Industry News
Kelley promoted at Paramount
Paramount has promoted Katie Martin Kelley to SVP of Publicity at the studio. That makes her responsible for the publicity duties at both Paramount Vantage and Paramount Classics. She’ll also continue her duties on the marketing campaigns for those two shingles at the same time. Kelley has a history spanning a number [...]
Miramax taps Maxus, Media Storm for planning and buying
Miramax has chosen WPP Group’s Maxus to handle its media buying and planning duties for the studio’s TV, radio and electronic outdoor advertising. It also selected independent agency Media Storm to handle digital work ranging from search to mobile efforts. Allied Advertising will continue to handle newspaper work, a portion which was not [...]
Paramount promotes Stables
Paramount Pictures has promoted LeeAnne Stables to EVP of Worldwide Marketing Partnerships at the studio. Stables has certainly earned the promotion. She’s the driving force behind signing the slew of promotional partnership deals for Iron Man, as well as other pictures. Considering the financial support those partners give the studio when it comes [...]
Rubenstein joins Marvel as online, mobile head
Former Sony Pictures executive Ira Rubenstein has joined Marvel Entertainment to head that companies forays into online and mobile efforts.
Rubenstein will be tasked with over-seeing Marvel’s growing presence on the Internet and on mobile devices as it looks to those to those two platforms for extensions of its stable of characters. Marvel has been doing [...]
Sony sticks with Blake in marketing slot
Sony Pictures will retain Jeff Blake at chairman of worldwide marketing and distribution through 2012 thanks to a new contract agreement between the two.
Sony apparently wanted to keep Blake, whose current contract was set to expire at year’s end, around in part because of his knowledge and insights into worldwide markets.
The move locks in most [...]
Warner Bros. moves execs around the decks
Newly minted head of Warner Bros.’ worldwide marketing Sue Kroll has brought in two allies from her stint in the studio’s international division. Blair Rich will now serve as EVP of worldwide marketing and Gene Garlock has been installed as SVP of worldwide promotions.
The moves, which are the latest in a series of executive shuffles [...]
CBS Films hires Miller for marketing
Debbie Miller has been hired by CBS Films to fill the role of EVP, worldwide marketing.
CBS Films is still getting its sea legs, launching just a year ago after CBS was split off from Paramount by Viacom. The studio plans on four to six movies per year being released and is currently in development on [...]
Miramax puts portion of planning, buying duties up for review
Miramax is putting its electronic media buying and planning duties up for review, according to AdAge. Palisades is the incumbent on the account and will be participating in the review along with hopefuls MPG and Starcom.
Miramax spent $100 million on measured media buying in 2007, according to TNS Intelligence and the loss of the account [...]
Check out all the ShoWest displays
A lot of people have pics but I think Collider’s set of pictures of the movie posters and displays littered around the ShoWest convention is one of the best. There’s lots of good stuff in there, including a couple character posters for Righteous Kill and a pretty nice THX poster featuring the two main characters [...]
NATO honors Levy at ShoWest
Veteran movie marketer Martin Levy, who has worked on campaigns for films by Steven Spielberg since 1982, will be honored at the upcoming ShoWest 2008 trade show. Levy will receive the Career Achievement in Film Marketing Award on March 13th, the last day of the show.
Levy also chairs the public relations wing of AMPAS and [...]
Exhibitors get updated digital guidelines
I get why the National Association of Theater Owners has issued new guidelines for digital film exhibition. I do. There’s value in making sure that everyone is using compatible equipment and trying to steer member exhibitors away from making bad choices.
I just hope that they’re allowing for as much bottom-up communication as they are top-down [...]
Ammer joins Marvel as marketing head
Marvel Studios has brought on Geoffrey Ammer as president of worldwide marketing and home entertainment. That means Ammer will be immediately responsible for the marketing campaigns for Marvel’s two 2008 releases, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, both of which hit theaters this summer.
So no pressure on getting up to speed quickly Geoffrey.
Thankfully Ammer is [...]
Hasbro working with CAA on its stable of properties
Toy maker Mattel will work with talent agency CAA to find homes for entertainment ventures revolving around its stables of toy brands. The deal follows last summer’s hit Transformers and the development of the upcoming absolute fiasco of a movie G.I. Joe.
Hasbro is exploring opportunities for a number of its toy properties, including Barbie, Hot [...]
George hired as Overture VP of creative advertising
Overture Films, which seems to be making a lot of noise recently, has hired Jackson George away from the In Sync Advertising agency to be the studio’s VP of creative advertising.
He joins Overture just as they studio is preparing for a number of potentially big releases, including Sleepwalking with Charlize Theron and Righteous Kill with [...]
Executive Shifts: 1/13/08
Warner Bros. has let go of domestic marketing chief Dawn Taubin, who served in that role for six years. The ouster appears to have more to do with personality conflicts with worldwide marketing head Jeff Robinov than anything relating to the performance of WB films. {Update: WB has named Sue Kroll as Taubin’s successor}
A major [...]
