We recently connected with Dale Alexander and have shared our conversation below.
Dale , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Has Covid resulted in any major changes to your business model?
Based in Las Vegas, NV but founded in Los Angeles, CA ThePromotionLife.com clientele base was heavily based in live entertainment providing outdoor marketing support for large festivals like EDC, Rolling Loud, RockTheBells, Hard Summer, Complex Con, Adult Swim, Psycho Las Vegas and many others. The live entertainment was the 1st industry to close, and last to open due wide spread fears of creating a supper spreader event. For our partners and associates the only solution was to collaborate to navigate the challenging times. The writing was on the wall that our bread and butter was about to spoil so it left me personally sour as a former musician. It was obvious coming out the pandemic we need to change our core clientele and our preferred services to survive post pandemic. Technology and the emergence of “Silicone Beach” in southern California as well as “Silicone Ranch”. in Austin, TX was the driving force of migration I notice on our annual trip to SXSW convention therefore it only makes sense that we focus on advertising tech start ups, and providing creative consulting to industries outside entertainment.
After 13 years of coordinating direct to consumer marketing campaigns the biggest change to our model post covid is the access to the volume of retail stores who are members of our community outreach network. The pandemic restrictions made it near impossible to distribute marketing materials, service product displays, and provide information to offline communities who rely on traditional ways of communication. Normal high foot traffic retail around Los Angeles like Melrose Ave & Hollywood Blvd were shuttered from protest, restricted due to laws, or completely went out of business. On Sunset Blvd near Guitar Center a dozen of our retail partners were lost to new luxury apartments, and other music community staples like Ameboa Records relocated and changed the polices around brand partnerships and product placement to protect their investment in their renovations.
Observing the landscape we went door to door to see how our street team can return to pre pandemic efficiency but the corporate culture had engulfed the small bussniess, leaving the “mom & pop” family type business as no longer central to our bussniess model. We rebranded as a social distance advertising agency that focused more on large public displays by adding emphasis on higher ticket services like mobile billboard trucks, projector advertising, and our most successful walking human size led billboards that can be carried as a backpack or be placed inside or outside of our remaining retail partners establishments.
Guerrilla style advertising saw an increase in demand due to bussniess owners trying to cut down on advertising budgets to adjust for the price increase to more formal advertising. Billboards are often sold to the highest bidder and without a competitive budget many turned to wild posting large posted on construction sites of the same buildings that use to be a strip mall of retail stores. The ironically the more gentrified these communities became; the more opportunities became available for hiring and growth in areas not seem as high valued areas for marketers.
Drivers not pedestrians became the fundamental change in who we targeted, which limited the personal interaction of our ambassadors with the public. Data collection, messaging customization, as well as the ability to provide real time questions & answers became more difficult in a social distance world. These were major selling points for attracting new bussniess to hire brand ambassadors to perform outreach. Non-profits, government agencies, and organizations focused in the arts often focus on understanding and comprehension of information rather than mass brand awareness due the free or no charge price tag attached to majority of their services. LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), a client since 2017, Project Insight as well as many other non profits expressed that holding a conversation with random people on the street with a mask on your face, an six feet of social distance, would not be as effective in creating memorable experience or gauging the response of the interaction. The dangerous to our health in the time of a pandemic was hard to justify as ambassadors wasn’t essential workers as these products bottomline just didn’t morally equal the risk because they were essentially low cost or free.
Going into 2024 top priority is revamping our digital marketing department to better integrate with our outdoor department using some of the the industry 4.0 technology now available like block chain technology, NFC readers, virtual reality integration, geo fencing, and artificial intelligence, and cloud computing to process data collected by our ambassadors doing traditional advertising services.
Dale , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Ok Dale M.W. Alexander is my name I am the founder ThePromotionLife.com. We use the environment, technology, and creativity to bring awareness to offline communities through targeted advertising. I moved to Los Angeles, CA from Belize City, Belize to meet my grandmother right around Y2K. Since 1995 I would frequently visit New York and Washington DC to see my cousins but told my mother “Hollywood is mine.” My early love of music drew me into pursuing entertainment. My mother a life long teacher saw an opportunity for me to get.a great education in California so we moved to South Central LA . Oblivious to the prevalent gang culture at the time; I was constantly bullied for talking with a Caribbean accent and not having waves in my curly corse hair. My 1st true friend was a 11 year old cancer patient name Deandre Thompson, a fellow Belizean classmate who was an aspiring computer and video game coder and technology enthusiast who introduced to my 1st MP3 player before Zune or the iPod even existed. Deandre introduced me to technology, and often talk about his aspirations to make a name in Silicon Valley.
I began marketing for sporting events, parties, and local musicians my sophomore year of Dorsey Law Magnet while on tract to become an entertainment lawyer. After a tragic accident training I was forced to give up football and traded the gym for the studio. I joined an after school music production program where I learn to use my 1st digital audio workstation. Soon I was making beats with MTechMusic & recording songs with Jet2. I needed an alias so I asked my bussniess partner Tyreace “Sleppy” Ross and he suggested “Dopey” based on my love for The Bay & hyphy culture that grew on me while traveling for track in middle school. In 2009 I officially changed my moniker to “Dope Promoter” in honor of Sleepy after he was tragically murdered while being a featured dancer for Cali Swag District hit “Teach Me How To Dougie.” His brother Tyrone encouraged me to go full time into the industry after YG & DJ Mustard featured him dancing on the rooftop of the “I’m Good” music video.
In 2008 before attending Cal State LA for a B.A. in Sociology, Law & Society I participated and won several awards in the United States Academic Decathlon; including a perfect Super Quiz score on TV setting a Dorsey High school record. My USDA coach Donald Singleton challenged me to become well rounded scholar so he asked his most educated colleagues from around the LA Unified School District to pay special attention teaching me how to speak, write, and take test at a college level. The educators was intrigued by my methods of using customized video game technology to learn quicker, which eventually landed me a job as a mentor/tutor at Beyond The Bell’s non profit H.I.P.P (High Intellectual Preparedness Program). My involvement in this educational incubator lead to my university hiring me as a recruiter stationed at Crenshaw & Washington High. Around 2010 social media emergence gave me my 1st full time marketing position for the CSULA, College of Bussniess & Economics. It was during this time I realized that our school did not have an audio or visual medium of their print only University Times. After many dead ends to starting a campus radio & TV station I was to join our “Summa Cum Laude” Nicolle Fedor & her roommate Ana Corella in co-founding Golden Eagle Radio & TV (now productions) as an extension of the University Times.
Around the same time of birthing a radio station I joined the marketing team of the largest urban music festivals in California at the time Rock The Bells, Paid Dues Fest. This was a perfect partnership because our media outlets was able to get all access to cover some of the largest artist in the music industry. Dope Promoter gained traction on the streets for reciting the raps live of Black Hippy & OFWGKTA while passing out flyers directly to concert goers. Wondering why street teams were losing popularity I saw an opportunity to fill a void by assisting event organizers with the distribution of their advertising. This service provided me with job security as well a easy path to entry into most companies. Soon the business model of guerrilla marketing allowed me to build a highly profitable service with minimal overhead or start up cost. I became a walking billboard and a vocal ambassador for brands and organizers who didn’t want the attention but still understood the value of real time face to face customer service and acquisition.
ThePromoLife™ took shape the moment I graduated CSULA in 2014 as I walked the stage with no degree. My professor was stuck in ebola quarantine in Africa and informed me that an incomplete grade would be needed to be changed once he is able to return from his fellowship. I was bummed and prayed daily as I had dedicated 6 years, and sacrificed a-lot to obtain a formal education. I began to freelance again soon landing a field marketing position as brand activation representative for New York based Cornerstone Agency / TheFADER from 2015-2018. Large brands like Genius, Rebook, Puma, Converse, Coors Light, Jack Daniel’s, McDonalds, World Surf League as well as record labels had me execute single/album rollouts in LA for artist like The Weekend, Coldplay, Snoop Dogg, Drake, Cardi B & many more. While working The FADERFort event at SXSW I was tasked to represent OffTop mobile music studio app as well as Re-midi production glove. These two campaigns bridged my two earliest passions allowing me to see the need for creatives to bring uniqueness to new technology.
In 2017 Complex Con wasted no time breaking into Long Beach with a full lifestyle event built on fashion, education, technology, art and music with me coordinating their outreach. Next it was the west coast expansion of Rolling Loud, as well as joining Goldenvoice / AEG Presents to promote Bad Bunny’s 1st tour, Tropicalia Fest, DayNNight Fest, Marley’s Kaya Fest. These campaigns along side with my mentor Jelani Kimble clients lead to restructuring The Promo Life not as an agency but forum for independent advertisers and media, Over a decade of groundwork lead to a shift in the market from competing to a collaborative roll amongst several promotional companies. The purpose was to try to bring a minimum wage and standard practices across the many independent agencies servicing Hollywood.
My efforts to make change and ideas reform the direct promotion caught the ear of a good friend who told Nipsey Hussle which lead to me collaborating in rolling out his debut album Victory Lap on Atlantic Records with the help of Britney Bell of Distinctive PR a fellow CSULA Golden Eagle. Victory Lap importance to my community took new meaning when Nipsey was murdered in front of his The Marathon Clothing store in 2019. Anderson Paak, Shoreline Mafia, Ice Cube, MountWestmore, albums was next. After a 2 year hiatus due to covid I couldn’t have our story end on a sour note. Surprisingly my proudest campaign came in September of 2023 was collaborating with my former supervisor (The Hunte Agency) on providing outdoor advertising for TEC Lemiert’s Black To Future Convention. The annual technology conference for me is a full circle moment as it realigned my goals and skills while providing a real pipeline to silicon valley, silicon beach here in LA and what we now call silicon ranch in Austin, TX.
Working with tech startups have always been a goal and dream since elementary and I hope me telling my story for the 1st time and inspire some kid to throw his hat in the ring and dare greatly like my mentors challenged me. Your value is more than a dollar sign, your work is more than a legacy …its a way to repay the creator for such a wonderful gift of creativity.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
Surprisingly referrals from my other clients are the best. Honestly each time i go out I met a potential client. People feel comfortable hiring me or my partners after they encounter us in person. This is a social sport but a genuine one, you must believe and have passion in what pushing. We aren’t doing this for mass exposure but to make sure that core hie hard fan dosen’t miss something that might make their day. We are literally the face and mouth piece of brands and it work best if my future clients experience our outreach in person. Referrals are chill because they come in fully committed with no pitch or false promises. 90% of our clients find us somehow, we barely advertise our own services but they know we actually do the work not just toss their marketing products. The truth is bussniess these days is a network of referrals, NDAs, sub contracts, FOMO that keeps us alive.
Recently we have decided to expand to San Diego, Las Vegas & San Jose in 2023 which definability will lead to us increasing our sales outreach to focus on new clients. Repeat customers has always been top priority as it is the 1st rule to marketing. Growth at a controlled rate protected our brand reputation while allowing us to dedicate full attention to every client at an affordable price.
With the changes to Instagram direct messaging, I think LinkedIn is clutch in researching the names behind the brands; after-all a group of people working toward one goal is why these corporations even exist. I found the easiest outreach is actually pretty obvious the united states postal service. its a trip but a no brainer Its wild how people move away from whats proven to work to keep up with trends. Im currently writing a short book series under my publishing imprint MissDanaSon which explore marketing from a historic perspective, and deconstruct some of the methods used to advertise called Reverse Marketing.
Honestly i am truly blessed to have people love what we do & how passionate we are about connecting with people. I do look forward to taking on new clients in the technology, fashion, non profit, and legal cannabis industries. Every company is looking for more exposure or a new way of communicating and we provide a cost effective solution.
How did you build your audience on social media?
I build a few accounts back in the day with the follow/unfollow method but that is now old and burnt out. Instagram & facebook considers that spamming but for many years they encouraged it and even had 3rd party applications to help you. I recently partnered with Jus Legendary CCM to cast talent for digital content creation and the algorithm does reward you if you have quality production & a solid marketing plan.
Personally i don’t buy into the high follower counts because it can get messy to manage your business or personal life with a bunch of random accounts. Now days i build accounts using mix media platforms, and putting an extreme focus on data analysis to deliver high conversion rates. Brand partnerships work the best with the new collaboration option I think the latest update you can have like 5 different pages work on the same post. If you don’t network and share the ideas your pretty much limited to your audience. I have been consulting in social media marketing since I worked for the College of Business & Economics at CSULA and notice every update or new platform makes it a more complicated system. Look into AI to help manage the work load but the creativity will forever be in the head of the visionary. Lastly I say interact with your audience whats the point of numbers to just look cool….its a tool for communication.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thepromotionlife.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missdanason/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thepromotionlife
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dalexan/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/dopepromoter
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dopeapprovedtv
Image Credits
Photo by Dope Approved Media