Celebrity Endorsements: How Adly Helps Even Small Businesses Build Brand Connection With Celebrity Power

By Jonathan Keane

It’s important for your customers to be able to connect with your service or product, almost on a personal level. We tend to look for something to relate to in everything, something that speaks to us. In the areas of marketing, this cannot be understated. You are looking for a connection and in the age of instant communications, where some are often ephemeral, crafting a connection that you can harvest and make last for years to come is vital to your business surviving in the high speed digital age. So where do celebrities come into this?

Celebrities, regardless of their background, whether it’s an actor, musician, athlete or someone who’s famous just for being famous, brings a certain eminence with them and most importantly, a fan base.

Charities, for example, have leveraged this for many, many years with countless organizations pairing with a celebrity, or a slew of celebrities, to be the face of their cause and spread the word. It’s a model that isn’t new by any means but in the age of social media, and specifically Twitter, companies, big and small, are finding new ways to engage with consumers and celebrity endorsements are just one way of doing that.

Adly is an online marketing start-up that was founded in 2009, but in May of 2012, they grabbed a few headlines when they announced that former News Corp. executive and Photobucket general manager Walter Delph had been named the new CEO of the company.

“With the advent of social media consumers are able to connect with celebrities that they would not have otherwise had access to,” Walter explains on the very basic idea that inspired the beginning of Adly four years ago.

The small company, with a team of four, is a marketing firm that aims to “spark authentic conversations between celebrities and their fans”, all on the topic of your brand. By analyzing the conversations, Adly optimizes the results for more efficient targeting of your product/service to the right people in the right places. These two services of celebrity contacts and analytics form the foundation for Adly and it has been built from there.

“The power of celebrity has long been acknowledged as one of the most powerful ways to influence and connect with consumers. A brand’s ability to influence consumers via celebrity is considered one of the most effective ways to raise affinity and ultimately to drive purchase. Now with the power of data we can provide ROI metrics to brands,” says Walter on the power Adly and the information they can provide.

“For brands, the potential for celebrity influence is greater than ever, given how far a message can go thanks to social media and its ability to reach wide audiences,” he explains. “It’s apparent that a vast majority of consumers are using social media platforms to engage with celebrities and key influencers and this creates a space where brands can join in and benefit from the influence of a celebrity. Celebrities have the same reach as most in social television shows. The difference is that there is a two-way interaction between the consumer and the influencer.”

Read the rest of the article in SmallBizTechnology

Anthony Weiner Making Theatrical Debut in ‘Hating Breitbart’ Doc (Video)

The former congressman will be seen via news clips and the filmmakers are using his image to market their project.

As former congressman Anthony Weiner gears up for a possible run for mayor of New York, he is also making his theatrical debut in a film he probably wishes didn’t exist. Those involved with the movie, called Hating Breitbart, are also intending to lean on Weiner’s image — by way of news video of some of his embarrassing TV moments — to promote their film.

Weiner quit his congressional seat two years ago after he was caught tweeting lewd photos of himself to women he met on the Internet. His “sexting” turned into a major scandal in part because his wife, Huma Abedin, was at the time pregnant and an aide to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The entire episode, since dubbed “Weinergate,” is retold in the documentary film Hating Breitbart, which Freestyle Releasing will open in several theaters across the country on May 17, when it also becomes available on VOD.

Weiner did not participate in the making of the film but is seen via news clips, sometimes disparaging Andrew Breitbart, the new-media raconteur who exposed the then-congressman’s sexual foibles. The film is about Breitbart’s rise to prominence as a harsh critic of the mainstream media and as a favorite at Tea Party and other conservative gatherings.

Even though Weiner’s appearances are relatively few, the folks behind the film intend on making Weiner a large part of their marketing campaign, beginning with a video that will be released on the Internet, though The Hollywood Reporter has an advanced copy which is embedded below.

The 3-minute video is a timeline of the fiasco that began when Weiner denied tweeting pornographic photos of himself and insinuated his Twitter account had been hacked by Breitbart. Clips from numerous TV segments where experts attack Breitbart and defend Weiner are played over circus music. Besides multiple shots of Weiner, Wolf Blitzer, Chris Matthews and other news personalities are featured.

“CNN puts this Breitbart guy on and says the most outlandish things about complete, innocent people,” Weiner complains in the video. After Weiner calls a reporter a “jackass” for inquiring about his tweets, Breitbart is seen celebrating the exchange as the moment the media “got it.”

But Weiner’s primary miscalculation in the whole mess, Breitbart argues in the movie, was when he tweeted that his Facebook page and TiVo had been hacked, which, in retrospect, seems like Weiner’s hastily conceived plan to explain away a mistaken tweet that he sent to thousands instead of just the one intended recipient. By tweeting he was hacked — and the fateful tweet remained on his old Twitter account on Tuesday — he made accusations of a federal crime on one hand though on the other hand he was oddly disinterested in allowing an investigation.

The video ends with Weiner at a press conference where he comes clean about the tweets more than a week after Breitbart — who died a year ago — broke the story.  “To be clear, the picture was of me, and I sent it,” Weiner says.

Weiner, contacted by email, had no comment on the film or its marketing plans.

Read the story in The Hollywood Reporter

Paul Stanley, from ‘chunky’ kid to fit KISS rocker

By James S. Fell

The “Starchild” outfit Paul Stanley wears as frontman forKISS is a revealing one. That’s why I chose it for Halloween a couple of years back. I wanted to showcase the efforts of my diet and exercise regimen. I got the hair wrong.

And at 61 years of age, Stanley can’t let himself go and still rock out to arenas full of screaming fans. As one of the hardest working bands in rock ‘n’ roll, he has a reputation to maintain — one he won’t let age tarnish. I’ve seen how lively KISS performances are up close and understand his dedication to fitness to keep the fans on their feet for the band’s Monster world tour.

Were you always such a fit guy?

The only exercise I got as a kid was fork to mouth. Food was equated with love in my household. I thought you left the table when the zipper was down and you’d explode if you took another bite. I’d eat my plate and then everyone else’s leftovers.

I was a chubby boy. My pants used to wear out in the middle, and it was because my legs used to rub together. I wasn’t obese, just chunky.

That doesn’t sound at all like the Paul Stanley we’ve seen on stage. What changed?

Even when the band started, I was chunkier, and the wide belt I used to wear on stage was a bit of a corset. Over the years that became unnecessary. I couldn’t do what I started doing onstage without “leaning out” because the physicality of it was akin to an aerobic workout. This was coupled with a mystery virus in the early ’70s that laid me up for a month and I barely ate. When that was over, I looked in the mirror and was pretty lean, and it had been a life dream of mine. And I decided to hang on to it.

Read the rest of the interview at LA Times

KISS Singer And Guitarist Paul Stanley Stays Fit

By Ben Radding

Photography by Glenn La Ferman

If you take away the black and white face paint, flashy stage outfits, and smoking guitars, KISS frontman Paul Stanley is an average guy—or at least he’s got average-guy priorities: staying fit, having fun, and enjoying his family. We recently caught up with the 61-year-old rocker, who told us why he stopped eating like a kid, how he balances his family with his tour dates, and his secret to avoiding drugs and alcohol when a rock-and-roll lifestyle practically spoon feeds you opportunities to indulge.

How would you say your diet and fitness routine today differs from your lifestyle in the 70s and 80s?

My routine then was: Eat whatever’s in front of you. Youth is incredible because you really do feel invincible. I had no real routine as far as diet; I ate what I wanted to. Back then I tended to eat a lot of sugars. I ate a lot of cookies, a lot of ice cream; I didn’t eat a lot of proper food. I started working out, doing a formal workout right around 1980. That’s when I really decided I needed to get in shape and it may have been because you just start to see a decrease—a change in your body. The workout I was doing then would kill me today.

What is your routine? Do you do it with a trainer?

It really depends. There’s certainly a time before a tour where you start to count days until you’re leaving and that’s crunch time—no pun intended. My workout is always with a trainer because, quite honestly, I don’t think most people are motivated enough to do what they need to on their own. You either need a spotter or you need a trainer. You need somebody there to push you to get that extra five.

Your performances often seem like workouts in themselves.

You can’t do that unless you train for it. You can’t enter the Olympics unless you do your routine to get in shape for it. The idea of going out on stage on a tour without having prepped for it would be suicide, literally.

How did you avoid alcohol and drugs in a culture that is surrounded by it—and it’s almost expected of you?

Common sense. You just have to look around you, and you have two choices. You either go “Gee, I want to be just like him!” or not. In the music business, I always go back to, if all those vices and excesses were so great, you’d probably be doing this interview with Jim Morrison or Jimi Hendrix or……

 

Read the rest of the interview here.

 

Kim Garst: Twitter – Your New Power Networking Business Tool

By Kim Garst

Before the Internet and social media channels, gaining access to the people you need to connect with required a great deal of work, time, and often times, a degree of proximity. Today, with social media, you can be anywhere in the world and connect to the people who are critical to growing your business.

The need for networking hasn’t changed, but the tools have — and leveraging those tools to tap into that wealth of opportunity is easier than you might realize.

Tools vs. Strategy

With new social media platforms emerging at an alarming rate, it can be easy to discount the social media revolution as a fad. What you need is a strategic plan — and a platform that can help you accomplish that plan.

How do you know which platform is right for you? What I’ve found is that it’s best to identify your target audience and your business goals. Are you trying to increase sales? Are you looking for strategic partners or additional qualified staff? Are you targeting consumers or do you want to connect with other businesses?

Getting Started With Social Media

If I had to choose a favorite social media platform (or a great place to start networking), I would pick Twitter. I can say with certainty that Twitter is the number one tool I’ve used to grow my business. It’s amazing how much relationship-building you can do in just 140 characters! Twitter is incredibly dynamic, allowing you to customize your experience to meet your networking goals.

Twitter in and of itself can be overwhelming. You’ve got to have a plan and use it strategically to accomplish that plan. If I could give you just a few critical tips they would be:

● Filter your Twitter stream by building lists so that you can closely follow the conversations of a small group of influencers. This allows you to interact and build closer relationships.
● Use Twitter as a search engine. Attempting to tune into the noise of all of Twitter is like trying to look at every webpage on the Internet without using Google, Yahoo, or Bing to filter the information. Using Twitter’s search feature allows you to zone in on the information that is relevant to you.
● Respond to every retweet (RT) and person that reacts to one of your tweets. Keep the conversation going while being yourself. Your followers will appreciate a live, real human being’s response — it can be rare these days!

Of those currently using Twitter, 34 percent of marketers say they have generated leads using the social media platform, and 20 percent have closed deals.

Twitter Success Stories

No matter how much practical, theoretical information I read, I tend to learn more by reading about the successes of others who have used Twitter to network and take their careers or businesses to the next level. Here are some of my favorites….

READ THE REST HERE.

Check Out This Batsh*t Crazy Trailer For ‘Wrath Of The Crows’!

 

In the film, “In a dirty and narrow jail, Larry (Domiziano Arcangeli), Deborah (Debbie Rochon), Hugo (Brian Fortune), Hernest (John Game), and Liza (Tara Cardinal), the prisoners, are obliged to suffer injustices from the guards and from their chief, the officer. Above all of them is the judge. Nobody ever sees him, but he is the one that sets the rules, and he’s feared by inmates and guards alike. The prisoners know how to behave and what are the rules to be respected, but they don’t remember anything of their former life outside the walls of the fortress of their prison.

The prisoners’ sole memory, slowly emerging during the story, is the Great Evil that led them to the fortress. And the long, long time they have been imprisoned in it. Suddenly a new prisoner makes an out from nothing-like appearance: PRINCESS (Tiffany Shepis). She is a beautiful lady, dressed only in a crow feathers coat, shining and sensual. Her arrival causes curiosity, envy, suspicion, and a deep sexual agitation.

In a very short time Princess reveals her dark and supernatural nature: She can move objects with the power of her mind and is extremely strong. As Liza soon discovers, escape is just a dream for all of the prisoners. The rude nightmarish projected images they can see outside the windows of their cells make them give up thoughts of escape. But you can’t escape from yourself or your past.

After execution, Deborah and Liza find themselves disoriented, soulless, and empty in the Lost Souls Prison, where they meet an old blind man named Charlie (Gerry Shanahan), “The Soulkeeper”. The souls are dark bodies, sealed into inviolable cells. But Deborah manages to reunite with her soul and then attacks the old man in order to free Liza.

The two of them find an exit, but escape is everything but easy. Soon they realize that the whole fortress, outside and inside, is just a terrifying mirror game where reality is confused with illusion and nightmares become true, throwing the two girls in an endless vortex of terror and madness.“

See the trailer at Bloody-Disgusting

Stunt Woman Gaëlle Cohen Kicks Through The Glass Ceiling

By Victoria Lynn Weston

It’s a cold rainy day in Atlanta.  And I’m trying to visualize how someone walks out of a fiery explosion in the Middle East desert and survives.

 

Today I am on the telephone with stunt woman Gaëlle Cohen, one of the most in-demand stunt performers in Hollywood.  She has worked on over sixty film and television productions including; Rush Hour 3, Babylon A.D., Brotherhood of the Wolf, most recently Zero Dark Thirty.

Born and raised in France, Gaëlle Cohen started out her career as a lawyer, “but I really didn’t fit in,” she tells me.

Maybe it was fate, one day she got a call from a friend who was a movie agent and asked her to fill in for an actress. “I arrived on set and saw other actors practicing fencing and since I was on the French National Fencing team and a champion fencer,  I helped them.  They liked my work and I met stunt performers who invited me to audition.”

Gaëlle launched a new career as a stunt performer for the Highlander show in 1995.

“I started out doing sword fights and performed all the bad girl stunts on the show.  It was like a flash –  this is what I want to do!

Cohen has a beautiful French accent and it takes me a few seconds to take in all that she is saying; “This is me – combining athleticism and artistic creation. I did extensive research and trained full-time……

 

Read the rest of the interview here.

 

Alan Au On Looking Good To Get The Position You Are Interviewing For

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Did you know that the number of people over 45 have been

jobless for more than a year has quadrupled since 2007?

That means half of the jobless Americans are 45 plus.

So what do you do to look good and get the position you

are interviewing for? Alan Au, Jimmy Au’s for men 5’8”

and under, will talk about that today with us.

Hear the interview here.

Medium Helping People Connect to Their Healing Abilities

BY MARIO TONEGUZZI, CALGARY HERALD

CALGARY — Helping people connect to God and develop their own healing abilities is Gail Thackray’s passion.

And the world-renowned spiritual educator and medium is in Calgary this weekend to deliver her message during the Body Soul & Spirit Expo.

“I believe we can all do that,” says Thackray, a spiritual healer, about people’s ability to connect with the other side.

“We can manifest things in our lives. We can change our lives. We can heal the many problems that we have in our lives and everybody can do this. And so really my mission is to help people to open up and realize that they have a lot more power over their lives than they think they do.”

The Expo is taking place in the Big Four Building at Stampede Park. It runs until Sunday. Thackray, author of several metaphysical books, will be speaking Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Friday night’s session is Manifesting Abundance Workshop, Saturday it is Spiritual Journeys — Mediumship & Healing Demonstration, John of God, and Sunday it is Become a Medium & Healing Channel Workshop. John of God is a well-known healer in Brazil.

For more information about the Expo, visit http://www.bodysoulspiritexpo.com.

Thackray, who is originally from England but now makes Los Angeles home, has a mission to help people experience alignment with the Divine Source (God) and to bring this powerful energy into their own lives.

She teaches Reiki, mediumship and animal communication and other ways to develop people’s psychic senses.

Thackray is also the host of the documentary series “Gail Thackray’s Spiritual Journeys,” interviewing spiritual leaders and experiencing places of supernatural significance. Travelling the world, Gail leads groups to see John of God in Brazil as well as other spiritual adventures.

“Definitely people are becoming more spiritual,” says Thackray. “We are connected to a higher supreme being. When things are more difficult in our lives, people start looking within and saying ‘the things outside are not working anymore. How can I help myself?’ And I think when people do get more connected themselves and with their spirituality, they can find solutions to many of our problems.

“I think all illnesses that we have, whether it’s emotional or whether it’s physical, is kind of a negative that is attracted around us and we can actually heal ourselves. And many people do this with faith. They just pray to God or Jesus or whatever they believe. And you know that works.”

But most people find it difficult to believe.

“I do believe there’s kind of an invisible spiritual world out there and we can get help and that everything we have in our lives, whether it’s physical ailments or whether it’s financial stress or some emotional problem we have, basically it’s just energy and things we’ve attracted around ourselves. We can combat. We can dissolve that,” she says

Read more: Calgary Herald

Visionary without vision: David Hunt’s remarkable story.

By: John Compisi

David Hunt’s story is both fascinating and inspirational. Despite his loss of sight nearly 30 years ago, his story is a reaffirmation of the renaissance man concept of the 16th century. Game show contestant, musician, lyricist, successful entrepreneur, husband, father, vigneron, winemaker and recording artist are among the many titles he has on his curriculum vitae…so far.

I recently spoke at length with him and gained tremendous insight into the life and character of this passionate man. David is gracious, confident, focused and openly expresses his traditional values of hard work and personal responsibility. To add layers to this knowledge and insight, I also had the pleasure of listening to his recently released inaugural CD and tasting two of his most ‘memorable wines’.

Born in North Carolina over 6 decades ago as one of seven children, David began working at six in his father’s lumber business. After completing college in 1970 he was invited to be one of the three hidden bachelors on the television game show “The Dating Game”which was filmed in California (he never said if he was selected). Always a lover of popularmusic and a keyboardist, David remained an active musician in California with a show band while simultaneously building a very successful enterprise in home and business security systems. The home security and residential building boom of the 70’s offered the opportunity for David to contract with developers to install up to 500 home security units at a time in mega developments in southern California. As the enterprise grew he was bought out thereby accumulating some wealth for other new opportunities including real estate development.

Life was good for David and Debbie but then he began losing his eyesight in the early 1980s. A progressive degenerative retinal disease was, not too slowly, robbing him of his sight. He has not been able to drive since the early 80’s and has not been able to read a book since 1989. Not one to feel sorry for himself and with two sons (Chris and Derek) already on board, David and Debbie continued to move forward with their dream of some day owning a vineyard and making wine. In the mid 90’s they began in earnest to search for a property to purchase. Scouring the west coast of the United States, they finally settled on an old barley farm near Paso Robles in San Luis Obispo County.

David purchased the property in 1996, 10 years after his blindness had progressed to the point where he could only to see shadows and without the participation of Debbie who was pregnant and virtually bed-ridden with their 3rd child. The property had been dry farmed so they would need water to support vineyards. The soil was calcareous/chalky and questionable as a proper grape growing terrior. Despite the risk and potential for failure, they named the future vineyard ‘Destiny’ after their daughter who was born the same year.

Early on, David took courses at UC Davis to learn the technical basics of vineyard management, grape growing and wine making. Knowing the basics, he still needed to adapt for his blindness if he was going to be successful as a vigneron and winemaker. When I asked him how he is able to farm and make wine without seeing the vineyards, grapes or juice, he told me he believes that his other senses have indeed heightened and help him compensate. He said he smells the ripeness and, of course tastes and feels the grapes to decide when to harvest. He also asks his assistant to describe the color of the leaves to help him determine the stage of ripeness. With that depth of insight he does the blending with his assistant winemaker and employs all of his enhanced senses and his educated palate to produce memorable wines. (He laughingly told me that when he asks Debbie the color of the wine during the winemaking she says ‘red’.)

I asked David how being blind was a gift? I wasn’t surprised that he saw the positive angle of my question. He said, “I do enjoy the ability (italics added) to be an inspiration to people, sighted and sightless, who recognize what I have accomplished and how I live my life”. He did say that his biggest challenge is dealing with his trust issues. He expressed his discomfort with wondering who was actually doing what they say they are doing. “How do you verify that people do what they say?” I asked him if he felt like a Jedi warrior (Star Wars reference) in that he had to use ‘the Force’ to achieve what he has and to trust in others. His response was classic, “Its not a level playing field for anyone so you just need to be a better warrior!” When asked what he misses about being sighted, the answer came quick. “I miss the freedom that comes with sight. Driving a car, skiing and playing basketball with my children.”

His 550 acres range in elevation from 1550 ft to 2200 ft above sea level and contains at least 4 distinct terroir. Hunt specializes in mountain fruit for its intensity and because of his vineyard elevations. He produces Cabernet Sauvignon (~45%) and lesser amounts of Syrah, Merlot, Zinfandel, Sangiovese, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier, Petite Sirah and Cabernet Franc in declining order. He also purchases Chardonnay and Pinot Noir to complete his portfolio. He believes passionately that ‘memorable wine’ begins in the vineyard.

Consistent with his personal values of self reliance, David encouraged his sons (Christopher now 28 and Derek 25) to start their own business when they were 11 and 14 respectively. That work ethic must be passed through the Hunt DNA as they have teamed up to form their own business and are successful in their own right. David hopes and believes that some day they will return to run the winery with their sister.

David’s goal is to produce ‘memorable wines’. And he does, between 6-13,000 cases annually depending upon vintage and mother nature. He ages his wines in barrel longer than most wineries in Paso Robles, or for that matter in California.. The wines dictate the specific time vintage to vintage and varietal to varietal. It usually takes 4-5 years from vine to market for his reds. He focuses on mountain fruit because of the intensity of flavors the environmental stress produces. Perhaps he is stressed with the same outcome – intensity and character. His winemaking style seeks balance: tannin, acid, alcohol, sweetness and oak all in harmony. He has most certainly achieved that with. his wines.

I have had the pleasure of tasting the 2006 ‘Thriller’ (note the music reference). This is a memorable blend of Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, Petite Sirah, Merlot, Zinfandel and Cabernet Franc all from Destiny Vineyard. It is full bodied, well balanced, approachable and great with food. The flavors of tobacco, leather and licorice are complemented by the earthy aromas and cola notes.

Read the rest of the article in The Examiner