The Libertarian Futurist Society is on the verge of launching in 2022 an exciting new ad and outreach campaign.
The purpose of the campaign will be two-fold: To raise the visibility of the LFS and the Prometheus Awards and to reach out to potential new members to join the LFS and help sustain the awards and our other programs.
The focus of the ad/outreach effort will be in two areas: print and online.
The print-ad campaign will run for two years and begin with a display ad in the May issue of Reason magazine, which will be mailed to subscribers in mid-March. LFS ads will then run in every other print issue from now through the spring of 2024.
Meanwhile, the LFS’ first major digital-ad effort, led by LFS board members and digital-ad experts Chris Hibbert and Charlie Morrison, will begin with an exploratory, information-gathering one-year campaign of digital ads to develop targeted marketing lists to identify people who might be most interested in the LFS and the Prometheus Awards.
Basically, that means freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans and libertarians who care about culture and who recognize that imaginative sf/fantasy fiction with gripping narratives and compelling characters can help readers envision the many possibilities of a free future – here on Earth and eventually, perhaps, elsewhere in our solar system and beyond.
The LFS print ad incorporates a new Prometheus-themed logo and a new ad slogan – Culture Matters. That slogan sums up the strategic vision of the Libertarian Futurist Society and our Prometheus Awards program, designed to foster and recognize positive visions of a free and free-er future for all of humanity – one without violence, aggression, war or the institutionalized and often sadly legalized aggression that is and always has been the bloody and brutal foundation of the State.
The text of the ad is simple, brief and to the point:
“Support the Prometheus Award for pro-liberty science fiction. If you appreciate how literature sustains visions of freedom, join the Libertarian Futurist Society! www.lfs.org
The new logo, pictured above, portrays a burst of flame being held in a nurturing hand. The logo, developed by the creative ad/graphics team of the medical-supplies company run by board member Charlie Morrison, is meant to evoke the mythic power of Prometheus.
As legend has it, Prometheus brought fire to humankind – including the fires of imagination, creativity and liberty. As libertarian futurists know well, that fire has spurred so much of our progress, prosperity, innovation, advancing science and greater understanding of the universe we live in, including the greater respect for other people’s rights that has developed in recent centuries as most forms of slavery and some major tyrannies have been abolished.
The Prometheus Awards take their name from the Greek myth about a titan who brought fire to mankind. As Louis Rougier wrote in The Genius of the West, his 1971 book with a preface by the Nobel-Prize-winning economist Friedrich Hayek:
“The myth undergirding the civilization of the West is the myth of Prometheus – the philanthropic hero who dared defy the will of Zeus by stealing fire from heaven and giving it to mortal men whom that jealous tyrant of the heaven and the earth had decided to destroy. The story expresses the spirit of revolt against the prohibition of jealous gods (and) embodies that love of action which incited Hercules to rid the earth of tyrants.”
Art can fire up the imagination about the limitless possibilities of liberty – not only in the West but throughout the world and for all of humanity.
Through the LFS’ new outreach campaign and print/digital advertising over the next two years, we hope to fire up the imagination of more libertarians and liberty-loving sf/fantasy fans to join us and help sustain the Prometheus Awards, now not that many years away from reaching its 50th anniversary.
As always, any LFS members are welcome to volunteer to join the ad hoc digital-advertising committee led by Hibbert and Morrison, and/or help us reach out to liberty-loving friends, acquaintances and family members to join the LFS.
* Read the introductory essay of the LFS’ 40th anniversary retrospective series of Appreciations of past Prometheus Awards winners, with an overview of the awards’ four-decade-plus history, that was launched in 2019 on the 40thanniversary of the awards and continues today.
* Prometheus winners: For a full list of winners – for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards – visit the enhanced Prometheus Awards page on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to the full set of published appreciation-reviews of past winners.
* Read “The Libertarian History of Science Fiction,” an essay in the international magazine Quillette that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards, join the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans. Libertarian futurists believe culture is as vital as politics in sparking innovation, better ideas, positive social change, respect for each other’s rights and differences and in spreading positive visions of the future and achieving universal liberty and human rights for all.
A really lovely design on the new logo – I’d love to see it as in full color, perhaps on delightful swag? Imagine that Promethean fire on a coffee mug lighting your morning!
What a wonderful idea! We’re exploring a variety of new marketing ideas, and will be sure to post here in the blog if we arrange for cool new LFS swag.
Sounds like a good initiative. I like the logo. Will the logo be restricted or free to use by others (i.e., nominees promoting books)?
That’s a fantastic question, and one that prompted some internal discussion. The LFS licensed a variety of images for use in our ads, including the one in this post, but we don’t own the rights to them. We’re looking at our options, thanks!
Thanks, I’ll stand by!