Client: Punk Funk Mob

Situation: A regional funk band with deep roots in the bay area music community launched their debut album to critical acclaim and flat sales.

Challenge: Punk Funk Mob is an organization made up of musicians and music industry professionals with no media experience.   The challenge was to increase brand awareness of a critically lauded band with a small but faithful real world following.   AE35 began by outlining the objectives for the Punk Funk Mob’s campaign.  Because their label was unable to allocate resources to developing artists, AE35 realized that this would need to be a grassroots graduated effort with an online strategy which would intersect with the band’s real world performances.  The band would need intriguing content which could be easily shared online to propagate an emerging fan base.

Solutions: AE35 worked closely with the band to apply visual representation to their aesthetic and values. The Punk Funk Mob universe was constructed by merging the qualities of early eighties English New Wave with the sensibilities of late seventies Punk.  The “Funk” part of the universe was carried largely by the music itself.  AE35 Media would produce and launch an online campaign which seeded multiple social network platforms, and that culminated in the release the band’s new AE35 Media produced music video.

Products: After reviewing all of the singles on the debut album, AE35 Media decided to go with the single “Hello Andie.”  While the song had limited lyrics, it provided the opportunity to create an online personality for the titular character.  “Andie” was constructed as a woman of mystery who would provide a point of entry into the Punk Funk Mob Universe.

Media: 5-part webisodes, a Website, and a Music Video.

     Lead Up: The campaign began with planted references being made to “Andie” on the band’s Facebook and Twitter pages.  These posts remained enigmatic, saying  simply; “Andie’s painting pictures of flowers.”  Or “I’m with Andie right now.”  The idea was to place “Andie “ into the real world and make her events something that everyone was missing out on.

     Webisodes: AE35 Media produced and released the short web series “Andie’s Flowers”. Expanding on a lyric line from the song (“Andie painted pictures and they had lots of flowers”), the web series focused on three former lovers of Andie of various ages, ethnicity and sex.  In each segment they spoke of Andie and their interactions with her.  Throughout the webisodes it was important to demonstrate that while Andie ultimately terminated all of the relationships, each of her lovers continued to speak of her with longing.  The videos were launched at regular intervals in the weeks leading up to the release of the music video across all of the band’s social networks.  AE35 Media also took the aggressive approach of “sharing” the videos on home pages of the bands Facebook fans.

     Music Video: Within the music video, AE35 Media continued the Andie-as-a-woman-of-mystery- theme.  Andie was seen not as a real woman but as a mannequin who was competing with another woman for a man’s affections with dire results.  The video included all of the aesthetics AE35 Media had established for the Punk Funk Mob brand; a retro-dark-DIY feel which encapsulated the band’s neo punk sensibilities.

Results: After the release of the video, the band’s online fanbase grew by fifty eight percent while their brand recognition grew exponentially. They received bookings at larger venues and sales of the single “Hello Andie” increased by five hundred percent.  More importantly, the band now had a presence where before there was none.  After the reconstruction of their website and a launch done in conjunction with their video, traffic increased dramatically and they were consistently named within regional top ten lists and trended for weeks on blogs and in local hardcopy publications.

Click here: Andie's Flowers

Client: Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center is a health services, education, research and policy organization dedicated to educating, supporting, empowering and advocating for Asian and Pacific Islander (A&PI) communities-particularly A&PIs living with or at risk for HIV/AIDS.

Situation: The A&PI needed to re-launch their logo and brand.

Challenge: Like many nonprofit organizations, A&PI needed to rely more on private donations to continue to provide life giving services to their clients. They wanted a video which illustrated the benefits of their services at the human and lifestyle level in conjunction with launching their brand new logo and brand.

Solutions: AE35Media determined that the best way to humanize their brand was to put human faces and stories not only to the services A&PI provided but to HIV infection amongst Asian and Pacific Islanders. As HIV and AIDS were no longer “new” to public spectrum, a malaise and apathy had settled in over the general public. Moving past the mere quotation of dry statistics, AE35 worked with A&PI to portray not only what it is like living with HIV at an intimate level, but also show the A&PI as a source of inspiration.

Products: AE35Media produced a short video where several of the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center’s clients and doctors were interviewed.  They conveyed how the Center had become more than a place for treatment and resources.  Through their stories the viewer learns that those infected with HIV of Asian and Pacific Island descent often have to contend with a stigma which is deeply rooted with the A&PI community. Many clients related stories of how after being ostracized by their own family, the staff of A&PI helped to fill the void which was left behind.

Results: The video was featured at the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center’s annual fundraising. The video was than placed on the A&PI’s home page where it continues to draw traffic.

Client: Cisco Corporate Policies/Ethics

Situation: Just talking about corporate policies such as ethics is rarely effective, since the subject itself provokes anxiety and the rules are a chore to read. A new approach was needed to attract the attention of the managers at Cisco, who were in a position of decision-making that was informed by policy considerations.

Challenges: The target audience was international and required a high-tech, informative, and creative experience in order to attract interest. Managers were a particularly tough crowd because they were suspicious of rules that appeared out of touch with how they actually think and behave.

Solutions: We decided that the best creative “hook” was to create the Universe of a manager’s mind in a very literal sense. For the series of videos, we built a set that resembled the inside of a manager’s brain, complete with screen to show what the eyes see and controls for legs and arms. Inside this brain we placed a unique and fun character to portray who the “conscience” of the manager’s thinking. In the videos, this character voiced options that lead the manager to making correct decisions.

Products:

• * Universe of characters and scenarios showing Manger’s perspective
• * Scripting scenes that Integrating ethical rules
• * Branched scenarios that presented a variety of choices
• * 6 Episodic Videos (3-4min each)
• * Integration into eLearning Module


Results: The Universe of the Manger’s Brain videos were distributed through video embedded eLearning. The creativity of the vision along with the interesting characters and compelling scenarios in the universe created a groundswell of interest and understanding of corporate policies.

Recognition: Multiple external awards, including:
2011 Television & Film Award Gold at New York Festivals Worldmedia

Client: Corporate Security Awareness Program at Cisco

Situation: Cisco needed to create awareness about theft of property and intellectual assets. Traditional training didn’t work because the audience didn’t relate to dry and formal facts that failed to connect with their real experience, or effectively showed the situations where the opportunity for theft was greatest. Telling someone not leave their laptops unattended is quite different than showing them of what they are unaware; the casual conversation with a stranger, their seemingly innocent glance, and request to watch your laptop just for a second while you get coffee.

Challenges: Cisco employees are the best and brightest, and have little tolerance for preaching and less time to scan a list of rules. Repeated suggestions didn’t work. Talking about the consequences was just that…a lot of talk. Only something fresh, new, and demonstrating a unique perspective would change minds and behaviors. Our concept was to look at security from the point of view of the thief or hacker, and enable the audience to stand in the shoes of the adversary.

Solutions: We created a “universe” of environments in which security awareness was critical (hotels, planes, offices), and developed characters portraying both employees and a group of well-coordinated thieves and hackers. We produced a series of five short episodic videos that chronicled the attempts to breach, and the methods of thwarting these attempts. Our main character was the ringleader thief who coordinated his team. The stories showed their various attempts to compromise security controls.

Products:

• * Universe of characters and scenarios
• * Scripts embedded with security products and practices
• * 5 Episodic Videos (3-4min each)

Results: When the videos premiered at an all-company meeting, hits to the home website and ordering of the products was immediate and over 30% of the audience interacted and followed the recommendations. The awareness campaign became a model for impacting communications, and was reinstated almost continually since the program began.

Recognition: Multiple awards, including:
2007 and 2009 Winner World’s Best Work: New York Festivals International Film & Video Awards;
2006 Marcom Creative Platinum Award;
CINE Fall 2006 Golden Eagle Film & Video Competition: Golden Eagle Award;
Fall 2006 Digital Video Award in Long Format-Corporate Communications.