Many of our followers (yes, all two of you) know that Neon Shields is currently developing a multi purpose flashlight. Many of you know our flashlight by multiple names: “flashlight” and “insert name here”. As we have started marketing preparations it has come to our attention that an object named “Flashlight” is not exactly eye catching. After multiple brainstorm sessions and heated debates we settled on a name, the Light Saver. Then after a teammate decided they were no longer satisfied with the name (*cough* Jessica *cough*) and some more brainstorming we finally settled on a name, the Light Saver.
Ha no, though that would be funny we have selected a new name that we are all very happy with. I would like to formally announce (that is if none of my other team members haven’t already done so) the official name of our flashlight, The Shieldanator.
“The Shieldanator” could not be a more perfect name, because it is (a) made from strange items we purchased off the internet and (b) we shall use it to conquer the tri-state area! Oh wait…did I say that out loud? I ment we will use it to…protect people…yeah, let’s go with that.
Though it would be nice to have the abilities to create such powerful devices it is important to remember why we created Neon Shields. Our purpose has always been “To provide affordable, effective, and ultimately fashionable products that protect our customers of all genders from potential dangers that arise during the night when out. We are Neon Shields, we fight evil by moonlight, and we will always defend.” Though sometimes we get carried away on creative tangents, we remember that The Shieldanator is ultimately a multi purpose object that serves as both a stylish offense and defense weapon.
One of the purposes of marketing is to advertise our Shieldanator. As a fashion forward company, we like to do things well and in style, so what better way than through a line of Neon Shields Apparel to begin advertising. We didn’t want generic company t-shirts so instead we designed the following:
While all of us wearing the same shirt would make a statement we felt individualized shirts would attract more attention and define our team roles within Neon Shields. Kyrie, team leader, is our Keeper of Bees. Jessica, our circuitry genius, is our Master of Breadboards. Adina, a living Google, is our Lord of Knowledge. Libertad (me), the artist, is our OCD Specialist. Until the Make-O-Rama these are the only sneak peeks we are giving the general public so be on the look out for us.
We have received many questions if we plan to sell Neon Shield shirts to the public. Our answer? We don’t know. Though we would love to officially market and produce our device, we feel that with college around the corner this would be difficult for us to actively keep up on. Instead we have agreed that our goal is to have “proof of concept” that if we wished moving into production and actual marketing we could do so easily. Though this doesn’t exactly answer your question, our plan for selling Neon Shield shirts to the public is that depending on the feedback we receive at the Make-O-Rama we will sell shirts (for no profit) to turn people into walking advertisements. I like to call Neon Shield marketing techniques “Passive Marketing”, because we advertise in simplistic way that could (in miraculous situations) get sponsored.
Our Neon Shield dream is that we will receive a call from one of our team members in college that Neon Shields is back on. Until then though we can only continue working on business cards.
StarPathDesign 
This is such a well written blog post Paloma! I cannot get over how well your voice shined through the passage. Though by the way the post was written it seemed like your little adventure with the “Shieldanator” is about to come to an end. I think you should take the project to an even further phase! I know that during the blog post you were thinking that with college so close this idea had to come to an end and possibly continue during a future time, but I think you should give the idea to a company that works to enhance projects such as the ones we worked on during the first semester of school. Here is the link to a possible client you guys might be interested in http://www.produktworksdesign.com/ a worker from this company came and gave us a presentation towards the beginning of the school year. You might remember him. I do very much liked the idea of the shirts! I am always for using other people for your own personal benefit! though I think that another effective thing that could be done is place students in a type of mock dangerous situation such as in dark room for 30 sec. You could then do a survey for each student and have them write down on a scale from 1 – 10 how much safer did they feel with the Shieldanator in their hands compared to a normal flashlight. With that you could get feed back from your product and it would make your booth more attractive to visit. Again these are just ideas, whatever you end up doing with your design I bet it will turn out great. I wish you the best of luck!
– Monica Martinez