BizBash | Events * Meetings * Marketing * Style * Strategy * Ideas

Geography Lessons for Cultural Events: A recent study of which neighborhoods receive the most buzz breaks down where film, television, music, art, and fashion events are happening in Los Angeles and New York. Professors at Columbia University and the University of Southern California conducted the research by mining pictures from events caught by Getty Images. The results show that even so-called hip neighborhoods like Los Angeles’ Silver Lake or New York’s Lower East Side can’t get out of the shadow of iconic locations such as the Sunset Strip or Times Square. [NYT]

Upfronts Well Under Way: Cable networks are holding upfront presentations further in advance. Telemundo, Discovery Networks, Nickelodeon, and ABC Family have already met with media buyers about the upcoming television year, and many think the channels are following the lead of NBC. The peacock network got a lot of attention last year for downsizing its presentation into a series of meetings and holding them more than a month ahead of the long established Upfront Week for the big four. This year’s upfront will be similarly structured but won’t take place as far in advance, bowing in New York May 4. [Adweek] MORE >>

General Motors, Segway, Upfronts, Upfront Week, NBC, 20th Century Fox, Wolverine

EVENT REPORT 01.07.09 1:21 PM

Tiffany Throws Blue Reception for Bride Wars Premiere

A Bride Wars window display at Tiffany
Photo: Joe Schildhorn

Bride Wars may be about two best friends competing to have their weddings at the Plaza Hotel on the same day, but for the film's premiere, stars Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway seemed content to share a party at Tiffany & Company's Fifth Avenue flagship. Following a screening at the AMC Lincoln Square, just over 200 guests were shuttled to the store for an intimate reception of shopping, cocktails, and a lot of blue.

Tiffany partnered with 20th Century Fox for the premiere, covering the entryway to the screening with a carpet in its famous hue. Notables Barbara Walters, Lisa Rinna, and a few of the ladies from Bravo’s Real Housewives of New York City all stopped for photos on the blue carpet. MORE >>

Tiffany & Company, Bride Wars, 20th Century Fox

EVENT REPORT 07.07.08 2:25 PM

Fox Takes Giant Head on the Road

Meet Dave promotional campaign
Photo: Tara Greenwald for BizBash

Movie studios are getting more unconventional with their marketing tactics, especially as many are going viral with guerilla strategies like nontraditional posters ("You Suck Sarah Marshall" for Forgetting Sarah Marshall) and fake Web sites (the Dark Knight's whysoserious.com and ibelieveinharveydent.com). For Meet Dave, the new Eddie Murphy flick from 20th Century Fox, the film studio used a touring foam head to grab the attention of the camera-happy, Internet-surfing public.

The head, a 15-foot-tall, three-ton replica of Murphy's character Dave, is a little more than an oversized publicity stunt. The idea of the giant bust grew from a simple photo-op promotion—where consumers could take pictures with the head—to a regional tour and commemorative poster. Behind it all is 20th Century Fox Film Corporation vice president of special events Len Iannelli, who oversaw the project and commissioned Ultra Productions to help execute the concept.

"The sell [for the movie] has always been Eddie Murphy in Eddie Murphy. Eddie as the vessel and Eddie as the captain of the vessel," said Iannelli. This concept was key as the movie centers on Dave Ming Chang—a human-shaped ship—that is controlled by a miniature crew of aliens. MORE >>

20th Century Fox

FRESH FACE 05.07.08 9:40 AM

Former Set Designer Adds Drama to Events

Jonathon Beck
Photo: James Mottee

All the World’s a Stage: After studying set and costume design at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts—and becoming the youngest graduate of the course, in 1999—Jonathon Beck began designing sets for the Sydney Theatre Company before expanding his work abroad as a production designer for movies and television in Vienna. Upon his return to Sydney, in 2004, Beck began designing events, and his client list grew to include charity galas and parties for Wella, Moët & Chandon, and 20th Century Fox as well as film director Baz Luhrmann. “It was a natural progression from conceptual theater to what I’m doing now,” he says. “My [work] comes out of a visual arts background and is very installation inspired. It’s more than a backdrop. The idea is to enter into a world that is different from anything else.” MORE >>

Tommy Hilfiger, Y-3, Moët & Chandon, 20th Century Fox, Hugo Boss

EVENT INTELLIGENCE 04.09.08 10:30 AM

Building Buzz With Videos: The Simpsons Kwik-E-Marts

A shot of one of the Kwik-E-Marts.
Photo: Courtesy of JOSHLEWIS

This story is part of our series on building event buzz with online videos.

In a joint marketing promotion to publicize the 2007 release of The Simpsons Movie, 20th Century Fox transformed 12 North American 7-Eleven stores into Kwik-E-Marts, inspired by the parody convenience store frequented by Homer Simpson in the fictional town of Springfield.

Because of the tie-in to The Simpsons, a long-running show with a fervent fan base, the marketing event had particular resonance online. Fan forums and blogs were abuzz with news about where the makeshift Kwik-E-Marts would be. When the stores debuted in towns from Bladensburg, Maryland, to Burbank, California, excited fans at each location walked through with handheld cameras and posted their videos online. As a result, a marketing promotion that might have attracted only curious passersby instead reached a worldwide audience of tens of thousands. MORE >>

Building Buzz With Online Videos, YouTube, The Simpsons, 20th Century Fox, 7-Eleven

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