by Claire Wasserman Development Associate at Chess-in-the-Schools For the Huffington Post
We are not a general after-school program. We aren't your typical educational nonprofit, providing the common services of tutoring and SAT prep.
We do something extra- something particular and a bit unusual. We do chess.
Chess as a selling tool is both a force and a weakness. It is alone enough to make a niche market but misunderstood enough to confuse. According to the United States Chess Federation, 39 million people in the United States play chess. Other statistics claim that 600-700 million people worldwide know how to play. So clear a lot of people experience the rules to the game; whether they really understand beyond that is another story.
If we adopt the chess marketing niche (which obviously is not so niche-like anyways), the interview becomes: who is this chess audience? There are the players in Washington Square Park, the Marshall Chess Club, and few superstars - like Magnus Carlsen - who have crossed over into the mainstream lexicon. The grouping is somewhat limited. But then we have high-profile chess enthusiasts like Peter Thiel (co-founder of Paypal, early investor of Facebook), Carl Icahn (a New York philanthropic icon), and Howard Stern (no description needed. It is this aim of donors Chess-in-the-Schools needs to reach, if we are to keep to grow.
Chess-in-the-Schools is mostly comprised of two parts: chess and college prep. If we were just a chess-teaching program things might be simpler. If we just did college prep that too would make things easier. But as we try to use chess as the instrument with which to move and aid the college prep, the way we explain and market ourselves becomes a more difficult task. Chess itself can be seen as a contradiction - dually an art and a science, it is a plot that uses logic but can also produce madness. But it is likewise a plot that has inspired thousands of inner-city students to focus their energies on school, on community, and on their future.
So here is our dilemma: How can we effectively use chess to market ourselves to this new demographic of donors? How can we make chess "cool"? Do we still want to?
Further read: Chess needs media promotion
And so it struck us. Chess doesn't take to be a niche market; in fact, chess is always and consistently being pushed into our collective subconscious. Through ads, subliminal messages, and Christopher Nolan's screenplay. Though Bobby Fischer has held the longtime monopoly on the mainstream's association with chess, apparently so have advertising agencies. From sleep aids to cell phones, financial planning services, the NBA Finals, and Marine recruitment, chess is the chosen symbol for all things Public Relations. It's history, it's setup, its strategy: all these make chess ripe for advertising interpretation and product hawking.
Film and television also often feature chess. Usually the intellectual emblem, chess can be seen in "Casablanca", "Inception", the "West Wing", "CSI" and "House". The number goes on. If chess is used so often, with such vast and varied audiences, then perhaps Chess-in-the-Schools need not occupy so often about how to go "mainstream." Perhaps our demographic is built right in, with a bit of assistance from Ronzini pasta and the NHL. Rather than explain why chess is useful, we might be best served to only show our track tape of success.
However, the advertising world beckons. There is something there for Chess-in-the-Schools to capitalise on and cooperate with. The Tacori diamond ad puts it well, "Adorn her like a queen. In this vignette, ornate chess pieces are a metaphor for the heat of conquest."
Look for Claire Wasserman's next article on how Chess-in-the-Schools is provision to team up with advertising agencies and production companies in an attempt to streamline chess in the media while benefitting New York City public school students.
Full article at the Huffington Post
Cool NBA chess video commercial
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