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RALEIGH — From cupcake and candle makers to tarot card readers and dog biscuit bakers, many Triangle small-business owners want a piece of the Super Bowl XLVIII action.

The NFL season has just started, but hundreds of small businesses and nonprofit organizations across the state and nation have entered Intuit Small Business Big Game, a contest with prizes that include a 30-second commercial during the Feb. 2 Super Bowl, which is one of the most-watched television broadcasts of the year.

Small-business owners who enter this and other contests that involve public voting need to be strategic about the challenge they choose, ensure they can deliver if success follows, and think about the burden it puts on clients and friends if a company is asking them to vote in a new contest every week, said Jeremy Sisk, president of Xperience4Higher, a marketing and consulting firm in Durham that focuses on small businesses.

Sisk likened participating in too many contests to someone going around asking for a date from every girl in the room.

“I become much less attractive if every time they turn around I am asking somebody for assistance, or a date or a vote or whatever,” said Sisk, whose company is participating in the contest. “However, if I am very strategic in the way that I ask for a date or I ask for a vote, chances are my reputation is going to be a whole lot better.”

Before entering a high-profile contest, small-business owners need to ensure their general business affairs are in order and consider whether the contest could hurt them by giving disgruntled customers a reason to speak out, Sisk said. Owners also need to have a plan to respond to a rapid increase in demand if they get national attention from an actual or near win.

“You have got to be prepared for the best- and worst-case scenarios,” Sisk said.

Sisk has identified call centers that could help his business handle an influx of calls if he progresses, in the contest and systems to capture appropriate information.

Once small-business owners enter, Sisk said, they have to balance promoting voting versus becoming an annoyance or burden to their followers.

Talk to customers

Courtney Tellefsen said small-business owners who aren’t communicating with their customers face a disadvantage.

“If you don’t already communicate with your customers, you are less likely to win because you don’t have the basics yet,” said Tellefsen, founder and co-owner of The Produce Box, a Raleigh-based, online farmers market that buys about 2 million pounds of produce from North Carolina farmers and delivers it to the Triangle, the Triad, and Wilmington via a network of about 200 moms.

About a year ago, The Produce Box was one of five small businesses around the country that online voters deemed worthy of a “Big Break” in the contest sponsored by Facebook and American Express OPEN, the credit-card company’s small-business division.

The Produce Box received $25,000 and other prizes, along with a daylong visit from American Express and Facebook executives. Since being named a winner in the contest, the company has doubled the amount of food it buys from farmers, bought and moved into a new warehouse, and worked with people in other states interested in duplicating her business model.

Tellefsen said it was easy to motivate the company’s fan base because communication and engagement was already a key part of her business model. The Produce Box limited stand-alone Facebook posts on voting to about once a week, but tacked the message onto emails, newsletters, videos and other communication.

Tellefsen recommends presenting a story that is clear and concise and emphasizes the businesses’ larger impact on the community.

“It has to be more than ‘Vote for me because I want to win,’ and ‘I want my company to be a winner’and ‘We are such a great business,’***” she said. “It’s good to be a great business, but really, if you want someone to vote for you, you’ve got to show how it benefits if not that person individually, but how it benefits their community.”

Tellefsen said small-business owners should enjoy themselves and use the opportunity to evaluate and improve their business.

“It helps you refine your story and figure out what your story is,” she said.

A ‘holistic view’

There are other benefits of participating in such contests, beyond raising the profile of a business, said Margaret Shepard, executive director of Communications and Strategy for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In February, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce recognized 100 small businesses across the nation with its Blue Ribbon Small Business Award. Those businesses were then eligible to compete for the 2013 Community Excellence Award, which is determined by a popular vote.

“We found that this program has allowed these businesses to analyze all aspects of how they are doing business, from the staff and the benefits to their client work, and figure out where they are excelling, where they want to focus more,” Shepard said. “I think that sort of holistic view is really helpful to them.”

SuperBowl-Ads.com, a 16-year-old Raleigh-based website about Super Bowl commercials that is also participating in Intuit’s contest, states that last year a 30-second national spot during the NFL’s championship game cost about $3.8 million and was seen on average by 108 million viewers.

Small-business owners who are in the thick of the Small Business Big Game competition expressed different reasons for participating.

Nancy Alinovi, owner of Adore Designer Retail Boutiques in Cary and Raleigh, said the contest is an opportunity to raise awareness about her company and increase franchising opportunities. Sara Fitzpatrick, owner of The Cupcake Shoppe Bakery in Raleigh, would like to increase production and celebrate small businesses.

Philip Young, who founded Black Unykorn Astrology and Tarot in Cary, thinks it would be fun to have Super Bowl ad about an astrologer and tarot reader.

“I figure it will be as entertaining as the Janet Jackson (wardrobe malfunction) halftime show,” Young said.


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LEAVING AND RETUR*HIR'red*

History

According to fandom historian Fred Patten, the concept of furry originated at a science fiction convention in 1980,[3] when a character drawing from Steve Gallacci’s Albedo Anthropomorphics started a discussion of anthropomorphic characters in science fiction novels. This led to the formation of a discussion group that met at science fiction and comics conventions.
The specific term furry fandom was being used in fanzines as early as 1983, and had become the standard name for the genre by the mid-1990s, when it was defined as "the organized appreciation and dissemination of art and prose regarding 'Furries', or fictional mammalian anthropomorphic characters."[4] However, fans consider the origins of furry fandom to be much earlier, with fictional works such as Kimba, The White Lion released in 1965, Richard Adams' novel Watership Down, published in 1972 (and its 1978 film adaptation), as well as Disney's Robin Hood as oft-cited examples.[3] To distinguish these personae from seriously depicted animal characters, such as Lassie or Old Yeller, cartoon animals are referred to as funny animals,[5] a term that came into use in the 1910s.[6]
During the 1980s, furry fans began to publish fanzines, developing a diverse social group that eventually began to schedule social gatherings. By 1987, there was sufficient interest to stage the first furry convention.[7] Throughout the next decade, the Internet became accessible to the general population and became the most popular means for furry fans to socialize.[8] The newsgroup alt.fan.furry was created in November 1990, and virtual environments such as MUCKs also became popular places on the Internet for fans to meet and communicate.[9]
The furry fandom is male-dominated, with surveys reporting around 80% male respondents.[10][11][12]
In Japan, the fandom and artwork is known as kemono (ケモノ?, from the Japanese for beast [獣], but always written in katakana).[citation needed]
Inspiration

Allegorical novels (including works of both science fiction and fantasy) and cartoons featuring anthropomorphic animals are often cited as the earliest inspiration for the fandom.[3] A survey conducted in 2007 suggested that, when compared to a non-furry control group, a higher proportion of those self-identifying as furries liked cartoons "a great deal" as children and recalled watching them significantly more often, as well as being more likely to enjoy works of science fiction than those outside of the community.[13]