Small Businesses Continue to Shine During Down Economic Times

We’d like to be bearers of great news during a time of gloom and doom business news. Not to downplay the disappointing results of large companies, the mass lay-offs, and bankruptcies that continue to come across the airways, but there are some success stories out here too.

One of our clients, BragGame Rights, not quite one-year old has had some great successes along the way. 30-something entrepreneur Coy Christmas had a vision for a retail location that not only sold video games, accessories and consoles, but welcomed like-minded gamers into an exciting environment to try out games before they were purchased and offered daily and weekly tournaments.



Starting out a new business is risky, especially during the last two quarters of ’08 when the recession was just beginning to hit. With a small marketing budget and a huge amount of energy, Coy came to us to help launch his dream. With little time before his grand opening, (4 weeks to be exact), we put together a marketing plan that fit his budget and targeted his customer. Through the means of radio, television, outdoor, interactive and print advertising, we began tuning his customer into his message.

As the months progressed we looked for additional opportunities involving Public Relations, Cause Marketing, Guerilla Marketing, and letting the public really get to know Coy and his amazing BGR Team. Sponsorships also fit into BragGame Rights marketing plan perfectly. EvVyUs, a nationally rated gaming team is sponsored by BGR and appeared in Las Vegas in November for a national tournament.

BGR now has a loyalty program, a generous amount of text friendly loyalists, and plenty of good news to send out to the media through PR outlets. BGR has recently been named the largest PS3 Gaming Center by iGames, North America’s leading game center organization.

While this new small business didn’t have a large marketing budget to begin with, they definitely had done their homework and knew their customer down to which game each target segmentation would play the most. And he has fun along the way and passes his good humor on to all his customers.

For more client profiles visit nelson-company.com, and see the Work page.

NelsCo Partners to Collect Gifts for Teens

As one of our Pro Bono projects this year, we joined forces with one of our clients, BragGame Rights (BGR) and media partner MIX108 FM, to urge fellow Northlanders to help us gather gifts for area teens. Teens are often forgotten during the traditional toy drives and giving is down overall this season so we wanted to do our part and help out.

We put together a list of items appropriate for both young women and men and got the word out via press releases which were picked up by both print and blog media. MIX108 ran promotional announcements for a week and a half and Coy Christmas, owner of BGR put up posters in his store and around town.

Saturday December 13, NelsCo hit the roof of BragGame Rights (BGR) with BGR owner Coy Christmas and Corry, Laura and Jean from MIX108. We didn't let below zero temps, arctic wind, or sleet and snow stop us from standing on the roof and deck of BragGame Rights.

Live call-ins by the radio personalities were done throughout the 3 hour remote and we heard plenty of honking by the passing cars. WDIO Channel 10/13 and KBJR both showed up to cover our event and climbed the 30 foot ladder to interview the roof-dwellers! We collected items during the day but even more came in after the snowstorm to both BGR and MIX108. Coy and Corry Carter from MIX108 delivered the items to a very grateful Salvation Army! We are already planning our 2nd annual event for next year - and we'll ask for a grill and heater on the roof!