Andrei arlovski ufc heavyweight website
Working with Andrei as a project manager, social media manager, public relations rep, website designer and fan group organizer - I got a chance to wear many hats. Given that I began working with him on simply establishing an online presence, which later grew into full blown social network, although only with a 3,000 user base it allowed me to create a merchandise line through an e-commerce store and alter after winning and defending his championship title in the UFC the ability to start developing his own brand given his newly established popularity.
Tools used: Adobe Photoshop & Premier, Balsamiq Mockups 2, Basecamp, Squarespace, BigCommerce, Googe Hanghouts, LiveStream, YouTube, Google Analytics
Work featured in: Bloodyelbow Lowkickmma SBNation
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arlovski.com website
The original website was built by me on a Ning Social Network platform, with a dynamic CMS system that allowed for user registration, profile creation and participation through forums and profile commenting. Given it was back in 2008 and before the popularity of Facebook, this newly created medium allowed Andrei to share and connect with his fans virtually through regular updated photos and video. Later after winning his UFC championship, I updated the website to reflect his newly defined brand and more polished look and feel, to establish credibility and clearly communicate his branding ability. Also, given his newly found popularity it became almost impossible to maintain all of the user management on his old social network website and we converted his users into a highly effective email list. Through the use of artistic photography and the Squarespace platform ability to create parallax scrolling pages, I was able to boost his SEO as well as attract sponsorship opportunities for him for his upcoming bouts. Additionally, we increased his merchandise conversions and were able to effectively tell his story.
Social media
Given Andrei's popularity after winning his UFC title and after I have transitioned him website to the new look and feel above, I presented him with an opportunity to do Live Video Chat with his fans and followers on the new website, by engaging his direct user bases as well as his newly created social media account on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram which all grew his newly create YouTube channel through the use of Google Hangouts Live. He started doing these live streams on a regular monthly basis for over 3 years which led to numerous online based and traditional news outlets to regularly get most of their materials directly from him during these group chats.
Clothing Line & e-commerce
As the traffic to his website increased, I felt it was critical to monetize quickly and create simple fans designed t-shirts was our first attempt at it. By running a website contest for original and creative design ideas which then had user voted prize of spending a day with Andrei, we were able to gather hundreds of original ideas for t-shirts which we printed on-demand. Given my background with e-commerce, I created an online storefront with all of the designs we received and monitored the traffic for a few weeks to determine quickly which designs received the most traffic. Upon reaching our conclusions we decided to start selling these designs and they were proving to be a run away success. Later we optimized our shipping and customer service processes to accommodate the high demand of last minute shoppers, prior to each of Andire's bouts and were able to replicate this process from event to event and into a successful relationship with Affliction Clothing.
arlovski 360 web series
Came up with and co-created an online web series for an anticipated huge match up with Fedor Emelianenko, to help promote Andrei's personal brand and online social following. Later acquired by Showtime and might have been the inspiration for both HBO's 24/7 Boxing series and UFC's Embedded.
Media & pr
Working with Andrei was an opportunity to interact with many media organization which included the UFC, Fox, Showtime, HDNet and Viacom. Additionally lots of online and traditional print publications, examples of which are listed below:
