by EP Bob Nelson
2012 is off to a great start and I am truly optimistic about the future. Our many loyal clients keep coming back, and business is expanding within our core group of agencies. We’ve got a terrific spot on the Super Bowl courtesy of Pepsi, Joe Pytka, and TBWA\Chiat\Day LA. We’ve rekindled a great collaboration with director Baker Smith, and we’ve made our first inroads with talented new clients at new agencies (for us), such as mcgarrybowen. Our friends leave happy, and they keep coming back.
I’m not surprised. When I was an agency producer I WAS one of those repeat clients. There was never a question about Johnnie’s talent or the quality of QuietMan’s production. But, when I arrived a year ago, QuietMan was coping with a recent name change that was creating confusion in the market space.
A year ago my ‘elevator pitch’ was entirely focused on the 2010 rebranding of the company. Several years earlier, QuietMan had gone independent, relocated offices, changed names (remember Semerad? Probably not), changed sales representation, and, in my opinion, had lost its top-of-mind awareness in the process.
So when my friends learned I was coming here, the response was generally: “QuietMan’s a great company. What have they been up to?”
The first order of business was to create a montage of QuietMan classic work. Sure, agencies want to know “What have you done lately?” but it’s hard to walk away from a legacy of 100 Super Bowl commercials, two Emmy’s, a Cannes Grand Prix and a Grammy. We needed to showcase our current work, and connect it to our heritage.
The second task was to get the word out: “The QuietMan brand is back, and the talent behind it never went away.”
We incorporated traditional marketing, PR and social media channels to raise brand awareness. For me, there has been endless one-on-ones: personal notes to friends, breakfast meetings, lunches, and meet-and-greets. Not just with advertising agencies, but with editors, production companies and directors. QuietMan has touched a lot of careers and a lot of products over the past 17 years. If we could just remind people that we were out there – as an independent company – people would come.
The third task was to expand our range of offerings. Many clients are looking for one-stop shopping. We are now routinely shooting live-action. We’ve added a fabulous new lead designer and work in-house with a group of talented freelance editors. We’ve pulled off a number of high-end shoots in the past year, and it’s been fun and rewarding being on the set. While Flame-based, high-end special effects will always be one of our core strengths, QuietMan has become very much a diversified production, post, animation, and design company.
Culturally, QuietMan is unique amongst our competition. We are not multi-national, and we don’t market based on numbers of workstations. We are a family, and our structure is more like a pyramid. Johnnie is a brilliant artist, but behind the scenes there is a family of designers, 3-D artists, Flame artists and producers who are crafting the company’s product. Johnnie, Carey, and I watch EVERYTHING. Our names and our reputations are part of everything we do, and we don’t let work out the door until it’s right. This is very personal, and our business is all about relationships. We help our friends because we care about them – as people, as artists, and as marketers.
The task for this year: capitalize on our successes, look after our friends, do brilliant work and have fun doing it.
The rest will follow.
We recently teamed up with Euro RSCG for Dr. Scholl's. The result? A CLIO Healthcare- shortlisted spot, Masseuse.
When the Anton Corbijn-directed Coldplay concert aired on YouTube live from Madrid in Times Square yesterday, our graffiti-inspired promo, which we created via Digitas, was front and center. Read more on the work, and watch the promo here.
Catch Sunday night's VMAs on MTV? Then you might have caught this stunning, black and white Lady Gaga VMA promo leading up to the event. If not, catch it here on our Facebook page. We had a lot of fun working on some of the beauty components of the spot!
Featured in The New York Times' Campaign Spotlight, our work with G2 USA on the latest BMW campaign! Read the full story here.
Some behind the scenes shots of Johnnie directing the latest from du Maurier!
Nature Poem from jon obsworth on Vimeo.
A big congrats to the winner of our Poems In Motion winner, Jon Obsworth. He created "Nature," using the poem "Two Butterflies Went Out at Noon" by Emily Dickinson as his inspiration.
Poems In Motion was a QuietMan-sponsored contest launched in April, which asked the artistic community to submit animations based on a poem.
To watch contestants' submissions, go to Poems In Motion.
BY ANY NAME from QuietManOnline on Vimeo.
BACK COME SPRING from QuietManOnline on Vimeo.
We've just uploaded our latest in-house creations to our animation contest, Poems in Motion. Make sure to upload your animations by May 2nd for a chance to win an iPad 2. Public judging starts May 2nd and runs until May16th. For more details, visit our Vimeo page!
Sun from QuietManOnline on Vimeo.
What started as an in-house art project at QuietMan, aimed at cultivating our team's creativity, is now open to you all: our friends, fans, and the artistic community.
"Does the sun miss the flower as much as the flower misses the sun?"
Using the above line of poetry, you animate a :15-:30 short inspired by what you see/hear/feel. Upload your video to the Poems In Motion page on Vimeo, and let the crowd-sourced inspired judging begin.**
The video with the most Likes on Vimeo wins an iPad 2 in May. Posting videos starts April 4th and runs until May 2nd. Deadline to upload videos is May 2nd.
Public judging begins May 2nd and runs until May 16th at 5 pm EST. iPad 2 winner announced May 17th.
Follow us on Facebook for updates on our favorite submissions.
**Once you upload, please message us on Facebook with your e-mail address, or the best way to contact you.
We gave a Motion Capture presentation to our friends at TBWA\Chiat\Day here in NYC! We showed them how our system works, using a live demonstration with a character, while also explaining the technology.
The talented Professional Graphics Studio students from Fairfax Academy for Communications & the Arts stopped by to get an inside look at our team's work, and we couldn't have been happier to provide guidance to such a bright, eager crowd. We're honored to take part in introducing a new generation of artists to the creative realm!
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They didn't shoot an element, so we thought we would help out and do it ourselves!
For more pictures, check out the album on Facebook.
