Page 122 of Derivation

“I can help and still have time for you,” Gabi told her, squeezing Sarai’s shoulders.

“What does this all entail, Arlowe?” Violet asked.

“If I can have those few days, with the commercial airing and the other marketing Sarai has planned to go out with it, I think I can increase subscribers by five percent.”

“That’s it?”

“Subscribers, Violet,” Enya noted. “She said subscribers, not downloads.”

“You really think you can make that much money off a few new features in the game part?” Violet asked.

“Yeah, I do. It’s addictive once you get started with it, and they’ll have the free trial that’s just long enough to get people hooked. I’ll need Sarai to update the commercial, though.”

“You need me to update it? It’s done. I had a few finishing touches to put on it, but I was going to send it tonight.”

“Can you wait?”

“No, Arlowe. It’s due at eight in the morning. If they don’t have it, they won’t run it when we need it.”

“Can we change the time when it airs?” Arlowe asked, practically bouncing on her feet.

“We wanted it to air during that event for a reason. Its prime audience is our demographic,” Sarai replied.

“I know, but we can do better. I just need a little more time.”

“Arlowe, this would be a big risk,” Violet said. “We’re spending a lot of money on this.”

“I know. But if we choose another slot, will we be out anything?”

“I’d have to call the network and find out if moving will cost too much,” Sarai said. “I know it’s going to cost something. Everything does. It could put us over budget, or we’d have to choose a less expensive time slot to come out even, I guess. I don’t know. I’ll have to check. The updates to the commercial are the main concern I have, though. I animated and edited this all myself, so it’ll take time to add in whatever you want, Arlowe.”

“It’ll be worth it, Sarai.”

“And the commercial is not airing tomorrow,” Violet added.

“Yeah. So?” Sarai asked.

“So, if you can edit it today, you can still turn it in tomorrow, and Arlowe can work on all the changes and have it ready for launch by the time the commercial airs, right?”

“I should be able to do that, yeah,” Arlowe confirmed.

“What about mock-ups?” Sarai asked. “If you’re adding features, I’ll need to show images and–”

“I can help with that,” Enya said. “Arlowe and I have a bunch of those ready. I might just need to make some adjustments based on whatever it is that she wants to do.”

“Sarai?” Violet asked.

“It’s three in the afternoon already,” she replied. “This took me a lot of time to put together. I don’t know… I might need to change the whole thing to focus on what Arlowe’s doing if it could be that impactful to subscriptions. I might have to work all night.”

“I can stay,” Violet said. “And I can get Stella here if we need her for anything. Plus, your intern can help. We’ll pay her extra if she’s available to work tonight.”

“It’s still risky,” Sarai reasoned. “I might have to rework the whole campaign. That’s email edits, website changes, social media images and copy changes.”

“I think what Violet is saying is that the commercial is what has to change tonight, but everything else can be worked on over the next few days. Right?” Gabi asked.

“Yes. And I’ll help with all of that, too. I’ve got the contracts for the office that I have to take care of, but other than that, I’ll work on this with everyone until it’s done and we’re good,” Violet said.

Sarai looked around the garage at her friends, who all seemed to be supportive of this idea, which would mean a lot of work for all of them, but likely, mostly her. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to redo the entire commercial. It was that they would be taking a pretty big risk. The commercial she’d already put together was good. It was solid. She had animated two characters who weren’t cute little cartoons, but more like real people. She’d written a good script that showed off the benefits of the app as well as why people might want to not only download but pay for the subscription. She’d even called attention to globalization and had a comment in there about how, while a lot of people might speak English around the world, that didn’t mean that everyone did or that life wouldn’t be easier if a business professional or a student learned another language or two. There were a couple of stats in there as well on how their app had shown language understanding almost twice as fast as their competitors. The commercial would work.