Welcome to the new and improved StayAwake site. I know it looks a lot like the old StayAwake site, but I’m a big believer in maintaining long-term brand equity. More importantly, I still love the paramecium image just as much as I did when we first put it up here back in 2003.
So we’ve been here at StayAwake.tv for 10 years now – I think having the same email address (sarah@stayawake.tv) for 10 years straight has to be some kind of record. We’ve changed some in the past 10 years, but our basic principles are still the same: We think that marketing isn’t brain surgery. It’s really just about keeping someone’s attention long enough to tell them why your product or service is important, and giving them a reason to care about it.
The hard part, of course, is figuring out why your product or service is important, who it’s important to, and then getting their attention.
I’ll be talking more about that as this blog goes on, but in the meantime let’s just answer some FAQs, to get them out of the way.
Why the name StayAwake?
StayAwake, the marketing consultancy, may have started in 2001, but StayAwake was actually born in 1992 as a ‘zine (remember ‘zines?). My friend Martha and I, recent English grads, felt that our recession-era careers in real estate just weren’t giving us sufficient creative outlets, so we started putting together this little DIY magazine with stories, photography and poetry by ourselves and others. One of these days I’ll scan some samples for you; in the meantime I think it’s enough to know that some of our contributors have gone on to win awards, fellowships and even some fame. We had good taste.
Why the paramecium? (that single-celled organism on the homepage)
Because paramecia have all these little cilia (hairs) on the outside, enabling them to move super-fast and absorb everything from the environment in which it lives. Which is I think the job of a great marketer: to move quickly, to be aware of everything in the environment, and to absorb and assimilate new information all the time.)
Why the .TV extension?
Because back in 2001 when I first set up the website, the .com extension was taken by a cyber-squatter (still is, actually), and you could only get a .ca extension if you could prove you had offices in more than one province, which of course we didn’t. So .tv seemed like a good alternative. I still don’t know why more people don’t use it.
Is StayAwake really just you, Sarah Welstead?
Well…sort of. Think of me as a virtual marketing director, who can assemble the right people for whatever marketing initiative you’re undertaking.