Big news!

Two pieces of big news to announce. Firstly, we have the designated charity for the advertisement, The Marine Toys for Tots Foundation. This is a very high-profile, nationally known, and respected charity, and we're Pinkie Keen pleased to be associated with them.

The other piece of news is that I got a call on Tuesday night from Greg Heanue, VP of Marketing and Promotions for the Hub, asking me if I would mind getting a call from Margaret Loesch, President and CEO of The Hub. Of course, I was more than happy to talk to her, and she called Wednesday night to say how pleased and astounded they were at the success of the project, and the message that it was sending. In the course of the conversation, we discussed two minor changes they thought might make the script even better, and after running them by the folks in our forum and hearing no objection, we have incorporated them into a new version of the script that is now up on the video submissions page.

The first tweak they suggested was to make the ad more representative of all MLP fans by opening with "Hi, We’re fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and we’d like to say thanks.", rather than "Hi, we're bronies." We're not throwing out bronies, though. It's now at the end of the ad: "And to the creators and writers for bringing a little more honesty, loyalty, laughter, generosity, kindness and magic into the world, for kids and bronies alike."

The second tweak was to change the wording to acknowledge the contributions of all the creators, rather than referring to specifically to Lauren Faust. I both see and agree with their point. We all know Lauren was a big part of making the show awesome, but people like Jayson Thiessen, Sarah Wall, Rob Renzetti and James Wootton, to name just a few, also were instrumental in getting it launched. Thanking all the creators, rather than just Lauren, is only fair.

I'd also like to make it clear that at no time were these suggestions presented as anything more than things they thought might improve the ad and that they wanted us to consider. Had the people participating in our development forums responded negatively to either of the ideas, I would have politely declined them. But we all agreed that both changes improve the ad, so we're happy to use them.

I'd also like to personally thank Greg Heanue, who called Toys for Tots to put in a good word for us on behalf of The Hub. It was evidently very helpful in influencing the charity to agree to work with us. It was a really wonderful experience to get to talk to an industry legend like Ms. Loesch, and doubly so to hear how much they love the brony community and are genuinely touched by the project we're undertaking.

Coder