It's official

Travel arrangements for the expedition are now made. We leave LAX on Thursday the 16th of August and fly to Fiji, then the Soloman Islands, then to Port Moresby, New Guinea, then to Rabual, New Guinea, then to Hoskins, New Guinea. On Friday, Oct. 5th, we're retracing our steps to Fiji, where we'll spend about a day and a half before making it back to LAX on Sunday the 7th at 1:30 in the afternoon.

Some interesting facts about the area:

New Guinea, located just north of Australia, is the world's second largest island, having become separated from the Australian mainland when the area now known as the Torres Strait flooded around 5000 BC.

At 4,884 metres, Puncak Jaya (sometimes called Mount Carstensz) makes New Guinea the world's fourth highest landmass.

Many believe human habitation on the island has been dated to as early as approximately 40,000 BP[1], and first settlement possibly dated back to 60,000 years ago has been proposed. The island is presently populated by very nearly a thousand different tribal groups and a near-equivalent number of separate languages.

With some 786,000 km² of tropical land - less than one-half of one percent (0.5%) of the earth's surface -- New Guinea has an immense ecological value in terms of biodiversity, with between 5 to 10% of the total species on the planet.

A high percentage of New Guinea's species are endemic (found nowhere else), and thousands are still unknown to Western science: probably well over 200,000 species of insect, between 11,000 to 20,000 plant species; over 650 resident bird species, including most species of birds of paradise and bowerbirds, parrots, and cassowaries; over 400 amphibians; 455 butterfly species; marsupials including Bondegezou, Goodfellow's Tree-kangaroo, Huon Tree-kangaroo, Long-beaked Echidna, Tenkile, Agile Wallaby, Alpine Wallaby, cuscuses and possums; and various other mammal species.

A central east-west mountain range dominates the geography of New Guinea, over 1600 km in total length. The western half of the island of New Guinea contains the highest mountains in Oceania, rising up to 4884 m high, and ensuring a steady supply of rain from the tropical atmosphere. The tree line is around 4000 m elevation and the tallest peaks contain permanent equatorial glaciers - sadly disappearing due to a changing climate. Various other smaller mountain ranges occur both north and west of the central ranges. Except in high elevations, most areas possess a warm humid climate throughout the year, with some seasonal variation associated with the northeast monsoon season.

Portfolio

I just started laying out the pages of my online portfolio. Any design or layout critique is warmly welcomed!

Good News

The tribe that we were negotiating with in New Britain signed our proposal. Everything is good to go again and on schedule.

Expedition Update

Things have been a little crazy in the expedition planning department these days. First, I got the email (that’s posted below) that basically said that kayaking in the caves (our plan) was suicidal. Then, a couple of days later I got the following e-mail:

Hi all-
It's been a tough week.

John has been in constant communications with various factions in PNG trying to wrangle support from Lamo-Auru Development Corp (the holding company representing Ben Masori's tribe). We faxed a final offer (draft attached) to Mr. Masori and the other tribes. If we don't have a signed agreement in-hand by Tuesday evening (July 17) the expedition will be called off. This has been a totally unexpected and most unfortunate turn of events.

(Basically, what happened is that the tribe decided that they could get away with charging us $30,000 to come and explore in their territory. If we didn't pay and went anyway, the possibility of getting killed was high.)


This is the proposal that was sent:
Dear XXX,

In response to your letter dated June 23, 2007 and faxed on July 7, 2007, I regret that I cannot pay compensation or bond of US $30,000. We are merely an exploratory team that has very limited funding. We consist of a group of scientists and explorers who have a passion for unique and exceptional places in our world. We wish to study the Lake Hargy Area and document the area as a baseline before it changes. Each member of our team has had to pay for their own fare and additionally we have collectively provided personal funds towards achieving our shared goals of this project. Those common funds have been set aside to pay at a reasonable rate for our food, transportation, hire approximately ten carriers, two cooks, and four guides from your contingent. We think the Lake Hargy area and surrounding environment may very well be a unique place worthy of international attention and appreciation.

We also understand that you are the rightful owners of this amazing region and are entitled to any rewards or benefits that its resources may have to offer. In good faith, we offer you the following items as a measure towards what appears to be a common goal:

• Our medical doctor offering a one day health clinic available to every one at no cost.

• A Land Use Recommendation Report

• Copies of all media that is provided to DEC and NHI

• Establish a long term research station at Lake Hargy

• Continue the legacy of Fred Hargesheimer and provide educational and scientific equipment to the community

I feel that by cooperating and joining hands together we can help discover the hidden qualities the Lake Hargy region may offer.


Today (the deadline,) I got a call from Kyle. As of now, the expedition is on. It is slightly smaller than before and we will be exploring slightly different areas. On a high note, The North Face signed on as a supporter of the expedition.



Some images of the area:


New Britain


An area we plan to explore. In the center, top of the photo is the Ulawun volcano, one of the most active volcanos in Papua New Guinea. Just below it is an interesting looking gorge.


Tighter shot of the gorge.

WebTrends

The capstone class of the advertising sequence at the University of Oregon is Ad Campaigns. The class works like this: You submit a resume and cover letter, get assigned to an “agency” and solve a company’s advertising or marketing problem. At the end of the term, each team presents their plan to the client, who picks the winning campaign.

I was chosen as Account Director and along with an Account Planner, Media Planner, Art Director and Copywriter formed the agency Ice Cream 4 Everyone. Days later, representatives from WebTrends, a Web analytics service, briefed us on their business, the state of the industry and the specific problems they needed us to solve. These problems were market saturation and weak branding. Although WebTrends is one of the original Web analytic companies and one that provides exceptional service, a flood of competitors has led to a loss of market share. A week branding strategy meant that they did not stand out from their competitors, even though their service was as good or better.

We began by researching the competitors’ branding strategies and comparing the different services offered by each company. We also talked to Web Administrators and marketing professionals to discover how and why they use Web analytics. What we learned is that the key value that leads people to need Web analytics is efficiency. People value their time highly and inefficiency within the workplace cuts into the company’s bottom line. In Web terms, a Website will be most efficient (and profitable) when it provides exactly what customers want without excessive content that they do not. The best way to discover what customers want from your Website is to monitor which pages they are viewing and which pages lead to sales.

When we stepped back and though about it, what WebTrends does is analyze what your customers have done in the past to help you predict what they may want in the future. So in a weird way, WebTrends helps you predict the future.

Our concept:
Meet Future Guy. Future Guy is a superhero that watches over Web City (your Website) and battles a group of villains known as The Inefficients. Future Guy, like WebTrends is something that understands what it takes to run an efficient, profitable business and is something to stand behind and rely on. The goal is to personify WebTrends as a “hero” that is dedicated to helping your business.

Our media mix was a combination of traditional and non-traditional media carefully selected to most efficiently reach our two target groups: Business decision makers and IT Professionals. We utilized a mix of print and online media and set up a Future Guy Website that funneled visitors to the WebTrends Website. Our calculations showed that our media plan allowed us to achieve an average reach of 62% and an average frequency of 1.52.

Campaign evaluation worked out well because we were able to use WebTrends’ own service to generate metrics to measure ROI. All print and online ads directed people to the Future Guy Website so monitoring traffic allowed us to quantify interest and believability. The number of visitors who continued to WebTrends site after the Future Guy site allowed us to measure how compelled people were by the campaign.

The WebTrends staff was impressed by both our strategy and creative execution. They praised us on comic book/superhero differentiation strategy, out hand-illustrated ads and our evaluation and ROI tactics. Our plan was chosen as the winning plan out of all the other groups of graduating ad students that term.


Some example pages from our campaign planbook:

Raft guiding

This is a job I've never really expected to have, but the last two days I have been raft guiding on the White Salmon. The guys I live with run a raft company so I guess it was only a matter of time.

The first time I ever piloted a raft was with a boat full of customers, so luckily I learned fast! The only drama was a 20-something girl who started crying when she walked down to the river and saw the first rapid. LJ and I eventually talked her into the raft though, and she had a great time.

The section we do is 4 miles long and has about five class 3 and 4 drops. The highlight though, is 10 ft Husum Falls. People love it!



So from now on, if you need a raft guide, I'm your guy.

Fun with Motion

I've been playing with Motion lately, Apple's 3d moving graphics program. I'll throw a few short clips up here over the next couple of weeks.

A bit of strategy

It's not all fun and games in the life of Andrew Maser. This might be a bad exampe though...

This past fall, I was hired by Allen Hall Advertising, the University of Oregon’s student-run, full service ad agency. Still very wet behind the ears, I became the account director for the U of O Alumni Association account. The UOAA wanted to create a group that unified all students, provided networking and career mentoring, hosted fun events and funneled students into the Alumni Assn. post grad.

The first step was to name and brand the group. Having absolutely no experience with things like this, I definitely struggled. All of our ideas had to be approved by a 30-member executive board made up of students. Our team came up with a short list of names, I pitched them to the board and had them absolutely ripped apart. I had exactly the same problem when I pitched the logo and t-shirt designs that our team came up with. Getting that many people to agree on a name and artwork to support the name was literally impossible and horribly frustrating, but in the end we came up with work that they approved.





The next step was to plan a strategic release for the group. After we struggled with the naming and branding phase, the faculty advisor was ready to give the account to someone else. Luckily, we caught wind of this early and I came up with a plan. There was already a long list of student groups on campus, so differentiating this group and getting very high levels of awareness were critical to its success. In a brainstorming session one of our team members started talking about rubber ducks (the U of O’s mascot is the duck) and something clicked in my mind.

After more brainstorming we were ready to pitch the client. Our idea was to launch a 7-week buzz marketing campaign based on 8,000 rubber ducks. A traditional on-campus ad campaign would not do the job; instead of advertising to students, we needed to generate curiosity and have students come to us. The faculty advisor loved our proposal and instead of dropping us, granted us a $5,000 contract.

The hub of the campaign was a Facebook page of The Flight’s new mascot: Fred Flight. We created an entire personality for Fred and started asking people to be his friend and writing on peoples’ walls.





Week one of the campaign was a smashing success. Late one night, our team met up on campus and covered the Memorial Quad with 6,000 rubber ducks with a sticker on them.

The following day, Fred received hundreds of new friends on Facebook and all but about 100 of the ducks were taken by students.

Facebook proved to be a better medium than any of us could have ever predicted. Throughout the campaign we constantly prompted students to interact with Fred via his Facebook profile and constantly they responded positively. We held a spring break photo contest and got dozens of entries. When Fred’s friends had birthdays, we wrote on their walls and they often wrote back. People, unprompted, started posting photos of themselves and Fred hanging out on the weekends.






Each week, we launched another prank-style guerrilla tactic to keep peoples’ attention. Some favorites include parachuting 100 rubber ducks on unsuspecting students at high traffic times and organizing a scavenger hunt complete with prizes. Throughout the campaign our Flight Mobiles were constantly cruising around campus to keep peoples’ attention.

This video of the Paraduck prank was shot by a student and posted on Facebook:

Notice the quick shot the remote controlled Flight Duck.

The campaign was more successful than I could have ever dreamed. Our goal was simply to raise awareness, but immediately students wanted to sign up and join The Flight. Presently, Fred has over 300 friends on Facebook and The Flight has over 150 paid members.

Expedition update

It looks like we have some challenges to overcome before we leave for New Guinea. We just got an email from a guy that led a previous expedition to New Britain:

2 things:
1 If you are going to kayak in the caves, the odds of dying very high. The
caves on the Nakanai are extremely difficult. If you are going someplace
like Mine or Nare you are looking at miles of technical rope work after you
reach the entrance. Every river cave I know about there ends in a sump. You
will have to drag your self and your boat back the way you came. I
intentionally waited until I had years of river and alpine cave experience
before I went there. My two assistants also have more big river cave
experience than anyone else in the world the story would have been
impossible without their expertise.

2 There was a tribal war brewing near the Nare when I was there. It
centered around tribes being jealous of the money -about a dollar a day-
that we were paying our porters in Ora. The tribes around Nare were
demanding something like $10,000 us for access to the cave and threatening
to kill us by cutting our ropes if we went there without paying. If your
plans are to go to somewhere known like Mine or Nare or Ora, be prepared to
spend a long time negotiating and make sure you are negotiating with the
right people.

good luck,
Stephen

Sounds sketch to me! I guess we have some more logistical work to do before things are good to go...

It's all good in the Hood

Life in Hood River so far is awesome. I live in a raft guide shack with 4 other dirtbags who are always down to go paddling and party. We are just a few minutes from downtown Hood River and a great class V kayak run, so there is constantly a crowd of other paddlers sleeping on the floor and camping outside. It basically feels like we are living at class V kayak summer camp.

Some images of our daily rediculousness:


Me at "Big Brother."


Shot of me at Big Bro from upstream.


Lane freewheeling Big Bro (a first?)


Me at Double Drop.


Me at BZ Falls.


Lane headed down the drain.


Parting shot:

Just another day at the office...



These images are not public property. No stealing!

Naturally.

It only seems fitting that the first real content should be kayaking. First a quick recap though:
In mid June I graduated from the U of Oregon with a BA in advertising.
Days after, I set off on a rediculous kayak journey in central Cali with some friends. We started at Bishop, CA and hiked our 80 lb kayaks 14 miles up and over the 12,000 ft Bishop pass and then paddled 5 days of pushy, technical class 5 whitewater in the absolute middle of nowhere.



The brutal hike.







Classic Cali whitewater.









Tehipite camp.





After the most exhausting 6 days of my life I cruised north to Oregon, moved out of my place in Eugene and headed to Hood River for the summer. At the moment, I'm living in my sleeping bag at a raft company in White Salmon kayaking every day. Not a bad way to be!

Images by Tyler Bradt.

Please excuse the wierd layout while I learn how to use this interface...

Day 1!

Ok, so here we go. This will be a place for the world to learn about all of the crazy things that go on in my life - from kayaking to ad strategy work to video production to world travel. This should be interesting, so I hope you're ready!