| EVENT REPORT 10.14.09 5:04 PM |
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Movie Pictures: A Look at Meatballs, Zombieland, Law Abiding Citizen, and Whip It Premieres
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 | Food props on the red carpet of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
Photo: Line 8 Photography |
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FROM LOS ANGELES
In some parts of the world, fall brings crisp weather and colorful leaves that crunch under foot. In Los Angeles, it brought a hyper-busy event calendar filled with parties that included movie premieres packed with ideas—like an army of zombies, oversize donuts that hung overhead, and decor that begged to be admired but definitely not touched. Here is a selection of photos from the arrivals scenes and bashes for Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Zombieland, Whip It, and Law Abiding Citizen.
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Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Zombieland, Whip It, Law Abiding Citizen, Sony, Fox Searchlight, Overture Films, Columbia Pictures, Derby Dolls |
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| Q & A 07.16.09 9:00 AM |
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Microsoft's Rosalind Murphy Targets New Clients With Female-Focused Events
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 | | Rosalind Murphy |
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FROM NEW YORK
As executive engagement manager at Microsoft’s New York office, Rosalind Murphy is something of a social liaison between her account managers and the Fortune 500 clientele they serve. She produces activities and meetings to develop brand relationships, with guest lists often limited to C.I.O.s and other I.T. executives—not surprising in the tech sector. But Microsoft desires to deepen its business ties, and part of Murphy’s job is to increase her company’s contacts within its client base.
Used to working with male-dominated technology departments, Murphy expanded her brand’s network with a series of quarterly events just for women. In the two years since she introduced the Women’s Executive Forum, she has already established it as a popular event series, buoyed diversity at other Microsoft functions, and increased contacts within clients such as Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, and Sony.
What sparked Microsoft’s push to seek out more female clients?
We just wanted to reach out to women. The staff at Microsoft is about 75 percent male, and one of the things we found in our accounts was that when you get to the customer base, the chief information officers are also typically men. We wanted to develop other executives, so we made this a push to find people beyond the normal I.T. roles in different areas like marketing and finance. We wanted to seek out the developing female executives, women who might be in director or vice president roles now but are up-and-coming in our client base.
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Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Sony |
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| EVENT INTELLIGENCE 06.02.09 9:00 AM |
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Guerrilla Marketing Guide: Where to Stage Stunts in Six Cities
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 | Tennis pros Venus Williams and Andy Murray stopping traffic in Miami
Photo: Getty Images |
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Chicago
Where to Go: One of the Windy City’s most iconic locales, the Daley Center, allows marketers to reach consumers—including the lunching masses—under the watchful eye of a 50-foot untitled Picasso sculpture. A few blocks northeast, and just outside the Loop, is Pioneer Court. The petite, extremely busy plaza sits where the Chicago River meets Michigan Avenue and sees most of the 40 million tourists who visit Chicago annually.
What It Takes: The Daley Center’s plaza is owned by MB Real Estate (312.603.7981), which prices permits individually. Pioneer Court is controlled by the Equitable Life Insurance Company and the Chicago Tribune Company, but any event using the streets around it would require permits from the City of Chicago (Office of Special Events, 312.744.0626). Months of red tape and a 28-page application packet might persuade you to go guerrilla instead.
Recent Stunt: When More put future first lady Michelle Obama on its October 2008 cover, the magazine deployed 100 readers to the streets around Pioneer Court to pose with issues—and it didn’t spend a penny on permits.
Who Can Help: Based in Chicago, Legacy Marketing Partners has earned a lot of attention from experiential campaigns like the Stoli Hotel and the mobile Burger King/NFL Challenge.
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Guerrilla Marketing, More Magazine, Sony, DirecTV, Budweiser, Ikea, Ikea, Sony Ericsson |
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| EVENT REPORT 09.29.08 2:19 PM |
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Sant Ocean Hall Opening Attracts 1,200 Guests, 11-Foot Jellyfish
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 | The Sant Ocean Hall opening reception
Photo: Bill Fitz-Patrick |
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At Thursday evening’s black-tie reception for the opening of the Sant Ocean Hall, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History rotundas got a large-scale 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea-style makeover. The Smithsonian invited more than 1,200 major donors to the gala, making it the largest event ever held at the museum. Five years in the making, the $49 million Sant Ocean Hall, which opened to the public on Saturday, seeks to educate visitors about the diversity of sealife and acts as a call to action to protect the planet’s oceans. “It’s a big celebration with a big, serious message, but we like to have fun, too,” explained the museum's director of special events, Ted Anderson.
In an unprecedented move, the museum closed at 4 p.m. in order to accommodate the evening's production elements, which included hanging three 11-foot-wide, white fabric jellyfish and mobiles of tropical fish from the hall's ceiling and projecting fish on the walls and fabric seaweed curtains. The giant jellyfish moved on wires across the hall while ocean sounds played over the sound system before a curtain dropped, unveiling the exhibition. The evening’s soundtrack had a sense of playfulness as well, with songs like “Octopus Garden,” “Beyond the Sea,” and “Sitting by the Dock of the Bay” playing in the rotunda throughout the night.
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Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Sony |
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| EVENT REPORT 02.01.08 5:15 PM |
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Audi, Hyde Offer Refuge From Super Bowl Storm
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 | The 2008 Audi R8 is the focal point of the event layout.
Photo: BizBash |
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FROM SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. After a 20-year absence from the Super Bowl commercial mania, Audi returns this Sunday with a 60-second spot in the first quarter. To add to the marketing push, the brand took over a nine-acre estate in Paradise Valley's upscale hills, offering celebrities and V.I.P.s a place to lounge Wednesday through Saturday. Dubbed the Audi Forum, the program also mixes lots of mini-parties and cosponsors.
"When deciding how we could leverage our television ad, it came up that the Super Bowl certainly attracts our target audience," said Audi business and East Coast communication director Andrew Lipman. The forum concept is not a new one, as Audi has 10 permanent locations worldwide. "Basically, they are brand-experience centers, not traditional showrooms," Lipman said. "The design is sleek, sophisticated, and on par with what we consider Audi to be."
The venue, a traditional Arizona home (complete with terra-cotta shingles and creamy stone walls), went through a massive redesign and build-out. "The objective was to create an Audi-esque space out of a Southwestern home," said Tony Berger of Relevent in New York, who produced the event.
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Super Bowl, Audi, Marquis Jet, Sony |
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