Written By: Allen P. Adamson, Managing Director, Landor Associates & Author of “BrandSimple”

Timely. Allen Adamson's "BrandDigital" is a fantastic study of the current Digital Marketplace thru the lens of classic principles in effective brand management. In the past decade the 'traditional' language of communications has been put into a high octane blender. "BrandDigital" explains thru relevant business anecdotes how today's game changing strategies all seem to contain those same fundamental values in successful brand building. I suggest you read it once and then read it again with a pen.

- Phil McIntyre, CEO of The Brand Gallery

Check out "Mad Men in a Digital World" by Allen Adamson

PGM Artists Interns traveled to the East Village this summer to help on the set of a commercial shoot. They assisted director Peter Kagan and producer Brian Bennhoff in the production of a new online web series for Hewlett Packard. This particular series of viral spots will be released this fall as a back-to-school promotion. Kagan, of Streamline Content, is known for his live commercials and their humorous content and these particular spots live up to his renowned reputation.

Katie Steinharter

After ten weeks of interning in New York City, I can hardly believe that it’s over. On May 19th I worried about what to wear, whether I would make a good impression, if I would remember how to get to the office, where I would take my lunch break, among a thousand other things… only to take the wrong subway, get lost, and take a taxi back up to the West Village where I arrived at work five
minutes late. Needless to say, I was terrified that I had blown it already, especially as I was the youngest person in the office by far and knew that I had a lot to live up to.

However, ten weeks later, I have become more than comfortable at 134-A Charles Street. I have learned a lot and also developed friendships with people I never thought I would get to know. Along with the staff and other interns at PGM Artists and The Brand Gallery, I have met numerous people involved in the media industry and have discovered why New York has the cliché attached to it that it
seems like an entire country within a city. While interning here I have explored this city through rushing to deliver packages, ordering production equipment, “acting” in El Lobo Rojo, volunteering at the prestigious AICP Awards Show at the MOMA, shadowing meetings with new clients, buying costumes for a commercial shoot in the East Village, interviewing Promax BDA Conference attendees in Midtown... and taking an hour off once in a while to meet friends or family for lunch and brag about my day. This summer, I have gotten to know this city better than I ever did during the past five years that I have lived just an hour away in Weston, Connecticut.

While I never even expected to be offered an internship as a recent freshman, Idefinitely never expected to have such a rewarding experience when I finally got the opportunity. PGM Artists and The Brand Gallery encouraged me to try things I never thought to try before, and allowed me to learn more about the world of advertising than any college class or lecture could ever explain to me. I learned the difference between on-screen and in-print news stories, and how to create both. As naïve as I was, I had no idea at the beginning of this summer exactly how news presenters, ad agencies, brand names, consumers, and sales reps were all interrelated and dependent on each other. Through working alongside Phil McIntyre and his staff, I came to memorize our roster of directors, producers, web designers, freelancers, musicians, and editors, and exactly what each of them specializes in. Through meticulous data entry, I learned which ad agencies were most renowned and which 30 second TV spots were worth recognition at the AICP Awards.

If one were to ask me what the best part of my summer was, I would not be able to choose a single moment but if I had to choose the worst part… I would say the fact that it flew by faster than I ever anticipated. With my internship experience at PGM Artists and The Brand Gallery behind me, I am prepared to go back to Denison University with a stronger idea of what I want out of my Communications major and Studio Art minor and I know that I have an office full of enthusiastic people, in the heart of the West Village, willing to support and advise me in any future endeavors.

Will Scott

Working at PGM Artists and The Brand Gallery has provided me with a great learning experience in the working world. When I first came to New York City to begin my summer internship I had no idea how to operate in the big city on a day to day basis. After my first day on Charles Street, I quickly learned how to get into a routine for the rest of the summer. As the intern who started a week late, I was a little behind in all of the introductive stuff we would soon use as tools for the rest of the summer. This being only a minor setback, I became a fast learner and got into the full swing of things.

Once I got into my routine, I began to learn way more than I thought I would. I learned so much about the different part of the industry like marketing, branding, and advertising. The most interesting part of my day was that I never knew where I would be stationed each day. Whether it was making changes to the lead lists, learning how to make sales calls, or updating slayterbox1748.com on the PGM Artists side of the office, I always had my hands full with daily tasks. It was also nice that I got to work on The Brand Gallery side of the office and help out with projects by organizing the presentation packages and upload videos we made of interviewing advertisers and marketers around the city.

One of the most exciting things I got to do was go onto a commercial shoot with one of the directors that PGM Artists represents. I got to see how they prepare a scene and make sure the lighting, camera, and sound are all on the same page. I also got to volunteer at AICP and see all of the top people in the industry at MOMA. We also went to Promax BDA and stood outside with our camera and microphone in hand and were able to interview people who work in many different parts of the industry. Finally I got to be a part of an online show called El-Lobo-Rojo. The creative team of Hart+Larsson came to yhe office everyday for about a week and a half and shot a show with Phil and some actors. All of the interns were able to help out with the production as well as have cameos in some of the episodes which were very cool.

This internship has allowed me to help figure out my eventual career path. It has given me the experience of a real 9 to 6, Monday through Friday, work week and I have learned so much about the industry that I never could have learned in the classroom. It makes it even better that I got to work in the Big Apple for the whole summer and that is what gave it even more of a work environment where everything is so busy.

I can’t express how thankful I am for being able to have a summer internship where I have really benefitted from all the experience I have gained. I have seen so much and learned so much. It also doesn’t hurt that I got to work in the West Village and came face to face with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Natalie Portman. It was a great summer experience that I could have not gotten anywhere else.

His name is Phil St. Millay. He's the ambitious head of a gaming company and the protagonist of a new online series entitled El Lobo Rojo.

Conceived and produced by the NY-based creative team Hart+Larsson El Lobo Rojo tells the story of the mercurial Phil St. Millay, whose company is preparing to launch a revolutionary new video game. Although Phil's new game promises to make him rich, fulfilling such promise becomes something of a precarious pursuit.

Bridge Street Films' Executive Producer John Ficalora hosts a roster of three directors-Christopher Yurkow, Liz Hinlein, and Sash Andranikian. Their new website boasts colorful images of their work as well as an organized layout and individual pages for each live action director.

McIntyre gathered leaders from a wide range of business sectors for a lively examination of the industry’s biggest successes and failures, while offering insights into the balancing of risk and reward in interactive media, and explaining how to profit from the power of 2.0 marketing, social networking, and user-generated content.

Phil McIntyre, CEO of PGM Artists, reports recently signing several new key players in the areas of creative editorial, interactive web design and high end live action resources. This expands upon PGM's current roster of exceptional creative companies.

As a summer intern and newcomer to the ever-changing world of advertising, what better opportunity to bump elbows with industry elite than by attending the Academy Awards of commercials?

Tuesday, June 3rd marked the 17th Annual AICP Show at the Museum of Modern Art, bringing together some of the most prestigious names in advertising and production for an evening honoring The Art & Technique of the American Commercial.

Jeff Kleiser will be presenting "Synthespian Stories: A behind-the-scenes history of computer generated characters from TRON to the present" on:
Wednesday May 07
16:00 - 17:00
König-Karl-Halle

CGAM is the premier annual global conference for professionals focusing on cutting-edge technology and the value of Computer Generated Images (CGI) in marketing and advertising. The conference features a variety of tutorials and conference sessions that cover current topics related to CGI.

When Phil McIntye, CEO of The Brand Gallery and PGM Artists, decided to organize and moderate a panel session at BlogWorld & New Media Expo, he wanted to propose the burning question of the day to traditional media and corporate marketing executives: “Are you blogging?” More specifically, McIntyre’s goal was to stimulate a discussion on how profit-driven companies of all kinds can reach increasingly empowered consumers by bridging the converging, but still distinct, worlds of traditional and cyber-based media.

“It’s certainly not news that the digital media environment is becoming increasingly important for marketing television and film, as well as for consumer advertising campaigns. The landscape has already changed dramatically,” McIntyre emphasizes. “By presenting this panel of leaders in the field to this well-attended conference of bloggers puts us ahead of the curve.”

McIntyre specializes in straddling these worlds at both The Brand Gallery, which specializes in the development of Brand architecture and design for screen media, having created presentation, promotion and design strategies for some of the world’s most-recognized media and entertainment brands, and PGM Artists, which serves as a conduit that links a broad-based consortium of high end brand design, visual effects, animation, live action, music, web development and multi-platform interactive digital producers with the media companies and advertising agencies that seek these services. Additionally, McIntyre shook up the non-linear media community and the blogosphere with PhilTube, a series of on-demand videos that offered a satirical take on contemporary new media trends. It not only attracted positive attention from linear media and bloggers alike for its humorous insight, but caused enough of a commotion that the major entity that is YouTube felt threatened enough to seek a decease and desist order against PhilTube. This proved an important legal decision concerning the promotional use of digital content on the internet. Comedy Central was impressed enough with McIntyre’s project, and the ensuing commotion, to enter a development deal with PGM Artists’ client Hart + Larsson -- which conceived, created and executed the project -- to develop a PhilTube inspired series for online, and possible cable television distribution.

“The success of ‘PhilTube’ shows the importance of embracing and honoring consumers who are snacking on non-linear content in the new digital environment. The growing legions spending more time on-line and paying less attention to traditional media attest to this,” McIntyre says. “The people attending BlogWorld are addressing this growing audience with a smart, savvy ‘everyman’ authenticity that’s completely counter to corporate interests and the money behind them,” he observes.

The challenge is to present content that’s not intrusive, but informative and entertaining. “Bloggers and new media consumers know marketers have been looking in their direction,” McIntyre explains. “They can be won over if you make an emotional connection with your message. You can’t pander to them. It’s a sensitive task for marketers who have to walk a tightrope connecting these divergent worlds.”

In selecting members of the panel for the BlogWorld session, McIntyre chose industry leaders who have accomplished this successfully.

The Panel: Joe Ferreira, Senior Vice President and General Manager, CBS Audience Network, CBS Interactive; Josh Krane, Senior Vice President, Interactive and New Media, G4 Video Game Television; Patrick Lafferty, Chief Creative Officer, Travel Channel Media; David Rolfe, Vice President, Director of Integrated Production, Crispin Porter + Bogusky; Kesu James, Interactive Writer & Producer / HBO Voyeur Project, BBDO New York; Mark Toney, Senior Vice President of Digital, SmithGeiger Research Consulting; and James Hibberd, Senior Reporter, TelevisionWeek.

After moderating this high-powered panel at BlogWorld, McIntyre remains convinced there is no reason why those from traditional media couldn’t adapt and flourish in new media formats and outlets. “No industry is better suited to breath in this space,” McIntyre maintains. “Television and film producers as well as advertising agencies have an historically long run of excellent performance in building audience and connecting with people.”

This, McIntyre explains, is counter to the conventional wisdom about the internet espoused by the traditional marketing community. “It’s too often said that it’s an amateur environment with great sensitivity to self-interest and a limited appetite for corporate backing or fakeness. There’s also a concern among bloggers that marketing activities could undermine the value of blogs and could turn this important and expanding informational technology into one big infomercial,” McIntyre observes. “But I have faith that the ultimate consumer can differentiate, and on some level has been embracing new technologies by spending more money on-line. For example, the music industry really dropped the ball with the whole Napster and free music downloading question,” McIntyre maintains. “They took a more defensive posture instead of figuring out how to profit from it. It might mean giving away a small piece of the pie to own an even larger segment of the business. Consumers have been moving away from CDs and will ultimately dictate what will happen with DVD sales. Content is changing,” McIntyre notes. “Technology is allowing us to deconstruct intellectual property and appropriate it in new ways.”

Hollywood is beginning to see the light, McIntyre observes. “Many movie studios, with their very rich, expensively produced content, now monitor the blogosphere weeks ahead of releasing a film. Depending on the on-line buzz, studios might decide whether to take a film wide, or go with a smaller release and focus more on the “downstream” DVD and video on-demand after-market. The blogosphere has proven to be an up-to-the-minute, upstream/downstream, real-time case study in how to best use marketing and distribution dollars,” McIntyre says. “What used to take weeks or months of audience research can be determined almost instantaneously. The instruments are changing in the orchestra as studios are changing and tweaking a model that used to be based solely on getting 200 people into a dark room to consume their product.

“It’s now important for advertising agencies and marketing departments at corporations to look at how studios are handling content,” McIntyre asserts. “This provides the first glimpse of an evolving model. When you’re talking about a major film release, it’s really all about brand management and stewarding content. Yes, this can be applied to detergent on a supermarket shelf.”

McIntyre sees the “constantly changing and evolving” digital environment as “an important arrow in the marketer’s quiver and an essential part of future marketing plans,” but it must be deployed wisely. “Cyberspace can be an unforgiving environment in several ways. It’s not only about hurdling the impediments of using this decidedly non-commercial setting for commercial purposes, there are legal issues concerning intellectual properties, as well,” McIntyre explains.

McIntyre cited advice from Jim Rosenfeld, a partner in the New York office of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, which recently won a national award given to the top media law firm in the United States, in discussing several concerns at the BlogWorld panel:

The informality and personal nature of blogs often seems to create a lower legal bar, permitting bloggers to appropriate others' content far more than we would be inclined to do on network TV, in the pages of a magazine or in other mass media. But now that every media company -- and just about every company of any kind -- has its own blog, can corporate bloggers take advantage of this lower bar, or do lawyers have to be just as diligent in avoiding infringement, libel and other legal claims, whether by licensing content or leaving it out?

The answer, of course, is that it is necessary to be every bit as diligent in self-policing content in the blogosphere as in other media. Rosenfeld also notes:

When individual bloggers use people's content, there is often little incentive to sue them because they are not as likely to have the resources to pay damages. As a result, bloggers have been permitted to appropriate a lot of content that infringes or violates others' rights. Media companies, or other corporate bloggers, look around on the internet and see that "everyone is doing it." Yet they have to be just as diligent as traditional media -- and much more so than lone bloggers --in licensing or excluding content, or be relying on good advice that their uses of such content are not violating anyone else's rights, because they are much more likely to get sued for what others have gotten away with.

This means the same kind of legal diligence in terms of copyrights and other intellectual property concerns must still be carefully considered. With these legal issues addressed, the marketing potential in the digital environment is almost endless. “In the past, consumption of traditional media was far more passive,” McIntyre says. “The new technologies have led to a far more empowered consumer. We need to take a serious look at how to utilize the digital environment to better adapt to changing consumer behavior.”

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