Our "Will Break Boards for Food" Advertise in Kung Fu Tai Chi campaign started back in our Jan Feb 2005 issue. That was our first Sword special, a project I had spearheaded, so I had to put in a lot of extra work in on it. When it came to the end as I was laying out the calendar, I had this odd shaped space I needed to fill. I whipped out that first ad using one of our warehouse guys, digitally creating his McDojo headband out of a TKD headband.
Since then, we've run the ad in every issue. It's had a noticeable effect, doubling our cold call inquiries for ads. Usually, we just grab employees here who want to be in the magazine, but sometimes, we use our hapless friends who just happen to drop by at the wrong time. We nickname it our hobo shoot.
This is an open invitation to visitors to our studio. If you want to be our next hobo, let me know. It's not a recommended role for masters and school owners, at this point. We wouldn't want to jinx anyone.