Comeback For the Triple S Super-Hero Costume?

It's preliminary, so I'm unable to divulge details just yet.

But it appears that the Triple S super-hero costume in which I galavanted around Oak Park for the holiday season some 18 months ago may soon be making a re-appearance.

It would be for another local cause, it would be in the near future and, I am happy to note, it would entail somebody else wearing it.

I realize not everyone has yet been exposed to what I'm alluding to, so you can check out the Super Shopper Spotter campaign that Inside Edge PR coordinated between Thanksgiving and Christmas 2009: here is the Shop the Village 2009 blog that I created, as part of the local effort to spur on local shopping.

And that effort came on the heels of the inaugural Shop the Village campaign.

If nothing else, and if you're primed for a good laugh, check out some of the clips of Super Shopper Spotter in action.

Super Shopper Spotter: The Commercial

Usually, my PR work involves more time on the keyboard and less time dashing to and fro in public while wearing a cape and red boots.

With that in mind, if you were in the Downtown Oak Park area a few days ago, you might have seen some especially bizarre behavior, even by Super Shopper Spotter standards.

Thankfully, Joe Kreml, producer of the Village of Oak Park's Cable Channel 6, swiftly created this 52-second segment to help explain Triple S's antics:

Shop the Village & Super Shopper Spotter

It's a bird...it's a plane...it's Super Shopper Spotter!

A new superhero has descended on Oak Park and he's on the lookout for people shopping locally. Bearing an uncanny resemblance to yours truly, S-3 (for short) is one of the new, fun wrinkles to the 2nd installment of the "Shop the Village" program whose implementation I will again be overseeing.

Check out more details at Shop the Village's official website, which has links to a news release, a YouTube channel and other specifics.

Gift & Home Channel Airs Inside Edge PR Q & A

From the workshop earlier this year at Marion Street Cheese Market in Oak Park, "Social Networking Sites: Are You Connected?" a video interview of me has surfaced with the Gift & Home Channel.

You can see the clip, "How To Harness Municipal Tools," here at Metacafe.com. By the way, pay no mind to the shiny substance in the corner of my mouth--it was overreaching lip balm on that blustery day.

Note to self: always look into the mirror before doing on-camera interviews.

Below, I have also embedded the Q & A, which focuses largely on the Shop the Village campaign that I coordinated for the local business community last winter:


Oak Park Village Highlights - Matt Baron, Inside Edge - The best home videos are here

A Mega-Fun News Release On Biz Program

As anyone who knows me well can attest, my life the past three months has often revolved around coordinating the Shop the Village program that debuted in Oak Park.

Today marks a high point of the campaign, which has been focused on stimulating commerce among more than 100 participating merchants from across the community. On Sunday afternoon, an Oak Park couple discovered that they are holding the Mega-Gift ticket, worth more than $4,000 in gifts, services and other prizes.

The couple, Paul and Polly Grimes, e-mailed me shortly thereafter and we coordinated a meeting today, where I confirmed they had the winning ticket and passed along all the prizes.

The Grimeses shared a delightful story that thrust me gladly back into the role of reporter as I interviewed them to develop a news release that I issued this afternoon to the local media.

At Triblocal.com, you can read the Inside Edge PR news release about the Grimeses' story.

Shop the Village's Mega-Gift Moment

It's been quite a three-month journey with Oak Park's "Shop the Village" and it's coming close to an end.

Last night was the Mega-Gift Drawing, with one ticket out of the estimated 83,000 tickets (about $2.1 million worth of shopping) generated by the program worth $4,000 in prizes from each of the more than 100 participating businesses.

Time will tell who holds the valuable ticket, as I noted on the Shop the Village website and as was reported by the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest, a huge ally in our program.

A lesson re-learned last night: it's never too late to ask for help.

About 10 minutes before the festivities were to begin, I asked an employee of Park National Bank, the event host, if they had a drawing drum so we could use something appropriately classy instead of the motley gray bucket into which I'd crammed the 83,000 tickets.

A few minutes later, after a search of the basement, she hauled up the drawing drum that we used. Of course, as the photo shows, we had a heck of a time squeezing all the tickets through the small, square gate.

In Oak Park: Helping To "Shop The Village"

In November 1981, as an eighth-grader at Furnace Brook Middle School in Marshfield, Ma., I started my first business: bubble-gum salesman.

My only goal, at first, was to make enough money to buy my mom some stamps for her birthday. Very practical, I know.

I started with a five-piece pack of gum one day (at 10 cents per piece), cleared a 25-cent profit, expanded to two packs, then four, and then held steady at eight packs of Bubble Yum, Hubba Bubba, Bubblicious and other varieties that I sold to fellow students.

Soon I set my sights on simply seeing how much money I could make between classes (and, yes, sometimes even during class) without running afoul of the school administration, which didn't exactly endorse my grassroots enterprise.


Eventually, and quite by accident, I branched out and began selling more than 100 pieces of Starburst candy pieces a day. Along the way, I offered rewards, especially to my best customers, in the form of freebies here and there that expressed my appreciation for their loyalty.

By the end of the school year, I had earned $500--enough to help my mom buy a used car and to enroll in a summer basketball camp. You could say I exceeded the stamps-for-birthday goal.

The entrepreneurial zeal never waned, even if most of that passion over the years was expended on competing for stories as a news reporter.

Now business has come full circle with a current marketing effort that I am coordinating called "Shop The Village." Comprised of more than 100 businesses in my longtime residence of Oak Park, Ill., the program began taking shape behind the scenes in late October and was unveiled publicly the day after Thanksgiving.

"Shop The Village" continues through Jan. 31, 2009, designed as it is to spur on shopping amid our economically trying times.

So far, and thanks to many business and local government leaders who have thrown in their support, it appears to have ignited real enthusiasm. And where I used to offer a piece of gum or a Cherry Starburst to another student, "Shop The Village" is providing more than 100 $25 gift certificates (at minimum) and a $4,000 Grand Prize at the end of the campaign.

Along with other key allies from throughout this community that I treasure so much, I will be striving to exceed initial expectations in much the same way that they were eclipsed more than a quarter-century ago back in Marshfield, Massachusetts.

And this program enjoys the major benefit of actually being backed by the powers-that-be, so there's no need for anyone to look over their shoulder!

Today, at Lido's Caffe in downtown Oak Park, we held the first of nine weekly drawings for "Shop The Village. You can check it out here: