November 2011
1 post
5 tags
2012: The Year of Fusion(?)
Once upon a time, entertainment and advertising were two separate lands. Each land was dynamic, and cool, in its own way, but their denizens rarely commingled. In yet another land, the geeks of technology toiled in isolation on tasks both obscure and unfriendly. And then the winds of innovation blew through. Everything changed.
Today, a new creative map is taking shape, as the barriers...
October 2011
2 posts
4 tags
Foam Core, A Projector & 48 Sleepless Hours
I’ve developed about half a dozen 3D projection mapping projects, but this one was by far the most demanding.
We were faced with challenges galore: 14 surfaces of assorted shapes and sizes, a 1,500 lumen projector (rather weak), a budget of $0, two people and a 48-hour deadline. Alas, we beat our deadline by two whopping hours, all while running on fumes and black gold.
We transformed a...
PRESSPAUSEPLAY: A Film About Hope, Fear and...
A must-see documentary for all in the professional creative space (and equally as important for those not in the creative space.) Articulate, thought-provoking and inherently controversial.
Download the film for free here.
The creative landscape is changing. Some talk about a revolution. Others talk about a natural evolution. These changes affect everything. From creation to...
August 2011
1 post
Eat Your Heart Out, Betty Crocker
Check out our recently released iPad app, How We Love Food, a digital cookbook developed as a homage to summer afternoons in the kitchen. Why can’t cooking be a communal activity? The app features close to a hundred gourmet recipes and hand-painted illustrations of each dish. All proceeds from the sale of the app go to support Urban Roots, a signature program...
July 2011
2 posts
4 tags
WatchA little peek at the 4-canvas projection-mapping installation we developed last week… It was the fruit of 3 sleepless nights and a whole lot of energy drink.
Our brief was to take corporate storytelling to the next level. I think we gave PowerPoint a run for its money.
6 tags
June 2011
1 post
5 tags
WatchWatch out VCs, Kickstarter is picking up steam.
Thanks to the digital crowd-funding platform, in mere months, an iPhone accessory went from being a garage prototype to spawning $169,200+ of liquid capital and 2,600 pre-orders. The above 3-minute video was all it took to convince thousands to offer up a chunk of their paychecks to an eager entrepreneur. But enough about the power of Kickstarter....
May 2011
4 posts
5 tags
Not Another Ad Agency
“THE TRADITIONAL APPROACHES ARE NOW OBSOLETE. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MARKETING THOUGHTS ARE GONE. ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES AREN’T A NOVELTY. THEY ARE ALL WE’VE GOT LEFT.”
- Seth Godin
I work in advertising. Well, marketing. Scratch that… I work at a company that does a lot of things (including marketing and advertising). Argh. Who likes being confined to a...
Film Studios, Meet Social Media
Hollywood studios are still scouring around for the perfect digital distribution & monetization model. Silicon Valley (with the help of indie filmmakers) is trying to beat the big boys at their own game.
Case-in-point: FlickLaunch - the first independent film digital distribution platform built entirely on Facebook. It allows filmmakers to stream movies for free to the first 1,000...
Quantifiable Proof That 'Multi-Sensory' Drives...
NPR’s iPhone, iPad, and Android apps have together surpassed five million downloads, an impressive number — but most of their users never stream audio. When they do listen, however, they are far more engaged.
According to NPR’s internal usage data covering January 1 through mid-April, users who request audio — maybe a station stream, a national newscast, or NPR Music content — view twice as...
April 2011
8 posts
5 tags
A Tale of Two 360s
One of my favorite consumer-grade immersion technologies of today is the stitched photo panorama. With higher resolution cameras, gyroscopes and internet connectivity built into a growing number of mobile handsets, I predict a whole lot of movement in this arena. When I first got my hands on Occipital’s 360 Panorama app for iOS, I knew it was revolutionary (albeit a bit of a toy for the...
5 tags
9 tags
Ratings Revolution: The Future of Television...
** part of my ongoing blog series on using emerging technologies to transform the entertainment + business landscape **
Each weekday morning, I wake up to a copy of the above Nielsen TV Ratings Report in my email. It’s pretty interesting to see a measure of the overall viewership of primetime network television shows. But that’s about as much utility as I get out of it.
...
6 tags
2 tags
“As strategists, we often find ourselves doing similar things. We observe...”
– Will Simon, Strategist @ Big Spaceship - April 5, 2011
Read the whole blog post here
4 tags
Trendrr.tv - Social Television Ratings Index →
Launched yesterday: http://trendrr.tv/ - a TV ratings platform that mines social data to create an index of engagement, sentiment & anticipation.
8 tags
WatchSocial Data: Uncovering the REAL Value of Social Media
I thought I’d share a presentation that my team created for a CEO symposium a few months back. The brief: conceive a piece of executive-level content that approaches the topic of social media from a unique and future-facing perspective.
The C-Suite appears to be tired of the prophetic “social media is mandatory” sermons...
March 2011
4 posts
9 tags
2011 SXSW Music Fest - Top 5 Breakout Acts
Exhausted. 10 days at the SXSW Music & Media Conference can do that to ya. Being in the interesting fusion of industries that I’m in, all three festivals (Interactive, Film & Music) were equally as significant for me. [Funny enough: this convergence was a pretty prevalent theme at the conference this year]. Equal amounts of business and pleasure were had – as is illustrated by the...
My CNN Interview - "Charting the buzz @SXSW" →
One of the interviews I’ve done this week for CNN at SXSW is now live. Take a look (and keep your eyes open for articles on my other interviews on branded entertainment, data-driven marketing and immersive storytelling in AdWeek & a few other pubs)
It's That Time Of Year Again
SXSW Interactive has officially kicked off… and with a bang! As 30,000+ nerds/gurus/influencers/early-adopters converge in Austin, all I can do is think about sleep. After a month filled to the brim with projects — including launching a new website, mobile website, web app, mobile web app, Facebook app, various large branded entertainment strategies, two interactive multimedia...
8 tags
Starting a (Mud) Revolution
Working at an ad agency can be pretty fun — especially when you have a client like the Jeep brand. Supporting a company with as rich a history and global identity as Jeep presents some pretty significant challenges — though I’ve never felt more accomplished in my career than bringing their engagement marketing and branded entertainment initiatives to life.
And has...
February 2011
3 posts
6 tags
The Rhetorical Power of Storytelling
Whether I am working in the entertainment, advertising, or tech spaces, there remains one tie that binds it all: immersive storytelling. I fuse brands, technologies, performers, screenwriters, venture capitalists, and the like, with audiences — with the intention of persuading someone to take an intended action. It could be to buy a product, feel an emotion, stand up for a cause, flip the...
7 tags
Rethinking Marketing (With A Little Help From...
Names, logos and slogans — sure they’re important, but do they move product? I’d bet that a large majority of advertising professionals don’t focus their day-to-day attention on answering that question. The business development execs at the agencies are begging for case studies, but the creative directors respond by delivering them beautiful pictures with gripping...
Next Year’s Living Room – Brought to you by...
Preface – On Trends & Top 10s:
It’s somewhat funny – I still have a browser window open from early-January featuring ~20 tabs of ‘Trends of 2011’ and ‘Future of Entertainment/Digital/Social Media/Mobile/Video’ articles. Amongst those awaiting my attention are editorial pieces from All Things Digital, Mashable, Techcrunch, NewTeeVee, Wired, Gartner and Fast Company. As they know so well, these...
January 2011
4 posts
8 tags
Transmedia - Greater Immersion, Unparalleled...
Graphic via Filmz.rus
I’ve been approached three times this weekend with questions on the topic of “transmedia”. The buzzword has found its way into my lexicon, and as if I’m speaking in foreign tongue, my friends, family and colleagues frequently solicit further definition. Typically my response is as such:
Transmedia is platform agnostic storytelling. It is a strategy-driven process. At its...
Making TV Social; Making Networks Accountable
It seems that Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places have started a movement. Not just a geo-social movement, but a temporal-social movement. To most, the phrase “check-in” is currently equated to the broadcast of one’s current location, though that soon could change.
Miso, Tunerfish, GetGlue and Philo are a handful of digital applications that allow consumers to...
100 Things to Watch in 2011
I’ve never thought of JWT to be a truly forward-facing advertising agency, but something tells me my perception is a bit off. As soon as I saw they had a “Director of Trendspotting”, I knew they were doing something right. After all, developing breakthrough campaigns for Macy’s, Ford, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg and Nokia takes some creativity and market intelligence.
I...
Captive Attention Engagement: A No-Brainer
I’m sitting at my neighborhood Starbucks right now, trying to knock out work that I’ve neglected throughout my short holiday break — though I’m having trouble concentrating due to the brassy barista chitchatting with each and every skinny latte-sipping patron. Headphones in and I’m still having trouble focusing on the open Word doc on my laptop screen outlining an...
December 2010
6 posts
Netflix API Strategy Evolution →
If you know me well, you know that I passionately advocate for a more genial relationship between Hollywood & Silicon Valley. You also might know that I believe that the future of the ‘www’ lies in third-party APIs. These APIs could likewise play a starring role in the future of the film & television biz. From Mashery, one of the leading API development shops — changing...
Convergence Culture
Social. Mobile. Video. CRM. APIs. Experiential. No one word better defines 2011 for brands and marketers than convergence. Technologies and consumer behaviors have encouraged the fusion of content, channels and interactivity – allowing for the execution of more integrated immersive brand experiences. I’ve spent the past few years producing work (at Tocquigny, Fox, and SocialVibe) that...
Hollywood Reporter: "Amazon to Launch Rival to... →
NEW YORK — Entertainment and technology companies are exploring new online services that would offer film and TV content to rival Netflix’s streaming service, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
The moves come amid concern that Netflix could end up dominating electronic distribution of Hollywood content in a way similar to how Apple’s iTunes dominates music.
Among...
My Top 25 Records of 2010
It was a great year for music. While this time last year I could only muster up a Top 10 list, it was nearly impossible to fit my twenty-ought-ten aural fixations onto a list as slim.
Without further ado, my Top 25 Records of the Year 2010:
Transmedia Entertainment -- TV, Film, Music,...
Books, books, books. Finally the market and the key players have matured enough to develop a whole new ecosystem around printed media.
As predicted, Google will be at the forefront. Google Editions, the conglomerate’s foray into e-book sales, is set to launch by year’s end — and could overtake Amazon’s Kindle Market for the following reasons:
not hardware specific...
November 2010
4 posts
“In the two hours between 8:00 and 10:00 PM, Netflix streaming movies and TV...”
– Will the Next Internet Revolution Be Televised? - EconMatters - - Forbes (via adamiss)
Paradigm Shift: Premium Video On Demand
First-run movies playing in your home theater on the day of theatrical release? Could be a reality — if you care to fork up $4,000/mo. The Wrap reports on the Bel-Air Movie Circuit, a highfalutin society of Los Angeles billionaires who’d rather watch movies in the comfort of their own homes than the plethora of luxury cinemas in Southern California.
The studios see it is a viable...
October 2010
5 posts
Blog of the Week: "Paris vs. NYC, a tally of two... →
Visualization of the cultural differences between the two metropolises. Storytelling through simple design.
A few selected entries:
TechCrunch: "Silicon Valley at a Cross Roads:... →
Interesting read. I’ve been fascinated by this subject for a few years now. As the major movie studios continue folding their traditional marketing, licensing, and home entertainment units into their young digital counterparts, it becomes apparent that the entertainment biz is inching closer to Silicon Valley. Ashton Kutcher’s Katalyst, Ben Silverman’s Electus and Michael...
September 2010
9 posts
Web 3.0 = Discovery Engines(?)
There’s no doubt that the biggest development in the web ecosystem throughout the past 5 years has been social media, and specifically, peer to peer communication channels.
But while the focus has been on these CHANNELS, I’d argue that what is more important in the modern digital landscape is CONTENT. While to the novice user Twitter and Facebook appear to be text-only distribution...
Gowalla Check-In Mashup
Wow. I’ve never had a geo-social experience quite like this one. Please, I invite you to join me on my recent trip to New England. 2,000+ miles of travel compressed into a 2 minute virtual tour of my Gowalla check-ins.
This really is cool stuff. Make a Foursquare or Gowalla mashup of your own using Tripline.
Why Pennies Should Be Abolished
Thanks to Steve Dubner’s New York Times Freakonomics column this week, I discovered this hilarious and agreeable diatribe by vlogger John Green. In the video, Green offers up a plethora of reasons why the penny (and the nickel) should be abolished…
After watching, I’m converted. I just don’t understand why a tangible object holds a value of 1/5th of what it’s...
YouTube Instant →
Liked Google Instant? You gotta check this one out… A fresh way to discover content; no frills, no wait, no boredom.
And if these two web apps weren’t enough, check out Google Maps Instant, Google Images Instant and Etsy Instant. Key takeaway from all of these: 2011 will be the year for real-time, intelligent search results.