Editor's Perspective - Time for more media and creative bonding

An Editor's Life, a photo by ManInHat on Flickr.

Something was not quite right at HMDG's fifth birthday party last week. There were media people there.

Not just Mr Grimmer himself, but media agency chiefs, media owners, buyers and sellers, all shaken up with suits and creatives and slightly fuzzy content people. It was the sort of tasty cocktail you don't get often enough these days (Diary, page 40).

From Fru Hazlitt and Guy Zitter to Nigel Sharrocks and Stephen Quinn, media types turned out to toast HMDG's survival. Partly, this is because the agency has a media principle and influence. Partly, it's because HMDG has roots going back to the old days of full-service advertising. And they're nice guys.

But it was an interesting mix. Too rare. Although this is an industry still obsessed with integration - determined to prove that agencies of every hue can all work without ego or prejudice in a warmly collaborative cuddle on behalf of their shared clients - it's not often you find adlanders crossing the old industry divides after hours.

Take our Big Awards last month, notable for the absence of media people who worked on the celebrated campaigns. And I can guarantee creatives will be harder to spot than a full glass at our Media Awards this week. As for next week's Campaign A List bash, if it follows the form of previous years, anyone with media in their job spec will be at one end of the room, everyone else at the other.

There simply aren't the same sort of bonds being built between people from the different disciplines that there used to be (and, yes, I'm resisting the temptation to add 'in the (good) old days'). This might not obviously matter much, except that without the rich network of friendships and trust that used to exist when everyone worked under the same roof to the same business objectives, the industry has lost some of its social fabric. For a business that's still, essentially, about people, the powerful connections between them and the favours they do each other, that's not good.

On the other hand, there's certainly more mutual respect between media and creative agencies now that the old hierarchies have been smudged. Media has more than proved its worth. You've only got to take a look at the operating profits of the media agencies compared with the creatives in our feature this week (page 30) to see who runs the stronger businesses with the better margins.

Mind you, I can't imagine any media agencies are paying their key directors anything like the salaries recorded by Kingston Smith W1 this week (Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO's highest-paid director earned pounds 708,000 in the latest filed accounts; someone at Wieden & Kennedy took home pounds 647,000, despite a 54 per cent tumble in operating profits). Media agencies, it seems, make more money but pay less. And that's one industry divide that won't be narrowed any time soon.

claire.beale@haymarket.com

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By Claire Beale

Source Citation
"Editor's Perspective - Time for more media and creative bonding." Campaign 25 Nov. 2011: 02. Communications and Mass Media Collection. Web. 20 Apr. 2012.
Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA273318886&v=2.1&u=22054_acld&it=r&p=PPCM&sw=w

Gale Document Number: GALE|A273318886

Media flacks keep their eye on the ball

Reed Sorenson by Sunrox Sports media, a photo by sunrox on Flickr.

With sports routinely outdrawing other genres on TV, those with shows or films to market are taking notice. And it doesn't matter whether a production is sports-focused or simply a project that might appeal to fans; the feeling among film and television producers is that sports media can be an essential part of a publicity campaign.

Columbia Pictures actioner "21 Jump Street" has brought in a consultant to ensure that sports media is a part of the PR plan. While the action film doesn't highlight home runs, touchdowns or goals scored, "Jump Street" thesps Channing Tatmn, Jonah Hill or Ice Cube may well end up chatting on sports TV and radio about their reboot of the popular 1980s television series in the runup to the movie's March 16 release.

"Having talent on either sports radio or sports-themed television programming tends to reach a heavy concentration of males who are 18 and older --along with sports-savvy women," says Sony Pictures Entertainment's Steve Elzer, senior VP of media relations. "So if we have a film that targets men--whether it has a sports theme or not--we believe (sports media) is a very important slice of our campaign."

ESPN shows like "First Take," "SportsCenter" and "Sports-Nation" consistently attract audiences in key male demographics. "SportsCenter," for example, has a 75% male audience with a median age in the hard-to-reach 33- to 38-year-old range. Radio spoils talkshows regularly welcome movie and TV stars not only to talk sports but also to tubthump their latest projects. Even less obvious outlets like the NFL Network's "The Rich Eisen Podcast" can be an excellent venue for stars to pitch their work. Eisen's podcasts, simulcast on TV and the Internet, regularly feature celebs such as Matt Damon and Adam Sandier talking both football and Hollywood, and have exceeded 4 milhon downloads since April.

Since 1993, Jeff Freedman, founder of praisery FSPR, has worked for nearly every studio in Hollywood as a publicist-for-hire focused on courting sports media coverage. He's seen movies increase their tracking by as many as eight points when a sports media-specific push goes well.

Freedman, who is working with Columbia on "21 Jump Street," points to "Moneyball" as an example of a well-executed sports campaign. ESPN had numerous segments devoted to the movie, including ones with star Brad Pitt on "SportsCenter" and the show "Numbers Never Lie." The MLB Network also did a Bob Cost-as-hosted special, featuring Pitt and co-star Hill, among others.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The marriage of sports media and a film like "Moneyball," based on a book that chronicled a change in the way baseball players are valued and which boasts a big name hke Pitt, was a no-brainer for outlets hke ESPN and the MLB Network.

But Freedman argues that projects without sports-driven plotlines can also benefit from such exposure. A common misconception among some studio execs, according to Freedman, is that the courting of sports fans may pigeonhole a project as simply a movie for rabid armchair jocks.

"Sometimes (studios) feel that sports are confining, which is not the case," Freedman says. "If Brad Pitt does an interview on the MLB Network, you don't have to worry that some women are going to be (turned off), because he's talking about the baseball in 'Moneyball.'" The only women who are going to see the interview are women who are baseball fans, he says.

From the sports media side, there is certainly a healthy appetite for Hollywood talent appearing on programming.

"It adds a bit of celebrity sizzle," says Fox Sports media group president and chief operating officer Eric Shanks. "Overall, it is just another kind of way to broaden sports and make it entertaining."

Shanks, a producer on the former Fox Sports talker "The Best Damn Sports Show Period," included stars like Mark Wahlberg, Bradley Cooper and Kid Rock on Fox's NFL telecasts this past season. Fox Sports Net simulcasts "The Dan Patrick Show," a radio program that is a popular destination for stars, and Shanks says he would always consider new talk projects that combine Hollywood and athletics.

Eisen, an on-air personality for the NFL Network, books his own guests for his podcast. He has grabbed a long list of film and television talent to discuss sports and their projects, including Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad"), Josh Charles ("The Good Wife") and Larry David ("Curb Your Enthusiasm").

"I love to have relaxed conversations with (people) from various spectrums of pop culture, and the NFL is a major slice of pop culture," Eisen says. "What better way to have somebody promote their movie, their show or their album than to come on in a relaxed easy environment and show their fans that they are just like them?"

A veritable bhtz of Hollywood regulars have descended upon ESPN's Bristol, Conn., headquarters to take part in what the company calls the Car Wash, where talent from films like "The Hangover Part II" (Justin Bartha), "Grown Ups," (Sandier, Chris Rock, David Spade, Rob Schneider, Kevin James) and "Hall Pass" (Peter and Bobby Farrelly) are booked as guests on a laundry list of ESPN shows across TV, radio and online.

"We're in a world where media is being ever-increasingly fractured," Freedman says. "Every day, there are more channels, more websites and more radio (options). Sports (platforms) can be most effective if (used) in sync with the

Chetwynd, Josh

Source Citation
Chetwynd, Josh. "Media flacks keep their eye on the ball." Variety 13 Feb. 2012: 11. Popular Magazines. Web. 22 Mar. 2012.
Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA282741280&v=2.1&u=22054_acld&it=r&p=PPPM&sw=w

Gale Document Number: GALE|A282741280

Fresh filtered: how Ulysses, Kansas, got cleaner water and better golf

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Grand Cayman Golf, a photo by Fevi Yu on Flickr.

A COMMUNITY OF ONLY 6,000 PEOPLE, the City of Ulysses sits in the dry, flat, southwestern corner of Kansas. With only about 16 inches of rainfall each year, golf in Ulysses would be almost impossible without the use of recycled water. Until recently, this water was provided by three sewer lagoons built in the 1980s. However, the consistency of the water supply became a ongoing problem for both the city's nine-hole Bentwood Golf Course and for the city itself, with too much water being discharged from the lagoons in the winter and not enough water being available in the summer when the course had to compete with local farms for water.


"A lot of communities would have made the choice just to dig a big pit to evaporate the water because it would have been the least hassle," says Jeff Kreie, former superintendent of golf and parks for Ulysses. "But if this community wants to survive and thrive, it just can't have the basics. You need to dress yourself up a little bit to attract people."


Working with the Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams, the city developed a new wastewater system that involved creating new wetlands, resurrecting an old, dry lake, and adding nine more holes to the golf course as well as improving the parkland around the lake. The $1.2 million water project was largely funded by the city's sewer fees and gas well income, along with a small amount of grant money.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Kreie explains how the system works. First, treated effluent from the sewer lagoons is pumped into six 200-by-200-foot wetland cells, arranged in pairs. Water enters the first pair of cells, is filtered by the plants and microorganisms, and exits a little bit cleaner than when it entered. The process is repeated in the next pair of cells and then the final pair, where by now the water is significantly cleaner than when it left the treatment plant. The water then travels through underground pipes to 5,000-feet of manmade stream channels with riffles to stir the water, while the three-foot deep sand streambed provides further filtering. The stream ends in a three-acre equalization marsh and from there the water travels through more underground pipes into the newly restored 18-acre lake. The golf course pumps its irrigation water from the far end of the lake. Kreie notes that aside from the initial set of pumps from the treatment plant to the wetland cells, the water flow is entirely gravity-driven and all of the town's wastewater now goes through this system.

As plans began to take shape to improve the water system, local golf advocates simultaneously seized the opportunity to repeat their long-standing calls for an 18-hole course.

"Golfers have been wanting to expand the golf course for about 30 years," Kreie explains. "About the time this lake rehab project was going to go through, the golfers had gotten a city council that was probably willing to listen. They knew that this project and the golf course expansion really worked together even though they were separate projects."

The Ulysses Golf Board was tasked with fundraising, successfully bringing in $150,000 for the expansion. Although a landscaping company provided the final shaping for the tees and greens, qualified volunteers provided labor to work the city's earth-moving equipment to rough in the course. Kreie says a core of five or six people donated 13 successive weekends to the project, enabling the back nine to be constructed for only $500,000. In an interesting historical twist, the volunteer work effort echoed the time local residents rallied together to construct the front nine holes in the 1950s--then for a cost of $800. The new back nine opened in 2010.

Non-golfers also have seen improved recreation, with the restored lake now the centerpiece of 280-acre Frazier Park, featuring new playgrounds, four miles of hiking and biking trails, and new picnic pavilions. Birding groups now tour the park, and schools have begun making nature visits.

"The former lake was surrounded by cottonwoods and elms and native shrub," Kreie says. "Before we started the lake project, it had been dry long enough that over half of those trees were dead. The whole area was going to die.... A lot of the wildlife that had been there had left because there was no water for them anymore. Once we put that in, right away the migratory fowl came back--there'd be thousands of ducks and geese--and we started seeing the deer again.

"People would come to town just to go to the park," Kreie continues. "It made it a lot busier place."

ELIZABETH BEARD is Managing Editor of Parks & Recreation.

Beard, Elizabeth


Source Citation
Beard, Elizabeth. "Fresh filtered: how Ulysses, Kansas, got cleaner water and better golf." Parks & Recreation Jan. 2012: 12+. Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine Collection. Web. 17 Mar. 2012.
Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA277984967&v=2.1&u=22054_acld&it=r&p=PPSM&sw=w

Gale Document Number: GALE|A277984967

A COMMUNITY OF ONLY 6,000 PEOPLE, the City of Ulysses sits in the dry, flat, southwestern corner of Kansas. With only about 16 inches of rainfall each year, golf in Ulysses would be almost impossible without the use of recycled water. Until recently, this water was provided by three sewer lagoons built in the 1980s. However, the consistency of the water supply became a ongoing problem for both the city's nine-hole Bentwood Golf Course and for the city itself, with too much water being discharged from the lagoons in the winter and not enough water being available in the summer when the course had to compete with local farms for water.


"A lot of communities would have made the choice just to dig a big pit to evaporate the water because it would have been the least hassle," says Jeff Kreie, former superintendent of golf and parks for Ulysses. "But if this community wants to survive and thrive, it just can't have the basics. You need to dress yourself up a little bit to attract people."


Working with the Kansas Alliance for Wetlands and Streams, the city developed a new wastewater system that involved creating new wetlands, resurrecting an old, dry lake, and adding nine more holes to the golf course as well as improving the parkland around the lake. The $1.2 million water project was largely funded by the city's sewer fees and gas well income, along with a small amount of grant money.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Kreie explains how the system works. First, treated effluent from the sewer lagoons is pumped into six 200-by-200-foot wetland cells, arranged in pairs. Water enters the first pair of cells, is filtered by the plants and microorganisms, and exits a little bit cleaner than when it entered. The process is repeated in the next pair of cells and then the final pair, where by now the water is significantly cleaner than when it left the treatment plant. The water then travels through underground pipes to 5,000-feet of manmade stream channels with riffles to stir the water, while the three-foot deep sand streambed provides further filtering. The stream ends in a three-acre equalization marsh and from there the water travels through more underground pipes into the newly restored 18-acre lake. The golf course pumps its irrigation water from the far end of the lake. Kreie notes that aside from the initial set of pumps from the treatment plant to the wetland cells, the water flow is entirely gravity-driven and all of the town's wastewater now goes through this system.

As plans began to take shape to improve the water system, local golf advocates simultaneously seized the opportunity to repeat their long-standing calls for an 18-hole course.

"Golfers have been wanting to expand the golf course for about 30 years," Kreie explains. "About the time this lake rehab project was going to go through, the golfers had gotten a city council that was probably willing to listen. They knew that this project and the golf course expansion really worked together even though they were separate projects."

The Ulysses Golf Board was tasked with fundraising, successfully bringing in $150,000 for the expansion. Although a landscaping company provided the final shaping for the tees and greens, qualified volunteers provided labor to work the city's earth-moving equipment to rough in the course. Kreie says a core of five or six people donated 13 successive weekends to the project, enabling the back nine to be constructed for only $500,000. In an interesting historical twist, the volunteer work effort echoed the time local residents rallied together to construct the front nine holes in the 1950s--then for a cost of $800. The new back nine opened in 2010.

Non-golfers also have seen improved recreation, with the restored lake now the centerpiece of 280-acre Frazier Park, featuring new playgrounds, four miles of hiking and biking trails, and new picnic pavilions. Birding groups now tour the park, and schools have begun making nature visits.

"The former lake was surrounded by cottonwoods and elms and native shrub," Kreie says. "Before we started the lake project, it had been dry long enough that over half of those trees were dead. The whole area was going to die.... A lot of the wildlife that had been there had left because there was no water for them anymore. Once we put that in, right away the migratory fowl came back--there'd be thousands of ducks and geese--and we started seeing the deer again.

"People would come to town just to go to the park," Kreie continues. "It made it a lot busier place."

ELIZABETH BEARD is Managing Editor of Parks & Recreation.

Beard, Elizabeth


Source Citation
Beard, Elizabeth. "Fresh filtered: how Ulysses, Kansas, got cleaner water and better golf." Parks & Recreation Jan. 2012: 12+. Physical Therapy and Sports Medicine Collection. Web. 17 Mar. 2012.
Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA277984967&v=2.1&u=22054_acld&it=r&p=PPSM&sw=w

Gale Document Number: GALE|A277984967

United States Judo Association - USJA(Web-Page) http://judo.member2008.googlepages.com/Email: leonard.wilson2009@hotmail.com

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Trumpf aids Tsunami survivors

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Repito good, clean fight, a photo by pleowulf on Flickr.

Almost six months after the tsunami struck southeast Asia, the survivors still depend on outside aid. Through its Indonesian Partner, PT Guna Electro and their joint ventures, the Trumpf Group, Ditzingen, Germany, has projects underway to provide clean drinking water to the Indonesian province of Aceh. This project is a follow-up to the aid provided by major relief organizations immediately after the tsunami, and offers long-term support for the people in the region hit hardest.

Of the 10 donated water treatment plants, eight are operating in three refugee camps in Neuheun, Lambreh, and Lhoong, all located in the Aceh region, and two are on the island of Nias, where a serious earthquake occurred in April 2005.

After the disaster, almost 12,000 people found temporary shelter in the Aceh camps. Supplying them with fresh drinking water was a major problem.

Until recently, trucks carrying drinking water daily into the camps barely met basic hygienic requirements. The donated treatment plants eliminated the shortage.

Trumpf's employees from Germany and Indonesia purchased the plants, acquired the components, assembled the systems, and adjusted them to tropical conditions.

The camps were selected by the firm in conjunction with the Indonesian relief organization Yayasan Dian Desa (YDD), which will service and maintain the plants. Trumpf's volunteers trained plant operators onsite while activating the systems. For the transport, installation and operation of the plants on Nias, the firm works with an organization called "Resources & Energy Development."

Seven Trumpf employees worked full-time on the relief action for Indonesia. The project was financed jointly by Trumpf and its employees. The firm contributed 75,000 euros, and employees in subsidiaries in Germany, Austria, and France donated an additional 25,000 euros.

The German-based company Schmalz + Schoen, with whom Trumpf works closely, assumed the logistics and organization costs for transporting the plants. Another German company, WBG Wasser Bau Gesellschaft Kulmbach mbH, provided technical support and know-how for building the plants.

"Obviously, we could have simply sent financial aid, but thanks to our companies in Indonesia and the expertise of our Indonesian employees, it was possible to provide help on a personal level," says Trumpf's executive vice president Dr. Mathias Kammuller.

Foreign sales director Jorg Kienast coordinated the relief efforts from the firm's Ditzingen headquarters. According to Kienast, contrary to some reports in the media, Trumpf's cooperative partnership with the Indonesian government is working well. "Even the separatist organization Aceh Free Movement did not interfere with our relief activities. To date, all local projects are going well."

Source Citation
"Trumpf aids Tsunami survivors." Welding Design & Fabrication July 2005: 4. General OneFile. Web. 8 Mar. 2012.
Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA134954089&v=2.1&u=22054_acld&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w

Gale Document Number: GALE|A134954089

Almost six months after the tsunami struck southeast Asia, the survivors still depend on outside aid. Through its Indonesian Partner, PT Guna Electro and their joint ventures, the Trumpf Group, Ditzingen, Germany, has projects underway to provide clean drinking water to the Indonesian province of Aceh. This project is a follow-up to the aid provided by major relief organizations immediately after the tsunami, and offers long-term support for the people in the region hit hardest.

Of the 10 donated water treatment plants, eight are operating in three refugee camps in Neuheun, Lambreh, and Lhoong, all located in the Aceh region, and two are on the island of Nias, where a serious earthquake occurred in April 2005.

After the disaster, almost 12,000 people found temporary shelter in the Aceh camps. Supplying them with fresh drinking water was a major problem.

Until recently, trucks carrying drinking water daily into the camps barely met basic hygienic requirements. The donated treatment plants eliminated the shortage.

Trumpf's employees from Germany and Indonesia purchased the plants, acquired the components, assembled the systems, and adjusted them to tropical conditions.

The camps were selected by the firm in conjunction with the Indonesian relief organization Yayasan Dian Desa (YDD), which will service and maintain the plants. Trumpf's volunteers trained plant operators onsite while activating the systems. For the transport, installation and operation of the plants on Nias, the firm works with an organization called "Resources & Energy Development."

Seven Trumpf employees worked full-time on the relief action for Indonesia. The project was financed jointly by Trumpf and its employees. The firm contributed 75,000 euros, and employees in subsidiaries in Germany, Austria, and France donated an additional 25,000 euros.

The German-based company Schmalz + Schoen, with whom Trumpf works closely, assumed the logistics and organization costs for transporting the plants. Another German company, WBG Wasser Bau Gesellschaft Kulmbach mbH, provided technical support and know-how for building the plants.

"Obviously, we could have simply sent financial aid, but thanks to our companies in Indonesia and the expertise of our Indonesian employees, it was possible to provide help on a personal level," says Trumpf's executive vice president Dr. Mathias Kammuller.

Foreign sales director Jorg Kienast coordinated the relief efforts from the firm's Ditzingen headquarters. According to Kienast, contrary to some reports in the media, Trumpf's cooperative partnership with the Indonesian government is working well. "Even the separatist organization Aceh Free Movement did not interfere with our relief activities. To date, all local projects are going well."

Source Citation
"Trumpf aids Tsunami survivors." Welding Design & Fabrication July 2005: 4. General OneFile. Web. 8 Mar. 2012.
Document URL
http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA134954089&v=2.1&u=22054_acld&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w

Gale Document Number: GALE|A134954089

United States Judo Association - USJA(Web-Page) http://judo.member2008.googlepages.com/Email: leonard.wilson2009@hotmail.com

(Album / Profile) hhref="http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=10023&id=1661531726&l=792eaa11b1">http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=10023&id=1661531726&l=792eaa11b1>Email: leonard.wilson2009@hotmail.com