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PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTE REPORT
BY KEITH KING, CHAIR
I have spent most of my adult life in
the advertising business. Having worked in radio, TV, magazines,
and at advertising agencies, I am used to change. In the
last 35 years, we have seen cassette tapes, VHS, Beta, CDs,
DVDs, cable TV, HD TV, HD radio, dial-up and broadband Internet,
email, and satellite radio and TV. The old adage, “The
only thing constant is change,” applies to my profession.
With the support
of the officers and the Board of Directors, we have implemented
many changes in the Public Affairs operations.
The
most obvious change was in The VVA Veteran. We moved from
dirty newsprint to a full-color magazine. But we also made
big changes behind the scenes, changing our internal operations
and sales partners. The good news is that we have tripled
our advertising revenue, but that is balanced with increased
expenses. The other major change was the website. vva.org
was a static site that had long outlived its value. We have
turned it into an e-commerce revenue-generating site with
dynamic interaction. And we have just begun.
We launched
a web-based marketing campaign that generated more than 10
million impressions. We are planning to launch another web
marketing campaign to focus on our Service Officers. We bought
over 200,000 email addresses and launched a sales campaign
for The Wall book. We plan to buy more and continue the campaign.
We are looking at adding and selling video space on our website.
Perhaps the most exciting project to
me is finally turning The Veteran into a web-based magazine.
With the support of the IT Department, we have created several
viewers that are just incredible. They can contain imbedded
videos, live links, auto flip pages, and much more. They
can do just about everything except read the articles for
you. Before you think that we are going to stop printing
The Veteran, let me say that is not our intent. The web-based
Veteran allows us to create a whole new readership base and,
we hope, another source of revenue.
Over the past few years that I’ve had the
privilege to be the PA Chair we have seen many changes in
our organization. As an advertising professional, all I can
say is thanks, because without the change we would not be
as strong as we are today. And I firmly believe we would
not have the high-quality people working for us without the
changes.
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2011, Vietnam Veterans of America. All Rights Reserved. 8719 Colesville Road, Suite 100, Silver Spring, MD 20910