Friday, January 12, 2007

Who is 'JP' from My Super Proposal?

I'm receiving a LOT of mail, phone calls and press calls about my involvment with MySuperProposal.com. To give a little bit of information on how this has changed my day to day routine, one must know that being listed as one of the contact persons for JP, especially after a live interview or the Good Morning America Show - creates a flood of phone calls and emails with requests for more media interviews (I spoke to 8 reporters or newscasters yesterday), companies wanting me to push their creative or sometimes kooky idea, sponsors interested in giving JP everything from a diamond to a honeymoon to spa treatments for his future fiance. I've taken phone calls ranging from 4:00 in the morning until midnight, and I estimated yesterday that since January 1st, I'm averaging 16 hours a day on the project. The battery on my cordless office line and the 2 batteries for my cell phone constantly seem to be drained and are beeping from a lack of battery power. The emails of course never stop. I've done interviews with reporters from foreign countries wanting 'their countries exclusive'. I've put my whole agency behind this effort (and then some, we actually have 9 people working some sort of angle on this project and not everybody has full knowledge - everything is on a 'need to know' basis) and my business partner Juan Prado is working as many hours on this as I am. Greg Jarboe and Jamie O'Donnell of SEO-PR have been working the phones tirelessly and fielding press and sponsor requests to the team. I haven't shaved in a week.

But the biggest question I constantly receive, the one question I hear over and over in interviews while I'm either silent in the background or participating with JP or asked when dealing with a media producer is:

"Who is JP"?

Yesterday I listened to a radio broadcast after JP had hung up and heard the morning show radio personalities banter back and forth trying to pinpoint what part of the United States JP was from. When asked, he simply responded "Somewhere in the lower 48 states". They analyzed his somewhat disguised voice for accents and also picked apart his statement from carefully crafted questions in order to summise clues as to his whereabouts. Putting all of their clues together, one disk jockey staked his reputation that he was from the Michigan/Wisconson area, while the other was trying to determine whether he heard a Southern twang or not.

We will be shooting a video of her response and immediately upload it online for viewers to see her reaction to the world's first ever proposal during the largest televised event of the year which has prompted several girls to call me, desperately trying to figure out if JP is in fact their boyfriend and if they really should get themselves prepared mentally for the Big Game (forget player preparation - this year the fans are getting prepared!). One girl wanted to know if she should have a suitcase prepared in order to appear on 'Good Morning America' the very next day, since she was so convinced that JP was in fact her boyfriend of many years since he is "creative, over the top, and romantic and this is something he would do". One guy emailed me and sent pictures of he and his girlfriend and wanted to join JP and propose to his girlfriend at the same time. A very large ad agency called me representing one of the current Superbowl advertisers lamenting the fact that they already had commited air time and had spent a small fortune on their ads but perhaps if we weren't able to pull this off, did we want to air a commercial during the Pro Bowl?

More to the question though, we have taken many, many steps in order to protect JP's identity because the surprise would be ruined if she found out. On several occasions his voice has been electronically garbled and his face was blacked out for his Good Morning America segment. He has had many phone interviews at odd hours and when we conduct a phone interview, I have the interviewer dial into a conference call bridge that I arrange in advance so all they get is an 800 number and when that cant be arranged, JP masks his caller ID in order to protect his location. Early on before my involvement, JP told me that on his very first interview, he laid in the back of his vehicle, head upside down with a t-shirt over his head in order to disguise his voice. We've put out some disinformation in order to throw people off as to his location or employment, the domain is listed in an aquaintance's name, the site hosted elsewhere, and in the beginning, an anonymous email account set up. JP's girlfriend wouldn't be able to make the connection between my involvement or the PR guys from SEO-PR since I was the one who brought them in.

Anyway, sorry to be so vague and not answer any specifics and give any clues, but we have to do this in order to add to the mystique and intrigue of this project. I do predict one thing though, I think that among this years single female viewers watching (thinking it might be them being proposed to and in the response video), it will be a very well dressed Superbowl!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

sounds good joe... but who's JP? ;-)

Unknown said...

Im sure many thought you odd to get involved with this from the start - but how many are wishing they had jumped in when you did?

Enjoy the ride and congrats on being able to make it all happen

apathos said...

I think this is hilarious! Congratulations to all of you, and I hope you pull it off. I'll be watching!