BUZZMEDIA, Inc. » buzzmedia http://www.buzz-media.com Pop Culture Amplified Thu, 16 Dec 2010 23:59:57 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 en hourly 1 BUZZMEDIA AND PLIXI STRIKE EXCLUSIVE CONTENT & MARKETING PARTNERSHIP#1 Independent Entertainment Publisher and #1 Photo Sharing Platform to Leverage Social Media to Provide Deeper Entertainment CoverageCompanies Develop First-of-its-Kind Suite of VIP Photo Sharing Functionalities for Social Media Savvy Celebrities http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/11/16/buzzmedia-and-plixi-strike-exclusive-content-marketing-partnership1-independent-entertainment-publisher-and-1-photo-sharing-platform-to-leverage-social-media-to-provide-deeper-entertainment-covera/ http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/11/16/buzzmedia-and-plixi-strike-exclusive-content-marketing-partnership1-independent-entertainment-publisher-and-1-photo-sharing-platform-to-leverage-social-media-to-provide-deeper-entertainment-covera/#comments Tue, 16 Nov 2010 20:27:11 +0000 ctriska http://www.buzz-media.com/?p=20321 HOLLYWOOD, CA — November 16, 2010 — BUZZMEDIA, the Web’s fastest growing entertainment publisher, today announced an exclusive multi-year partnership focused on integrated content, marketing, development and sales with Plixi (formerly TweetPhoto), a photo sharing platform for the social web. BUZZMEDIA will work with Plixi to create integrated content offerings, marketing programs and branded entertainment campaigns across multiple platforms including Plixi.com and mobile applications.

In addition, BUZZMEDIA will create a richer and more personalized user experience on Plixi by publishing timely, in-demand entertainment news stories and content from Celebuzz.com alongside photos on Plixi’s site to provide Plixi’s audience of 25 million users a deeper and more contextual experience based on the topics and celebrities they care most about. The interests of the Plixi users will also play a role in shaping special editorial content for Celebuzz.com.

With hundreds of social media savvy celebrities using the Plixi service, the two companies have also collaborated on a first-of-its-kind suite of VIP Photo Sharing Tools created specifically to give talent such as Kim Kardashian highly customized options for sharing photos via Twitter, Facebook and their own official websites. The first round of exclusive tools will be unveiled in late November and include:


· Topic Pages By utilizing Plixi’s proprietary geo-location data and relevant key words, BUZZMEDIA will now be able to offer brands even more targeted social content channels that are based on key events, holidays, and topics such as the Academy Awards, Halloween or Harry Potter. Topic Pages will incorporate Plixi’s social content including tweets and photos in real-time, as well as BUZZMEDIA’s top-tier editorial content, creating a richer experience and giving marketers a unique ability to contextually target some of the most social content on the web.

· VIP Photo Sharing Watermark This functionality is designed to enable celebrities and brands the ability to add a watermark to their photos, allowing for greater marketing exposure and personalization.


· Automatic Upload – Celebrities, musicians and brands can now have the photos they share through Plixi automatically post to other destinations on the web important to them, such as their official websites, blogs and personal profiles on Buzznet and Celebuzz, among other sites.

· Personalization – Custom branded pages on Plixi will now give brands and talent the opportunity to visually integrate their identities onto their Plixi pages with the additions of logos, backgrounds and other visual elements.

Doug Rohrer, Chief Revenue Office of BUZZMEDIA commented, “In the rapidly growing world of social media, this partnership allows us to marry our top notch editorial programming and integrated advertising campaigns with Plixi’s hyper-viral distribution platform that extends through Twitter, Facebook and beyond, and which sees more than 300,000 photos uploaded daily on fast trending entertainment topics.”

“We tapped BUZZMEDIA because we were impressed with the unparalleled creativity of their Editorial, Integrated Marketing and Advertising Sales groups,” said Sean Callahan, CEO and Co-founder at Plixi.  “The company is constantly innovating the programming they deliver to users and advertisers alike.”

]]>
http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/11/16/buzzmedia-and-plixi-strike-exclusive-content-marketing-partnership1-independent-entertainment-publisher-and-1-photo-sharing-platform-to-leverage-social-media-to-provide-deeper-entertainment-covera/feed/ 0
Kim Kardashian Revamps Website http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/kim-kardashian-revamps-website/ http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/kim-kardashian-revamps-website/#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:27:44 +0000 jgarnick http://www.buzz-media.com/?p=17131 E!
E! News, June 28, 2010 – The E! hottie, Kim Kardashian, gushes over the new look of her website kimkardashian.com, at her relaunch party hosted by Celebuzz and Sony Ericsson at the tea.room in Hollywood on June 25, 2010

Watch the video here.

]]>
http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/kim-kardashian-revamps-website/feed/ 0
BUZZMEDIA Adds PopMatters, Gorilla vs. Bear, Hype Machine, More http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/buzzmedia-adds-popmatters-gorilla-vs-bear-hype-machine-more/ http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/buzzmedia-adds-popmatters-gorilla-vs-bear-hype-machine-more/#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:07:40 +0000 jgarnick http://www.buzz-media.com/?p=17111 Paste Magazine
Paste Magazine, June 2, 2010 – Buzzmedia, the company behind Celebuzz, Buzznet and Stereogum, added six more influential music sites to its music division recently. The newcomers, drawn by advertising partnerships and investments, include PureVolume, PopMatters, Gorilla vs. Bear, The Hype Machine, Concrete Loop and RCRD LBL.

The addition of these properties makes BuzzMedia the single largest independent publisher of music content on the web, according to comScore Media Metrix. Buzzmedia is already a fast-growing entertainment publisher and is behind such properties as Go Fug Yourself.

Services of the websites acquired range from providing fully legal mp3 downloads to live music coverage and introducing emergent artists.

]]>
http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/buzzmedia-adds-popmatters-gorilla-vs-bear-hype-machine-more/feed/ 0
Laser Focus Across Pop Culture http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/laser-focus-across-pop-culture/ http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/laser-focus-across-pop-culture/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:30:59 +0000 jgarnick http://www.buzz-media.com/?p=16702 New York TImes logo
The New York Times, May 31, 2010 – The Internet is full of topics ignored by traditional media, and a number of sites have capitalized by covering those uncovered subjects. (How to make a wheelbarrow, anyone?)

But Tyler Goldman thinks the real moneymaking opportunity is in the deep dive, publishing endlessly about topics that lots of people care about. (Pop stars and music, anyone?)

So far, the idea has worked out. After Mr. Goldman’s social network, Buzznet.com, went live in 2006, it spawned a company, Buzzmedia, that now owns three dozen music and celebrity sites, including Celebuzz.com (a celebrity gossip blog) and Stereogum.com (alternative music news).

It’s akin to the financial world, said Mr. Goldman, Buzzmedia’s chief executive: “If you care about natural gas in Kazakhstan, you’re getting 60 articles about it. People have the same passion for Britney Spears.”

Now, the network is adding six sites to its arsenal, either as a partner or as a full owner, including PopMatters.com and Gorilla vs. Bear (gorillavsbear.blogspot.com), a site dedicated to independent music. The other additions are ConcreteLoop.com, PureVolume.com, RCRDLBL.com, and the Hype Machine (hypem.com).

This kind of “blockbuster strategy” — focusing on hits rather than the breadth of products — has a future in the digital age, according to a 2008 report by Anita Elberse, an associate professor at the Harvard Business School. In the markets she looked at for her study, music and videos, the most popular products, captured even more of the market than they previously did.

The company, which is based in Los Angeles and has a handful of other offices, employs 115 people full time. Of those, 60 help produce editorial content, much of it curated from material floating online. Hundreds of “super” users also provide content.

For people interested in a topic like alternative music, Mr. Goldman said, an online search can be inefficient, sometimes requiring several clicks. What his sites can provide, he says, is a one-stop experience — and that entices people to come back daily, making the sites themselves less reliant on the occasional vagaries of search engines.

So far, Mr. Goldman’s instincts have paid off. In April, Buzzmedia’s sites had 16.5 million unique users, according to comScore. The new additions, he said, could add a couple of million more.

]]>
http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/laser-focus-across-pop-culture/feed/ 0
Buzznet Channels Facebook And Twitter; Adds News Feeds And The Ability To Follow http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/buzznet-channels-facebook-and-twitter-adds-news-feeds-and-the-ability-to-follow-2/ http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/buzznet-channels-facebook-and-twitter-adds-news-feeds-and-the-ability-to-follow-2/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:20:00 +0000 jgarnick http://www.buzz-media.com/?p=16851 Tech Crunch Logo
Tech Crunch, May 13, 2010 – Buzznet, a social network based around people’s interests (i.e. music, art, fashion, photography, movies, television, celebrities), is relaunching today with a more social layer on the platform. Buzznet, which is a property of pop culture media conglomerate BuzzMedia, allows users to share, curate and socialize content based on their personal interests.

On the site now, users will be able create a custom content feed when they follow other users or follow communities around topics that appear on other contributors’ blogs. The ability to follow a user means tapping into their own content and sharing channel on Buzznet. Users will then see updates in a news feeds from the people they follow on their homepage and in the footer that follows them around the site. Users with the most followers will be trending under “most followed” on the Buzznet homepage.

Buzznet has also included a trending topics section to their homepage that features the most popular features and topics on the network. The new reblog feature allows users to create a channel that reflects their personality and taste without having to post any original content.

Users can also now add multimedia to comments and the site includes Facebook Connect. To oversee this new version of the site, Buzznet has named magazine exec Aviva Yael as editor.

Clearly, Buzznet is remodeling its site with inspiration from Facebook and Twitter. According to Compete, Buzznet got around 2.3 million unique visitors in March, which isn’t too shabby for a niche social network. It still remains a question, however, if Buzznet will be able to replicate the engagement on Twitter or see any more substantial growth as Facebook takes over the world with its 400 million plus userbase.

]]>
http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/buzznet-channels-facebook-and-twitter-adds-news-feeds-and-the-ability-to-follow-2/feed/ 0
‘Keeping Up’ With Kimberly-Clark’s Kotex http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/keeping-up-with-kimberly-clarks-kotex/ http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/keeping-up-with-kimberly-clarks-kotex/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:19:44 +0000 jgarnick http://www.buzz-media.com/?p=16872 MediaPost Logo
MediaPost, April 14, 2010 – Kimberly-Clark’s Kotex brand is launching a new phase of “U by Kotex,” one involving the Kardashians.

Last month’s launch of the new feminine protection brand comprised several products designed for 14- to-24-year-olds and packaged to look more like cosmetic products than tampons.

The launch featured ads that made fun of the tampon-ad cliché of the menstrual period being a time to put on white gossamer gowns and dance on the beach. The company has begun a new phase of the campaign, a social-media push centering on it-girls the Kardashian sisters, stars of E!’s “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”

The effort, developed with Web publisher Buzzmedia, includes a video series featuring Kris (the mother) and sisters Kim and Khloe. The five-video series is intended to express the idea that menstruation isn’t something that one should be ashamed of or avoid talking about. The videos are running on the Kardashian’s official Web sites and other Buzzmedia sites, including Celebuzz.com, Just Jared, and Whitney Port’s official Web site.

Doug Rohrer, chief revenue officer for Buzzmedia, tells Marketing Daily that Kotex is involved in several Web sites that together garner some 10 million unique visits from 12- to 24-year-old females.

“The indices are through the roof against this demo, and we as a company are tied very closely with a young female demo across all of our sites.” He says the Kardashians have a large following among young women, that Kim Kardashian’s site is the most popular celebrity site on the Web, and that she has a million or so followers on Twitter. “The Kardashians are strong in about every area in which you can measure digital,” he says.

One video has Mrs. Kardashian and the sisters introducing a series of videos of real people talking about what it was like to get their first period. Khloe Kardashian showed up for the launch event via Marina Maher Communications at New York’s Madison Square Park, where she broke through a faux brick wall meant to evince the campaign tag-line “Break the Cycle.”

Aida Flick, Kotex brand director, tells us that the effort was intended to get away from euphemisms about menstruation and speak honestly. “Girls today are watching reality TV — learning about things online. You can’t say ‘down there’ on TV, but you can see reality TV that shows just about everything….we have lost our connection to [girls and young women], so we wanted to poke fun at feminine care ads and start an open, honest conversation.”

The new Web site UbyKotex.com has a “Get Real” theme with features such as a section called “The Straight Scoop” where girls can post questions, which are then answered by a nurse, a peer and a mom. Flick says the site, which has been up for “a couple of weeks,” has gotten 700,000 views, 500,000 visitors interacting with the site, and 300,000 sample requests.

The effort includes a “Declaration of Real Talk” wherein Kotex has pledged a $1 donation to Girls For A Change for every woman who signs the Declaration online.

]]>
http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/keeping-up-with-kimberly-clarks-kotex/feed/ 0
People and Accounts of Note http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/people-and-accounts-of-note/ http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/people-and-accounts-of-note/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:10:47 +0000 jgarnick http://www.buzz-media.com/?p=16752 New York TImes logo
The New York Times, February 22, 2010 – Christopher Sanders and Judah Wiedre joined Buzzmedia in new posts. Mr. Sanders becomes vice president for ad sales, based in the San Francisco office; he had been vice president for the Western United States at About.com, part of The New York Times Company. Mr. Wiedre becomes senior director for sales, based in the Hollywood headquarters; he had been senior director for Western sales at Heavy.com.

]]>
http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/people-and-accounts-of-note/feed/ 0
The Kardashian Phenomenon http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/the-kardashian-phenomenon/ http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/the-kardashian-phenomenon/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:10:36 +0000 jgarnick http://www.buzz-media.com/?p=17521 LA Times LogoLA Times, February 19, 2010 – The sisters have created an empire despite their lack of traditional talents that lead to stardom. And it’s not all sex appeal and scandal — their tight-knit family seems to be part of the draw.

When a reality show about the Kardashian sisters of Calabasas debuted in fall 2007, most people had never heard of the family and what was known could scarcely be considered positive.

Their late father, a lawyer, helped O.J. Simpson win acquittal at his murder trial; middle daughter Kim palled around nightclubs with Paris Hilton; and a graphic sex tape featuring the brunet and a former boyfriend ended up in the hands of a porn distributor.

Two and a half years later, the Kardashians are an inescapable cultural and commercial force. Their series, “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” which concludes its fourth season Sunday on E, has shattered viewership records for the cable network and spawned a spin-off show. Kim Kardashian.com is the world’s most popular official celebrity website, according to its operator. Checkout-aisle magazines and gossip blogs cover the smallest details of the sisters’ lives. And Madison Avenue calls on the family to sell mainstream America everything, from diet pills and orange juice to NASCAR and fast food.

Their popularity comes despite the fact that the sisters lack the talents that traditionally lead to superstardom and, some believe, partly because of it.

“There’s an aspirational quality to somebody who has become a celebrity for — and I don’t say this in an offensive way — but for not doing anything celebrity-worthy,” said Matt Delzell, an executive at Davie Brown Entertainment, a company that helps corporations choose celebrity endorsers. The young women to whom the Kardashians appeal, he said, “tend to think that’s pretty cool. That’s something I might be able to achieve.”

Television programming, especially on cable, is increasingly dependent on created rather than established celebrities. Turning nobodies — or virtual nobodies — into reality stars is cheaper than hiring actual somebodies. But the Kardashians have transcended that level. While personalities on Bravo’s “Real Housewives” franchises and MTV’s “Jersey Shore” and “The Hills” seem to exist to promote those shows, the Kardashians have turned their program into a promotional vehicle to expand their own empire.

Kris Jenner, the family matriarch and self-described “momager,” said she had little time for those who criticized her brood for being “famous for nothing.” She is too busy sorting through business opportunities, working on “SPINdustry” — a Kardashian documentary special debuting Sunday on E — and generally protecting what she only slightly self-consciously refers to as “our brand.”

“At a certain point, you have to put on your business hat and think of yourself that way,” she said recently.

“Keeping Up With the Kardashians” was conceived as a Hollywood version of “The Brady Bunch” — the harmless high jinks of a loving blended family against a backdrop of wealth and famous connections.

After divorcing Robert Kardashian, with whom she had four children — Kourtney, 30; Kim, 29; Khloe, 25; and Rob, 22 — Kris married former Olympic gold medalist Bruce Jenner, who had four children of his own. The couple had two more daughters, Kendall, 14, and Kylie, 12. From the beginning, Kim occupied the Marcia role — sexy and popular — but there were story lines for everyone.

Her sisters snagged their own show, “Kourtney and Khloe Take Miami,” last year and made headlines when Kourtney became pregnant by an on-again-off-again boyfriend and Khloe married Lakers’ sixth man Lamar Odom less than a month after they met. When the NBA champions and their families visited the White House last month, Khloe was photographed chatting with President Obama. Kim, meanwhile, agonized over whether to get back together with New Orleans Saints star Reggie Bush. (She did and showed up on the sidelines at the most-watched Super Bowl in history.)

Cameras recorded every tear and shriek and the audience spiked. “Keeping Up With the Kardashians” has averaged 3.7 million viewers this year, double last season’s total, and was especially successful in the young, female and free-spending demographic coveted by advertisers. According to Nielsen, Kardashian viewers tend to be single, college-educated women with no children, white-collar jobs and annual salaries of more than $60,000.

The show is the highest-rated series on cable among women ages 18 to 34, and occasionally beats even the network shows in its time slot for those viewers.

Why the Kardashians have succeeded where other programs purporting to show the real lives of beautiful people have not is the subject of much analysis in an industry eager to replicate them. Many credit the relationship between the sisters and their mother.

In spite of the sex tape, the quickie marriage and the out-of-wedlock child, the family still somehow manages to seem a model of sorts, said veteran celebrity journalist Bonnie Fuller. The sisters have their own homes, love interests and career prospects, but seem to enjoy nothing more than a good, long family talk at their mother’s kitchen table.

“It’s a modern-type of wholesome. We’re living in a very different world now. Sarah Palin’s daughter has a child out of wedlock,” said Fuller, the editor in chief of Hollywood Life, a celebrity and entertainment website. “Despite everything that has gone on with them, they come across as a very tight-knit family, and that appeals to women.”

Any conversation about the Kardashians’ popularity eventually touches on the sexual allure of Kim. The tape she made with rapper Ray J — she initially sued to stop it but later reached a settlement with distributor Vivid — is “definitely a best-seller,” a company spokeswoman said while declining to provide sales numbers. There was also a Playboy pictorial and her annual pin-up calendar. But she has managed to pull what marketers say is an unusual feat — appealing to men without pushing away women.

“She’s attractive to guys because she’s absolutely beautiful,” said Brad Haley, the executive vice president of marketing for CKE Restaurants, whose Carl’s Jr. burger chain hired Kim to promote its new chicken salad. But she also draws in women, he said, because “she’s not a waif-thin model. She’s got curves . . . and talks about how she’s got to diet and keep after her body.”

“[Our fan base] started off very male, but it’s transformed into a very heavily female base,” Kim Kardashian said Tuesday backstage at the New York runway debut of a new Kardashian fashion line from Bebe. “I think that’s because we’re not afraid to share our beauty secrets and our flaws. If I have cellulite, I’m not afraid to talk about it and try to find a product to make it look better.”

Beyond “Keeping Up” — which Kris Jenner calls “the mothership” — and its spinoff, the Kardashians stoke their tech savvy fans with an intense online presence. Kim’s website, where she blogs and posts answers to fan questions, gets more than 6.7 million page views a month, according to Quantcast. Khloe’s gets 3 million and Kourtney’s 2 million, according to site operators.

“They have embraced social media in a way that is profoundly different than other celebrities,” said Karina Kogan, chief marketing officer for Buzzmedia, a company that operates celebrity sites, including the Kardashians’. While Britney Spears, another Buzzmedia partner, relies on “a team of folks” to write the material on her site, the Kardashians most often handle it themselves, she said. The sisters routinely make news on Twitter or their blogs. When Kim wanted to refute reports that she had breast implants, she posted a photo of herself in a bikini at age 14.

How long the Kardashian franchise will endure is a subject that sparks debate. Kim’s appearance on “Dancing With the Stars,” which could have established her legitimacy as an entertainer with a broader national audience, fizzled when she was sent packing after two episodes.

“It remains to be seen how [the Kardashians] will do in the future. I don’t think the TV show has an incredibly long shelf life,” said Delzell, the branding executive.

But Kris Jenner is convinced otherwise. Asked to look 10 years in the future, she doesn’t hesitate.

“It’s ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians,’ season 24. Kylie gets married,” she said.

]]>
http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/the-kardashian-phenomenon/feed/ 0
BUZZMEDIA Launches Talent Services Arm http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/buzzmedia-launches-talent-services-arm/ http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/buzzmedia-launches-talent-services-arm/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:10:34 +0000 jgarnick http://www.buzz-media.com/?p=17202 Hollywood Reporter
The Hollywood Reporter, September 30, 2009 – Buzzmedia, a publisher of pop culture websites, has launched Buzzmedia Talent Services, a unit that will look to match online programming opportunities for celebrities with advertisers.

Headed by Craig Bland, who has been promoted to vp celebrity programming and development, the unit is charged with expanding celebrity-driven branded programming.

“Our initial forays indicate that we have only begun to scratch the surface of this opportunity,” said chief revenue officer Doug Rohrer.

Buzzmedia manages websites on behalf of musicians and other celebrities, including Britney Spears, the Kardashian sisters, as well as Nicole Richie, among others. It also runs websites such as the Superficial, Celebuzz and Buzznet.

Buzzmedia’s first forays into celebrity-driven programming campaigns have included deals with J.C. Penney, featuring “The City” star Whitney Port, and Ikea US, featuring the Kardashians.

]]>
http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/buzzmedia-launches-talent-services-arm/feed/ 0
BUZZMEDIA Turns Blogs Into Celebrity-Endorsement Vehicles http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/buzzmedia-turns-blogs-into-celebrity-endorsement-vehicles/ http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/buzzmedia-turns-blogs-into-celebrity-endorsement-vehicles/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2010 23:10:18 +0000 jgarnick http://www.buzz-media.com/?p=17021 Advertising Age Logo 1
Advertising Age, September 29, 2009 – Any casual viewer of reality TV or occasional reader of celeb weeklies knows the names Whitney Port, Kendra Wilkinson and Kim, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian. But hard-core fans may be able to link a few brands with those starlets via ad-supported blogs that are becoming the latest vehicle for marrying celebrities with ad content.

Buzzmedia, a publisher of more than 30 pop-culture blogs and websites including JustJared, Stereogum and Okmagazine.com, and the official sites of Britney Spears, Ms. Port, Ms. Wilkinson and the Kardashian sisters, has spent the last few months creating branded promotions for its top talent. In July, Khloe and Kourtney Kardashian created designs for Ikea for its “Dash Across Ikea” dorm-room contest, which was featured heavily on the E! network stars’ personal blogs as well as other Buzzmedia sites. Another summer promotion paired Ms. Port with JCPenney for the contest, “Get Schooled in Style,” in which one fan could win a personal shopping spree with the star of MTV’s “The City.”

Now Buzzmedia is launching a new talent-services division to better accommodate these Web 2.0 endorsement deals. The unit is headed by Craig Bland, the company’s VP-celebrity programming and development.

Buzzmedia President Alan Citron, a former general manager at TMZ.com, described the new division as a “middle man between advertisers who we’ve become aware of through discussions of our properties and the needs they may have with celebrities,” with the celebrities’ own talent agents also playing key roles. “We’re not trying to get into their business. This is designed to be purely complementary to their business,” he said of the talent agencies.

In the case of JCPenney, Ms. Port and her reps at United Talent Agency participated in every step of the process, from having Ms. Port select her 15 favorite video entries for the styling contest to appearing in person at the launch of JCPenney’s first store in Manhattan. The contest resulted in a 5% click-through rate on JCPenney ads on WhitneyPort.com, editorial coverage in OK magazine, unsolicited user-generated videos posted by Ms. Port and contest-related tweets to her 300,000 Twitter followers.

Another summer promotion featured Ms. Wilkinson, former co-star of E!’s “The Girls Next Door” and current star of her own reality show, “Kendra,” facing off with the lead blogger at What Would Tyler Durden Do? in a blog battle of the sexes that helped promote Sony Pictures’ “The Ugly Truth.”

Doug Rohrer, a former sales chief for MTV Networks and Buzzmedia’s new chief revenue officer, argued that the relationships Buzzmedia is able to foster between celebrities and brands are among the most valuable in the marketplace. They’re also the hardest to execute, particularly as the value of word-of-mouth vs. paid social-messaging becomes more questioned than ever.

“[Paid tweets] are not something you can make people do, or even suggest, really,” he said. “You basically have to say, ‘Hey do you think this would be fun to do?’ For the most part we’re coming up with stuff that’s fun and creative for the celebrities. It’s not like they’re gonna retire on a tweet at the end of the day. They don’t need the money.”

Mr. Rohrer said Buzzmedia sites reach some of the most-engaged consumers of celebrity content, and collectively account for 12% of the traffic from 18- to 34-year-olds on the web.

“We come to the marketplace with a lot of brands that represent different things — authenticity, expertise and aspirational figures for the audience,” he said. “Our goal is always to connect the value of that audience with the advertisers in a meaningful way.”

]]>
http://www.buzz-media.com/2010/06/29/buzzmedia-turns-blogs-into-celebrity-endorsement-vehicles/feed/ 0