How to Craft the Perfect Media List

November 26, 2014 Chris Huppertz
By Michael Kroner The PR industry is constantly shifting like a running back looking up field, and these changes impact every aspect of our job. Staying ahead of the curve can be a...

Bob Gold & Associates Wins 2014 PRSA L.A. PRism Award for Pro Bono Campaign

November 24, 2014 Chris Huppertz
Bob Gold & Associates is pleased to announce that the firm was recently honored as the 2014 PRSA Los Angeles Chapter PRism Award winner for outstanding pro bono campaign. The Los Angeles Chapter annually recognizes outstanding programs and materials created by public relations professionals who work in the Greater Los Angeles area or have completed projects for LA-based clients. The award recognizes the agency’s efforts on a campaign earlier in the year, in which we helped rally oppositions to the housing of tigers near homes in Malibu. The campaign began in the summer of 2013, when residents of Malibu were informed that the Ventura County Planning Department had given preliminary approval to allow the housing of five tigers in a residential Malibu neighborhood within Ventura County. Residents only had a matter of days to appeal the decision and the situation seemed to be under reported in the community. It was an uphill battle trying to stop one of the world’s most dangerous animals from being housed in their backyards. The agency’s efforts stretched over the course of seven months, beginning with the initial media outreach on August 7, 2013 and lasted until March 20, 2014 when the planning department made its final vote of 3-to-2 against housing tigers in Malibu. Bob Gold & Associates would like to thank everyone who contributed time and effort to this campaign.   February 21, 2018 Update: Tigers can't be kept near homes in Malibu area, appeals court says

Fat TV or Skinny TV, What Do You Subscribe To?

November 18, 2014 Chris Huppertz
Here at our office, we’re asking the question fat TV or skinny TV, what do you want to subscribe to? Skinny TV means only subscribing to basic over-the-air broadcast channels. Not the full stream of video services that include so many networks, because people don’t want to spend that much on their video channels. Think about it, a sports network package alone is costing subscribers over $200 to $320 dollars a year just for those sports networks. More than three million people this year have shaved what their watching and what their subscribing to. Another 10% of all new subscribers choose to watch less – and it’s called Skinny TV. So think about it, fat TV or skinny TV? That’s the question.

Acumen Digital Appoints Innovative Tech Veterans to Senior Positions at Solution Centers/Innovation Labs in Denver and Boulder

November 17, 2014 Chris Huppertz
Appointments of Jerad Harbaugh and Davyd Smith Expand Work on Innovative Tech Projects for Fortune 500 Companies Innovation-focused software company Acumen Digital has appointed seasoned tech leaders Jerad Harbaugh and Davyd Smith to key senior posts. Founded by well-known Colorado-based business and technology leader Michael Marcotte, Acumen Digital ensures the fast delivery and execution of innovative, forward-thinking and effective, revenue-generating tech projects by Fortune 500 companies, offering applications for current and next-generation platforms.  Incorporating Marcotte’s long-held values of commitment to community and involvement, Acumen Digital’s solution centers and innovation labs are located in Denver and Boulder in partnership with Galvanize and gSchool. “Watching Acumen grow under Mike’s leadership and within in the Galvanize community is a great example of how community leaders can collaborate to fuel new business creation and jobs,” said Jim Deters, CEO of Galvanize. “Acumen has become a strategic hiring partner of our gSchool students, providing the necessary talent to fuel their growth and providing amazing opportunities and outcomes for our students.” Smith is a nationally recognized expert in large-corporation billing systems, complex customer-facing Web and mobile applications and big-data analytics. Harbaugh is among the most recognized connected device experts, from iOS to Android to Xbox platforms to highly complex customer-facing systems. He is one of the country’s most recognized leaders in mobile, connected device and user interface (UI) design.  Their teams will work with Acumen Digital’s innovation partners on an array of initiatives. “Jerad and Davyd have established reputations as senior innovators in mobility, security, billing, and user experience and have built unmatched platform designs for content delivery systems,” Marcotte said. “I’m thrilled to welcome them to the Acumen Digital team and look forward to expanding the scope and reach of our work together.” Three core beliefs drive Acumen Digital’s business: Without innovation, big corporations wither. Solution centers succeed fast and identify challenges quickly, because they are intellectually competent, creative and work in small, nimble teams. Such centers deliver more innovation for less cost and more quickly than large corporate departments. “Innovation is one of the single greatest barriers to establishing corporate success, because it requires a change in thinking,” Marcotte said. “Under Jerad and Davyd, our teams will work to ensure that our innovation labs can maximize revenue opportunity without being sidelined by the day-to-day challenges and responsibilities for major companies.” Most recently, Harbaugh served in a senior leadership role for user-experience and digital platforms at Starz, where he supervised development of more than two dozen TV Everywhere platforms for Starz Play, Encore Play, Movieplex Play and Vongo. He also worked for Cdigix, and was a co-founder of BigRemark and founder of JHARBS Consulting. “I’m grateful to have worked at Starz, a company with a great culture, one that nurtures technical and managerial development and promotes collaboration,” Harbaugh said. Smith previously served as information technology executive for EchoStar for five years. He was responsible for technology governance and business integration in customer-facing systems, leaving the publicly traded satellite provider to join Acumen Digital. Smith’s many accomplishments at EchoStar—where he was a direct report to the chief digital officer—included launching IT and operation systems in Taiwan for DISH HD-Asia premium-HD video, negotiating multimillion-dollar contracts with Fortune 100 companies and managing numerous customer-facing next-generation mobile and Web-based systems. “It was wonderful to work with an amazing technology company, founded by one of the leading technology innovators of our era, Charlie Ergen,” Smith said.

What’s Hot in Today’s Booming App Market?

November 14, 2014 Chris Huppertz
In our office, we’re asking the question: “What apps are hot?” Well, no surprise Facebook is number one with over 115 million unique downloads of their app for smartphones and tablets. Number two, Google of course. It’s interesting that Google owns so many businesses like YouTube that Google owned services occupy number two, three, four, six, seven and 16. What doesn’t make the top 25 in terms of most popular apps are gaming apps. Lots of people play games, but not that many people play the same game.  Perhaps folks get bored and try something else. What about the number one monthly subscription app? You probably guessed it, Netflix with over 28 million unique visitors every month. That means more than 75% of its U.S. streaming is delivered over its app. So when you’re in your office ask the question what apps are hot and what apps are you using? You can view the Office Talk video covering this topic and more here!

Voxxhirschmann Announces Strategic Partnership with Sling Media to Bring the ‘Home Television Experience’ Directly into the Vehicle

November 11, 2014 Chris Huppertz
          VOXX International Corporation (NASDAQ: VOXX), is pleased to announce that its wholly-owned subsidiary, VOXXHirschmann, has formed a strategic partnership with Sling Media, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS). The partnership will allow VOXXHirschmann to integrate a customized vehicle specific version of the Slingplayer app into its OEM designed rear-seat entertainment and vehicle connectivity line of products. This integration will give Slingbox owners the ability to watch live or recorded programming from their home cable or satellite TV subscription directly in the vehicle. Under the terms of the agreement, VOXXHirschmann will become the exclusive automotive supplier of the Slingbox/Slingplayer solution operating in any vehicle entertainment sub system on a worldwide basis. This exciting business partnership aims to provide consumers with their full, at home television experience in any motor vehicle. Access to live TV, on-demand services and DVR content from a consumer’s set top box has to date been limited to desktop and portable devices. This partnership is the first of its kind for the automotive market and VOXX will leverage its innovative and proprietary entertainment product offerings to deliver a TV experience like never before. The two companies will be working jointly to integrate the Slingbox technology including software and various applications into its new, Evolution Series (EVO) Rear Seat Infotainment family currently under development. The EVO system would contain the “connectivity smarts” of the entire system including the embedded Slingplayer app and will stream multiple types of media content wirelessly and/or wired to display monitors in the vehicle inclusive of BYOD. The EVO series with Slingbox integration will be available in all rear seat entertainment form factors including customized headrest systems, seat back mounted displays or overhead flip down monitors.  Additionally, consumers will have the ability to access content from any portable device brought into the vehicle and then stream directly to the installed monitors through multiple wired or wireless connectivity options. The Company expects to have the new EVO product for OEMs, integrating Slingbox technology within a 12-18 month period. Furthermore, the companies will also be working to integrate Slingbox technology into their embedded tuner modules or intelligent antenna systems, which when complete, will be integrated directly into the vehicle at the factory level as a Tier1 or Tier2 automotive OEM production offering. Pat Lavelle, VOXX International’s President and CEO stated, “We are very excited with this partnership as it represents another first-to-market for our company and holds significant potential for our Automotive OEM group. One of the most compelling factors behind our acquisition of Hirschmann was the development of new technologies within their mobile multimedia tuners and intelligent antennas combined with our advanced North American Rear Seat Infotainment systems. We are positioned to bring to market connected solutions for OEMs that will provide true competitive differentiation. This is yet another example of our leadership position in the OEM category and while revenues may be 1-2 years away, we are confident that the exclusive addition of Slingbox technology to our offering will help us grow our top-line and expand our business within the global OEM marketplace.” “Sling Media’s Slingbox technology delivers the ultimate TV Anywhere experience on the most devices with no monthly fees and our partnership with VOXX further expands our reach, this time into the back seats of automobiles,” said Michael Hawkey, senior vice president and general manager of Sling Media, Inc. “Integrating the Slingbox experience into the EVO Series Rear Seat Infotainment family will make watching live and recorded programming simple and enjoyable for customers, while providing more value for VOXX’s automotive OEM partners at the same time.”

Illumination Entertainment Uses Adder Technology to Address Increases in Production

November 11, 2014 Chris Huppertz
Booming Animation Company Deploys AdderLink Infinity - IP based KVM Adder Technology, the industry leader in high performance keyboard, video and mouse (KVM) products, today announced that Illumination Entertainment has deployed the AdderLink Infinity to help address their increase in production due in part to the enormous success of the Despicable Me franchise. Illumination Entertainment needed to rapidly expand its production capacity, which created the need for shared resources at the company. Additional edit bays came online, and there was a greater need for editors to be able to quickly swap in and out of the review suite for dailies. After researching the KVM options available on the market to address their problem, Illumination Entertainment looked to Adder to address their connectivity challenges. "Using the AdderLink Infinity products, our editors are now able to setup for dailies or a review session on their Avid systems in their edit bay and then bring up that system in the review suite without interrupting any other sessions," said Joe Stevano, Illumination Entertainment, IT director. "Adding Adder’s digital KVM switching solution to our editorial infrastructure has given us increased flexibility in working on multiple productions." “The post production environment has always been an ideal environment for the deployment of our IP-based high performance KVM solutions,” said Tim Conway, vice president, Adder Corp. “We are pleased to have worked with the Illumination Entertainment team and succeeded in addressing their workflow challenges.  The AdderLink Infinity solution also positions the company for future scalability and upgradability in production capacity.”

Which Media Giants Control What You Watch, Share and Communicate?

November 3, 2014 Chris Huppertz
In our office, we’re asking the question: “How free are we?” and “Which companies are doing everything they can to basically own where we live?” In other words -- what we write, what we watch and what we share. Who controls this ecosystem that each of us as consumers want to live in? We decided it was Google, Apple, Amazon, Verizon, AT&T, and yes Comcast. These companies are going to ensure that the entire entertainment, information and sharing experiences -- what we watch, what we see, what we talk about -- is through them. And that means we’re really not free are we? Or maybe we think we are because we’ll pay our monthly subscriber bill to Comcast, but we’ll do our search on Google. That’s America today. It’s also where we’re going, because these companies are going to keep this dominant position. And they will do this by acquiring lots and lots of additional companies in the years ahead. What about those other exciting tech companies we like to talk about? Companies like Facebook and Netflix. Well honestly they’re just outliers. They’re just the little companies, the little engines that are trying to get big, but will never have the heft of Amazon, Apple, Google, Verizon, AT&T and Comcast. Think about it, how important are AOL and Yahoo to your daily life? Those are the outliers! Ask the question in your office -- which companies are controlling your entertainment and information super highway. The answers may surprise you too. You can view the Office Talk video covering this topic and more here!
Share this: