Calling out users in thread titles/announcements

[MariahMan]

I want to announce some features to my member and was wondering how i could do something like:
"Hey ____! Are you on the member map?"

With the blank being their username to catch their attention. I thought i could do it using the vbulletin phrases and did "Hey $username! Are you on the member map?" but i got exactly that. Could you guys let me know the proper way to do this?

Thanks in advance,

-Ryan