png

Is marketing Utena to Feminists and the GSA a prudent idea? If that doesn't work than what can I do to attract and keep members?
Constructive criticism and advise is what I am looking for.

Victor Frost

Love the idea, but you need to make the text on those posters a bit more concise. Or at least make it so it doesn't look like a page in someone's report. Try limiting yourself to maybe 240 characters (excluding date/place/time info) and leading it with a question. Make the text the first thing people see, not the image. You gotta design for people to see it 10 ft away. And none of that bold/underline/italics stuff, eh?

Zalor

Victor Frost said:

Love the idea, but you need to make the text on those posters a bit more concise. Or at least make it so it doesn't look like a page in someone's report. Try limiting yourself to maybe 240 characters (excluding date/place/time info) and leading it with a question. Make the text the first thing people see, not the image. You gotta design for people to see it 10 ft away. And none of that bold/underline/italics stuff, eh?

Definitely agree on the 240 character limit. I was thinking the fliers I made were a bit too wordy. But why not the use of bolding, underlining, and italicizing? I thought that would help center focus on the key things I am advertising.

Starfox

What's the best way to watch this? The dub is on Hulu, but I assume that's unacceptable.

Cremlian

At RIT we'd have our first showing of the year (or any time we were doing a "intro" to the club or anime, we'd show one eps of a variety of shows or shorts to give a wide variety of content. When we scheduled showings we tried to be as diverse as possible showing some classics and some crowd pleasers. The best thing you can do is to make sure the meeting prior to talk up the show.

Also go to the clubs that you want to cross promote with. Usually you can make an announcement at that club with permission. The main purpose of a university anime club is always education, but obviously people are not forced to go. I'd definitely make sure the fliers are placed in areas that might have more interested parties. When it doubt, show a quick clip of one of the Duel scenes before a prior weeks showing.

Victor Frost

Zalor said:

Victor Frost said:

Love the idea, but you need to make the text on those posters a bit more concise. Or at least make it so it doesn't look like a page in someone's report. Try limiting yourself to maybe 240 characters (excluding date/place/time info) and leading it with a question. Make the text the first thing people see, not the image. You gotta design for people to see it 10 ft away. And none of that bold/underline/italics stuff, eh?

Definitely agree on the 240 character limit. I was thinking the fliers I made were a bit too wordy. But why not the use of bolding, underlining, and italicizing? I thought that would help center focus on the key things I am advertising.

If your message is concise and effectively worded, all of it will be important.

Here's an example:

[big, eyecatching picture of something cool happening in Utena]
Interested in media that tackle gender issues and sexuality? Looking for a show where stereotypes are upended and the princess wants to be the prince? Then come to the [INSERT SCHOOL NAME HERE] Anime Club screening of Revolutionary Girl Utena.

[Date]
[Time]
[Place]
[QR CODE to Anime Club Website]


People love qr codes.

All of that should take up a whole 8.5"x11" or A4 page and should be in portrait orientation. The picture should be no more than half the page and should also be in portrait. Make the font big.

Make it however you want, but remember that this is an ad and should include the five elements of an advertisement: Headline, sub headline, image, benefit, and call to action. In what I suggested, the picture serves as both the image and the headline. The text is also the headline, and acts as the sub headline and the call to action. The benefit is implied that, if you are interested in those issues, then attending this event will give you a space where you can enjoy those issues being brought up.

Zalor

Re: Victor Frost
You are a genius, thanks for clarifying. I will follow through with the advice.

Re: Cremlian
I am not part the GSA at my school, but thankfully my co-leader is so she could promote Utena for me without looking shameless.

Churba

I'd also suggest that instead of marketing the club to these groups using Utena, make an event of it for them. Instead of "We like this here, and you do too, so come join us, join us", how about more "Hey, we're showing this, and we think you'd be interested, you're invited to come" sort of thing.

Think of it this way - you're not advertising to people you want to join. You're advertising to a group of people the fact that anime can sometimes address issues that interest them, in a compelling and entertaining manner. If they want to see more, they can sign on, or they can show up from time to time.

HalfmoonHex

I think you need to focus on your audience. Being the leader of a club means you need to think about your Club Member's needs. Have you talked to your club members about doing analysis? Don't you think they'd be offended if you dramatically changed the way the club worked without asking? Are the club members willing to have a cooperative meeting with the GSA?

Zalor

HalfmoonHex said:

I think you need to focus on your audience. Being the leader of a club means you need to think about your Club Member's needs. Have you talked to your club members about doing analysis? Don't you think they'd be offended if you dramatically changed the way the club worked without asking? Are the club members willing to have a cooperative meeting with the GSA?

We currently only have 2 members and even those two seem to be losing interest. What I've been doing thus far has not been working. I need to drastically change things just to justify the clubs existence.

I think one of the biggest problems I've had is that at the start of the year I had to recruit new members and ALL of the new members were Freshmen. Things started off awkwardly since the start since nobody knew each other. I showed Death Note the first day (surprisingly most of them actually hadn't seen Death Note yet) and tried to engage them in a conversation regarding morality. They were all pretty shy and showed little interest in keeping the discussion alive. I lost a good 60% of people after the first day. I showed Cowboy Bebop the second session and most complained that it was too old. After the second session I was left with two attenders (outside of my group of friends).

By inviting GSA and Feminist members I will get more diversity. I will get Seniors, Juniors, Sophomores and Freshmen. This way people will already know each other and are more likely to feel comfortable.

Churba said:

You're advertising to a group of people the fact that anime can sometimes address issues that interest them, in a compelling and entertaining manner. If they want to see more, they can sign on, or they can show up from time to time.

That's actually what I was thinking of. I wanted to advertise the first day Anime Club was starting Utena and to attract people who were interested in the idea. I'm not interested in getting them to become members, but if they enjoy Utena and want to remain with the club after we finish it that would certainly be great.

GreatTeacherMacRoss

*image of Utena pulling sword out of Anthy*
(Impact font, 42 point, yellow) HOLY SHIT! THAT CHICK IS TOTALLY PULLING A SWORD OUT OF THAT OTHER CHICK!
Anime club: (time and date)

canada_kun

If your working with the gay straight alliance maybe bring a book club element to it as well. I think Wandering Son is one of very few examinations of transgender characters in media period. It is likely in your local library.

Zalor

Just a bit of an update on all this.

So I advertised but it was completely ineffective. However, I did discover that the problem was less with me, and more with the fact that when school is over people would rather go home.

While Utena has not attracted new members, it has been well received by the already loyal members. The Jury episode in particular was quite enjoyed. The subtlety of how they reveal that she is a lesbian at the end of the episode really blew some peoples minds.

Rym

Wait, is this a school that caters primarily to people who live off-campus or with their families still? Locals?

It's almost impossible to have good clubs at schools where most students still have their high school friends around, live separately off-campus, live at home, or are otherwise local.

Zalor

Rym said:

Wait, is this a school that caters primarily to people who live off-campus or with their families still? Locals?

It's almost impossible to have good clubs at schools where most students still have their high school friends around, live separately off-campus, live at home, or are otherwise local.

It is a High School club. :P I'm currently in my senior year. Regarding colleges, all the schools I'm applying to are residential. Judging from your comment, it sounds like I should have a better club experience when I go to college.

Rym

High school clubs are lucky if they even exist. Usually, they thrive in schools that require or strongly encourage kids to join at least one club.

I was only in the fake clubs that didn't ever require spending any time whatsoever at the school outside of school. Despite being a huge anime fan in high school, I can't imagine that I would have joined an anime club there.