December 12, 2007
FoE2 Podcast: Advertising and Convergence Culture

The first full panel on the second day of our Futures of Entertainment 2 conference, on advertising, is now available for download in audio form.

This panel, available here, features a conversation among Bill Fox of Fidelity Investments, Mike Rubenstein of the Barbarian Group, Baba Shetty of Hill/Holliday, Tina Wells of Buzz Marketing Group, and Faris Yakob from Naked Communications, moderated by Joshua Green.

The live-blogging from this panel is available here, and feedback from the blogosphere on the panel is available here.

Here is the panel description:

Migratory audiences and declining channel loyalty are seen as two key challenges convergence culture poses to the advertising industry. At the same time, campaigns that respond by capitalizing on the creativity of audiences prompt questions about the continuing role for creatives. This panel looks at the unfolding role for advertisers within convergence culture, looking at questions about the nature of agencies, transmedia planning and the increasing circulation of advertising as entertainment content. Does the agency structure need to be rethought? What are the implications of breaking down the distinction between content and advertising? What are effective ways to collaborate with creative audiences? How is convergence culture changing the value of different advertising sites?

  • Mike Rubenstein is an Art Director at The Barbarian Group, where he has worked for the past five years, working on a number of web campaigns and broadcast materials including shorts of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, commercial spots for Super Deluxe.com, and most recently a music video for the band Freezepop. He previously worked at Arnold Worldwide and graduated with a BFA in New Media from Emerson College in 2002.

  • Baba Shetty is chief media officer at Hill Holliday, where he oversees the work of connecting consumers with brand ideas across all channels, branded entertainment, and all digital marketing capabilities. Hill Holliday media and digital clients include Liberty Mutual, Chili's Grill and Bar, CVS Pharmacy, and Dunkin' Donuts. Shetty's career has spanned many aspects of business strategy, including brand management and consumer research. Prior to Hill Holliday, he led interactive marketing at Fallon Worldwide. Before Fallon, Shetty was a research director and principal analyst at Forrester Research here in Cambridge. While at Forrester, Shetty advised clients on a variety of interactive topics, including Web site design best practices, digital marketing, and CRM. His research and perspective have been featured in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, and Business Week, and he has appeared as a guest commentator on the television network CNBC. Shetty also spent a decade in client-side marketing, most recently at BMW's North American headquarters. While at BMW, he served as director of marketing communications, managing all U.S. advertising, direct marketing, and database marketing. Shetty was a member of the team responsible for the "GoldenEye" launch of the Z3 roadster, and was involved in the inception of the BMW Films project.

  • Tina Wells, CEO of Buzz Marketing Group, earned her B.A. in Communication Arts graduating with honors from Hood College in 2002. Currently a Wharton School of Business student for marketing management, Wells continues to create innovative marketing strategies for numerous clients within the beauty, entertainment, fashion, financial, and lifestyle sectors. She has worked with clients including: St. Martins Press, SonyBMG, And1, Sesame Workshop, and Time Inc.; Tina's long list of honors include Essence 40 Under 40 Award, Billboard's 30 Under 30 Award, and AOL's Black Voices Black Female Entrepreneur's Award, just to name a few. She is currently working on a book series aimed at tween girls, and is prepping for the launch of BuzzMG's new trendsetter site, buzzspotter.com. Wells resides in Southern New Jersey with her vast collection of shoes.

  • Faris Yakob is a senior strategist and the Digital Ninja at communication strategy agency Naked Communications. After graduating from Oxford University, Yakob fell through management consultancy and journalism before landing in communications planning. As a strategist he has worked on brands such as Coca-Cola, Orange, Sony, Yahoo!, and Virgin Mobile, in Sydney, London, and New York and helped some of them win some awards. As Digital Ninja, he helps midwife digital ideas at Naked. Yakob writes about brands, media, communications, technology, and that for a variety of publications including the Financial Times and writes a blog called Talent Imitates, Genius Steals, one of the top 5 advertising blogs in the UK. He was recently awarded the President's Prize for best paper for his vision of the future of brands by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA). He sometimes talks about this sort of thing at conferences and univesities. Yakob is proud of being a geek and has been reading comics and playing games for more than two decades. However, he still feels odd about writing about himself in the third person.

  • Bill Fox is senior vice president of Fidelity Communications and Advertising, the internal advertising agency for Fidelity Investments, which is the largest mutual fund company in the United States, the No. 1 provider of workplace retirement savings plans, and one of the nation's leading online brokerage firms. In this role, Fox is responsible for driving the creation and production of targeted communications for Fidelity's myriad of businesses. He is charged with delivering Fidelity's message to both institutional clients and retail investors across a broad range of mediums--from print and interactive to podcasts, audiovisual productions, and Fidelity publications. Prior to Fidelity, Fox worked for external agencies and has extensive experience managing international advertising. He has worked and lived in Asia for seven years and Latin America for five.