Groop Summer Bash Pictures!
July 17th, 2009
Thank You For Helping Make The Groop Summer Bash a Success!
Here is the first round of pics. More to come in the AM.
Posts filed under 'Advertising'
Directions, Parking, Panelists and Panel Outline for The Groop’s Summer Bash!
July 16th, 2009
To make sure you get to The Groop bash here is a Google map with parking locations highlighted.
401 S. Main St.
Los Angeles, CA 90013
The “Lawn Chair Panel” will feature:
Benjamin Bratton
Professor of Media Studies at UC San Diego
Todd Mendeloff
VP of Digital Media Marketing and Distribution Walt Disney Studios
Jonathan Lambert
CEO of Workhabit
David Brody
Managing Partner at North Venture Partners and former VP of Marketing for Virgin Music
Panel outline:
Our Topic will be Advertising in the Digital Landscape:
What role does creativity play in the digital landscape?
We will try to answer the following questions:
1. Who drives? The strategist or the creative? Could they be one in the same? How do they collaborate?
2. What is the role of the Digital Agency vs. Traditional Agency. (i.e. The Groop vs. Young & Rubicam) in the current landscape? In the future?
3. How do we as a community (Advertising, Creative, Technology, Business) better listen, communicate, collaborate and learn from each other?
4. How do we make technology more beautiful? More human? How do we bring art to it?
“Our goal is to bring together our friends in advertising, interactive, and broadcast to celebrate the future. It’s easy to get caught up in the economy and the uncertainty of our industries, but the reality is that we are just at the beginning of a very exciting time. So let’s party!”
Seth Epstein, Chief Catalyst
The Groop Summer BBQ & Bash is Now Indoors and Extended Hours!
July 14th, 2009
Because of popular demand we have changed venues and extended our hours.
The Groop Summer BBQ is now officially “The Groop Summer BBQ & Bash!”
Tacos by “The Green Truck”:
http://greentruckonthego.com
Beer by Krombacher:
http://www.krombacher.com
Sparkling Juice by Izze:
http://www.izze.com
Music by DJ Pablo Aguilar
http://www.facebook.com/pablisimo
http://www.pabloaguilar.com/2009/
7:00 – 7:30 pm
Cocktails, Tacos & Networking
7:30 – 8:30 pm
Cocktails, Tacos & Panel Discussion
8:30 – 11:00 pm
Cocktails, Tacos & Dancing
How to get to the NEW VENUE? (Hint: It is across the street from the Groop’s offices):
View Larger Map
Dress to impress for an “indoor” BBQ & Bash in a 1903 Bank.
RSVP HERE:
http://www.thegroop.net/bbq
What do Parties at The Groop Look Like?
July 10th, 2009
See for yourself in this “stroll through Groop history”.
[ Ad Age ] Round-up of Cannes 2009 Coverage
July 7th, 2009
Good round-up of Cannes coverage.
My favorite article is one from Jeff Goodby on the “Cab Test”, how all the award winning creative that agencies are doing is not really that relevant to the “People”. “Ask a cab driver if they have seen your award winning work…”
To me it is somewhat similar to the Art World, at an art opening everyone congrats you on your “wonderful work” but only a few people see it and/or are impacted by it.
Opportunity Green V.I.P. Party @ Environment
June 5th, 2009
The Opportunity Green VIP Party was crazy fun. Sorry if you missed it. Check out the sexy pictures.
Warmer, Fuzzier: The Refreshed Logo
June 5th, 2009
With the economy in a down slide and people keeping an eye on their budgets, sales at major companies have been steadily decreasing. In an attempt to solve that problem, many of the corporations have redesigned their logos to emit a more friendly, neighborly vibe. With softer tones, and not so bold fonts, these business hope to attract more customers.
To read more on this article follow this link:
What do Musicians and Start-up CEO’s Have in Common?
December 29th, 2008
They both have to “get some traction” before cutting deals and getting funding.
An insightful article titled Musician Finds a Following Online in The Wall Street Journal Shelly Banjo and Kelly K. Spors tell the story of how bloggers, myspace and new promotion platforms such as TuneCore.com, CDBaby.com, Sonicbids.com, Slicethepie.com and Musicnation.com are changing the landscape of how music is produced, distributed and monetized.
The article chronicles Justin Vernon a musician who after recording an album in “his parents cabin” posting it to MySpace and sending it to key music bloggers was able to garner a good deal of traction with fans get on David Letterman, form a new band and get signed to a major label.
“Mr. Vernon’s rapid success shows how small, relatively unknown artists can gain fame via the Web without the large marketing budgets and backing of a major record label. The exposure on blogs, YouTube, social-networking, marketing and other sites can allow them to nurture a following quickly and cheaply.”
To me the takeaway is simple: Give a musician a record deal and he will eat for a few years, teach a musician the mechanics of the business and give him the tools, and he will eat for a lifetime.
Digital technology, the internet and the ever lower learning curve that creatives have to to create micro-enterprises will soon enough replace the macro-enterprises created by the economy’s of scale driven corporations of the 20th century.
I would dare to posit that once more talented (artist) musicians like Just Vernon discover and begin using the (rather simple) tools available to them to create, distribute and monetize their product (art) the music industry as is today will give way to micro-enterprises with the artists as CEO’s of their own destiny.
Lets look at some of the tools outlined in the article:
TuneCore.com: Create, upload and distribute your own music to iTunes, Amazon, eMusic and more. Keep 100% of your royalties.
CDBaby.com: The largest seller of independent music (CD’s) on the internet.
Sonicbids.com: Brings musicians and promoters together. Musicians pay $5.95 to $10.95 a month or $50 to $100 a year in membership fees.
Slicethepie.com: Allows musicians to raise money to record and promote their albums. Anyone can invest including the fans. Slicethepie keeps a 10% fee and a percentage of royalties for 2 years.
Musicnation.com: Connects musicians to fans by giving them tools and a platform to market themselves. Also gives contracts to to top talent.
This is only a small slice of the pie of what I know is out there.
It is unavoidable that new business models like direct sales, corporate sponsorship, touring and merchandise and others yet to emerge will make the 21st century the century of the creatives.
To quote (one of my favorite authors) Daniel Pink in his book A Whole New Mind:
“The last few decades have belonged to the computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to creators, designers, storytellers, caregivers, big picture thinkers – will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys.”
And I believe this so much that I am betting on it. I created an education company to help educate creatives on business. I even called it:
Evilbusinessman
Can I get a “muahhahahahaha” from all my fellow creatives.
“Deal puts ads in video uploads”
November 25th, 2008
Last week in the LA Times business section there was a great article about the big media outlets’ various strategies to monetize online video content.
“For several years, television networks and movie studios dispatched legions of lawyers and sophisticated technology to stamp out piracy while showcasing their content on their own websites. Viacom Inc., owner of Paramount Pictures and MTV Networks, filed a $1-billion copyright infringement lawsuit against Google Inc.’s YouTube, the Web’s most popular video-sharing service.
But MTV Networks and other media giants have started to embrace the consumer-led digital revolution. The Viacom unit plans to pair advertising with clips from “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” “Punk’d” and other shows that MySpace users upload to the social network site, whether they have permission or not…”
“Who Will Be the Godfather of Web Video?”
November 25th, 2008
“Although online video has grown in terms of content production and viewership, significant revenue and especially profitability — even for YouTube with its massive audience of 69 million viewers — has been largely elusive. The prevailing model is ad supported, but that market isn’t necessarily ripe.”
Click here to read the original article
Exerpt from Fast Company Magazine