The 10 Most Successful Rebranding Campaigns Ever
An interesting gallery of giant brands, (almost hitting rock bottom), rising from the ashes.
Virtual Barber;Binaural Recordings
Binaural recordings are not exactly audio illusions in the sense that they do not ‘trick’ us into hearing sounds which are impossible or non existent. They are, however, extremely cool as the recordings make it sound like you are actually there, in presence of what is making the sound.
Binaural recordings are simply recordings of sounds using a special microphone setup which factors in the natural crossfeed and sonic shaping of the head and ear. This is what happens naturally when we hear a sound which is the reason why binaural recordings sound so realistic and immersive.
Binaural recordings are only effective when listened to through stereo headphones.
The most famous and impressive binaural recording is the ‘Virtual Barbershop’ or ‘The Virtual Haircut’ as it is sometimes known as. This binaural recording can be found at http://www.virtualbarber.org/page.php?3
What is Monophonic, Stereophonic, Multichannel and Surround Sound?
Monophonic Sound
Monophonic sound is sound created by one channel or speaker and is also known as Monaural or High-Fidelity sound. Monophonic sound was replaced by Stereo or Stereophonic sound in the 1960s.
Stereophonic Sound
Stereo or Stereophonic sound is created by two independent audio channels or speakers and provides a sense of directionality because sounds can be heard from different directions. The term stereophonic is derived from the Greek words stereos, which means solid and phone, which means sound. Stereo sound can reproduce sounds and music from various directions or positions the way we hear things naturally, hence the term solid sound. Stereo sound is a common form of sound reproduction.
Multichannel Surround Sound
Multichannel sound, also known as surround sound, is created by at least four and up to seven independent audio channels or speakers placed in front of and behind the listener that surrounds the listener in sound. Multichannel sound can be enjoyed on DVD music discs, DVD movies and some CDs. Multichannel sound began in the 1970s with the introduction of Quadraphonic sound, also known as Quad. Multichannel sound is also known as 5.1, 6.1 or 7.1 channel sound.
5.1, 6.1 and 7.1 Channel Sound
- 5.1 channel sound is an industry standard sound format for movies and music with five main channels of sound and a sixth subwoofer channel (called the point-one channel) used for special movie effects and bass for music. A 5.1 channel system consists of a stereo pair of speakers, a center channel speaker placed between the stereo speakers and two surround sound speakers located behind the listener. 5.1 channel sound is found on DVD movie and music discs and some CDs.
- 6.1 channel sound is a sound enhancement to 5.1 channel sound with an additional center surround sound speaker located between the two surround sound speakers directly behind the listener. 6.1 channel sound produces a more enveloping surround sound experience.
- 7.1 channel sound is a further sound enhancement to 5.1 channel sound with two additional side-surround speakers located to the sides of the listener’s seating position. 7.1 channel sound is used for greater sound envelopment and more accurate positioning of sounds. Read more: http://stereos.about.com/od/introductiontostereos/a/soundformats.htm
Q Where should I place my monitors in a small room?
Question: I recently built my own home studio by converting an old garage into a well‑isolated music room of 410 x 215 x 275cm. The isolation is great, but I’m now moving on to phase two — acoustics — and bass is a problem, especially on the notes of A, B‑flat and B, which are kind of booming.
So I am wondering how to position my Dynaudio BM6As? At first I put them along the short wall, but a lot of bass was built up, probably because of the proximity of the corners. I’ve already tried to put the speakers backwards, but noticed no change.
I’ve now got them along the long wall, which I think sounds more balanced, even though there’s still some resonance on certain notes. Also, this tends to differ a lot depending on whether I sit in the exact ‘sweet spot’ or not. The further forward I go with my head, the more bass I get; the further back I go, the less bass I get. I’ve seen you advocate placing speakers on both the shortest wall, and the longest wall, depending on the room. So, what would you recommend for a room of my size and dimensions? Also, are the BM6As too much for my room?
Answer: In large studio rooms, which includes many commercial studios, putting the speakers along the longest wall is quite common and has the benefit of getting those reflective side walls further away. However, in the smaller rooms many of us have to deal with, it is invariably best to have the speakers facing down the longest axis of the room. If you work across the room, the reflective wall behind you is too close and the physical size of the desk means you’re almost certainly sitting mid‑way between the wall in front and the wall behind, which causes a big bass cancellation in the exact centre and, as you’ve noticed, causes the bass end to change if you move your position even slightly. In a room the size of yours, working lengthways will give the most consistent results. Your room is a slightly unfortunate size for bass response as the length is almost twice the width, so any resonant modes will tend to congregate at the same frequencies.
You can often change the bass behaviour by moving the speakers forward or backwards slightly, but try to keep them out of the corners, as that just adds more unevenness to the bass end. Corner bass traps of the type you’re making may help, but if they don’t do enough, you could try one of the automatic EQ systems designed for improving monitoring. I don’t normally like to EQ monitors but, in difficult situations, using EQ to cut only the boomy frequencies can really help.
As for your monitors, the BM6As should be fine in that room. Just make sure they’re perched on something solid, as standing them directly on a desk or shelf can also cause bass resonances. Either solid metal stands or foam speaker pads with something solid on top work best and can really tighten up the bass end. You can buy the Primacoustic or Silent Peaks pads, which have steel plate on top, use Auralex MoPads or similar with a heavy floor tile stuck on top, or make your own from furniture foam with ceramic floor tiles or granite table mats stuck on top. A layer of non‑slip matting under the speakers will keep them in place.
or the mid‑range, foam or mineral wool absorbers placed at the mirror points in the usual way should be adequate, but try to put something on the rear wall that will help to scatter the sound, such as shelving or unused gear.
In a small room such as this, which is about twice as long as it is wide, it’s usually best to position monitors of this size along the shortest wall. Working the other way — across the room — would create a bass cancellation in the centre of the room, where you’ll most likely be sitting. Moving around even slightly would create variable results, as the space is so small. Positioning them as shown in the bottom image will give more consistent results, though you will still need to treat the room accordingly.
Secrets Of The Mix Engineers: Yvan Bing & Phil Collins | ‘Going Back’
Phil Collins began recreating the classic Motown sound as a form of therapy. With the help of engineer Yvan Bing, the results gave Collins his first number one album in 17 years.
Many teenage musicians will have dreamed of playing on their favourite records. Playing along in our bedrooms remains the fu
rthest most of us will ever get, but at the ripe old age of 59, one ex‑teenager has taken this age‑old dream a step further. Phil Collins’ eighth solo album, Going Back, features 29 classic Motown hits — and rather than provide fresh interpretations, the 100‑million‑selling artist tried to recreate these old recordings as faithfully as possible,with himself singing and drumming. Collins has described it as an “old record, not a new record”.
Going Back To Geneva
The original versions of the songs on Going Back were recorded between 1963 and 1972, the last years when Motown was still located in Detroit, where the company operated its own studio until 1967, after which time it ran two studios. Attempting to recreate the Motown sound from this era could have involved painstaking historical research and attempts to track down original equipment, but in Collins’ case, the focus was mainly on recruiting original Motown musicians, such as bassist Bob Babbit and guitarists Ray Monette and Eddie Willis. All three were members of the Funk Brothers, the pool of musicians that played on Motown records between1959 and 1972. As for approximating the sound of the old records, the album’s liner notes credit Yvan Bing as having “engineered, crunched and lo‑fied” the album, while Collins writes that “it would have been impossible for me to have made this album without my engineer Yvan Bing”. Reason enough to talk to the man in question…
ike Collins, Yvan Bing lives in Switzerland, and was originally a drummer, before getting into engineering. Finding opportunities in his native country limited, he went on to study audio engineering at Berklee Music College in Boston in the early 2000s. Following this, he worked in New York for three years as an assistant and then full engineer at Right Track Studios, mainly recording hip‑hop, and a few years ago he moved back to his native country, where he became main engineer at the then-new Dinemec Studios in Geneva. He still lives close to Geneva, where he’s now a freelance engineer, running his own mixing room, Kitchen Studios, which sports an impressive amount of gear (see www.kitchenstudio.ch). Bing first met Collins in New York in 2006, when the
two were working on Collins’ musical based on Disney’s Tarzan movie, which was premièred that year on Broadway. Then, in late 2008, Bing received a phone call…
“Phil was planning to do a new record, and asked me to help him because he knew me from New York, and I only live an hour’s drive away from him. He’d been doing these demos of all these old Motown songs at his own studio, entirely by himself, using Cubase. At that point he had to come out of his studio and actually make a record. It’s tricky making a record like that, when you’re starting with demos made with samples and so on, and then adding, or replacing, things with overdubs, because the original tracks were all recorded with the musicians playi
ng live in one room. In the beginning I was a little concerned about this aspect. The other thing was that all the songs were recorded over a long period and the original recordings don’t sound the same at all. I was wondering how we would be able to approximate the different sounds of all these songs. An important additional concern was whether Phil would be able to play the drums [after dislocating some vertebrae in 2007 and two operations to correct this, he has been left with limited control of his left hand]. Phil was very worried about that, so our first session was in January 2009, just overdubbing drums on his demos to see if he could do it.”
US: Film biz’s brandwagon
Tentpole surplus draws more Madison Ave. dollars to Hollywood
By MARC GRASER – VARIETY
Over the next two summers, Hollywood will roll out a huge number of tentpoles that will require hefty marketing budgets. At the same time, Madison Avenue is awakening from the recession with ad dollars to spend and is eager to associate with entertainment properties and personalities.
The result: a convergence of mutual needs that will result in an unprecedented level of promotional partnerships.
This summer, every major advertising category -- from fast food chains and soda brands to cell phone and automakers -- will pair up with the second editions of "Cars" and "Kung Fu Panda," the third "Transformers," fourth "Pirates of the
Caribbean," an "X-Men" prequel and adaptations of "Mr. Popper's Penguins," "The Smurfs," "The Zookeeper," "Cowboys & Aliens," "Green Lantern," "Thor" and "Captain America: The First Avenger."
Summer 2012 already has lined up "The Avengers," "The Dark Knight Rises," the "Spider-Man" and Jason Bourne reboots, a third "Men in Black" and "Madagascar," a fourth "Ice Age," "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," "Brave," "Battleship" and the "Star Trek" sequel. Fox's "The Wolverine" and Relativity Media's "Snow White" are also possible.
Hollywood hasn't offered this many properties that boast a built-in fanbase and appeal to a wide demo since summer 2008 when "Iron Man," "The Dark Knight," "Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull," "Wall-E" and "Speed Racer" played in
theaters.
The scene is a far cry from the past two years when summer seshes were filled with R-rated actioners ("Terminator: Salvation," "Inglourious Basterds"), dramas ("The Hurt Locker," "Public Enemies") and raunchy laffers ("The Hangover," "Bruno") that brands couldn't embrace with their own campaigns -- with the exception of an "Iron Man," "Transformers" and "Star Trek," of course.
As a result, brands shifted their attention over to such TV shows as "American Idol," "Hawaii 5-0," "Glee" and videogame franchises like "Halo" and "Call of Duty." Other studios including DreamWorks Animation enlist brands to help market homvid releases, TV toons and live-action stage shows.
But Madison Avenue's interest in movies is heating up again, especially as studios are greenlighting sequels, remakes, adaptations of comicbooks, young-adult novels, toy lines and videogames that enable advertisers to go after the same moviegoers studios are looking to attract at the megaplex.
"The thing that's hard about this job is there are so many brands out there, many of which want to be involved with entertainment partnerships," says LeeAnne Stables, executive VP of worldwide marketing partnerships for Paramount Pictures. "We're not just pitching these films against other movies; it's also television, which is a huge opportunity. A big brand can only look at so many entertainment titles in the course of one calendar year. Their choices are many and it puts the onus on us to put a strong presentation together on why our film is the best choice against the many alternatives out there. These are multimillion-dollar decisions."
The money is hard not to go after for studios.
The cost to market movies isn't showing any signs of getting cheaper, especially as networks increase the prices of their 30-second spots this year.
While social media like Facebook and Twitter are now important components of a studio marketing plan, TV still remains the main driver of audiences into theaters, marketing mavens say. The Motion Picture Assn. of America no longer releases the average marketing costs for a movie, but it falls somewhere between $25 million and $50 million per pic, a conservative estimate for most summer tentpoles.
As a result, studios are increasingly looking to line up outside partners, which can add $100 million or more to a film's overall marketing campaign, especially overseas, where studios need more support. Stateside, brands push pics in various locations like restaurants, stores, car dealerships and buy media on TV, in theaters, magazines and online, providing invaluable exposure.
"We did see media budgets getting slashed" during the recession, says Susan Spencer, head of national promotions at DreamWorks Animation. "It does feel like people are putting their toe back in the water again and we hope that if we deliver on the partnerships, people will get back into the business in a bigger way."
How much a brand spends grows even higher if its products are prominently integrated into the project.
Being able to open wallets doesn't guarantee a brand a film deal, however.
The trend has been for studios to surround films with fewer brands, giving partners the chance to stand out more with their marketing tie-ins, while not bombarding auds with too many promo pushes. That isn't changing.
And with pacts usually brokered a year or more in advance, many partnerships with some of the biggest spenders around major pics have already been inked.
Paramount smartly cemented a relationship with Burger King when the fast food chain agreed to promote "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," "Star Trek" and "G.I.
Joe: Rise of Cobra" during summer 2008, the first time it hyped a single studio's films back-to-back. Last summer, it pushed Marvel's "Iron Man 2," which Par distribbed. And this year, BK will help the studio create some sizzle around
"Transformers," "Thor" and "Captain America: The First Avenger."
Similarly, DreamWorks Animation has had a long-standing arrangement with McDonald's, which will promote "Kung Fu Panda: The Kaboom of Doom" this summer, as will computer and chip makers HP and Intel, ongoing partners for the
toon studio. This is the sixth year McDonald's is creating Happy Meals for a DreamWorks toon.
General Motors is returning for a third time to promote "Transformers," which features the company's various car brands that star as the actioner's shape-shifting robots.
" 'Transformers' is the all-time big daddy of tentpole partnership opportunities," Stables says. "This is the third time and we do have the benefit of repeat partners."
Par has also brought on new partners with each installment, like M&Ms, for the first sequel.
Dr Pepper and 7-Eleven are also back to support Marvel's launches of "Thor" and "Captain America." Both brands are already getting mileage out of appearances in early "Thor" footage.
Sony also has had an ongoing company-wide relationship with Pizza Hut (cooking up marketing deals around films like "Terminator: Salvation," its PlayStation and "EverQuest" gaming brands, the Spider-Man musical, and its Adam Sandler comedy "Just Go With It"). "There are few things that go together as well as movies and pizza," says Tressie Lieberman, who oversaw the Pizza Hut-"Just Go With It" promotional tie-in.
Sony is expected to have a slew of partners around its summer family films "The Smurfs" and "The Zookeeper." Although it declined to disclose which brands, casual dining chain T.G.I. Friday's is featured in "Zookeeper" and plans to launch a promotion in its restaurants around the talking animal pic, similar to the promotion IHOP did around Universal's animated hit "Despicable Me" last year.
"Each of the partners delivers something to different segments of the audience," Spencer says. For example, where McDonald's reaches out to kids through toys in Happy Meals, HP and Intel talk to adult auds and General Mills to moms.
Studios also continue to recruit regional partners in other countries. DreamWorks has a relationship with Chinese apparel chain Meters/bonwe (think their version of H&M). The stores have a dedicated section within the stores showcasing the "Kung Fu Panda" and "Shrek" characters on signage and product.
"We approach each country with their unique market in mind," Spencer adds.
But there's still a lot of room for dealmaking to take place, studios say.
Even this month, studios like Disney, Fox, Paramount, Universal and Sony were negotiating promo pacts around films like "Pirates 4," "Cars 2," "X-Men: First Class," "Super 8," "Cowboys & Aliens," "Smurfs" and "Zookeeper." The same is true at other studios around their summer films.
Par is still aligning a short list of partners around "Super 8" that tie in to the nostalgia of the late 1970s, when the film takes place. Studio had to consider which brands were in the marketplace in 1979 as well as the position of the brand in the marketplace at that time.
Early promo deals are locked down once a company is integrated into a movie; product placement deals don't get made anymore unless a company agrees to pony up ad dollars around the pic's launch.
But while marketers may have money to spend, they're still cautious about which films to support and want to see footage and other marketing materials before they commit coin. That's opened up the doors for more nimble brands such as cell phone and electronics companies like Panasonic, LG, Motorola and Samsung to put together a promo four to six months before a film unspools.
"You need materials to show," says one high-level studio marketing executive deep in the middle of negotiating several summer deals. "A lot of brands want to see what you have to offer audiences before they commit. But you often don't have that until late in the game," usually because complicated f/x sequences are still being created.
Recent Super Bowl movie ads have sparked interest from several brands, insiders say, after footage from the summer pics was finally unveiled during the big game.
Still, some films remain off limits. Disney won't broker deals with fast-food partners for its films, not wanting to be seen as selling "junk food" to children. Meanwhile, Warner Bros. has kept brands away from "Harry Potter," whose final installment bows in July, since objections arose around Coca-Cola's involvement around the first pic in 2001 and its hard sell to kids.
That issue wasn't a problem for the Vidalia Onion Committee last summer when it tapped Shrek as a spokes-creature to pitch its sweet onions to vegetable-hating tykes, timed around the release of "Shrek Forever After." Partnership actually made sense since "Onions have layers, ogres have layers. Ogres are like onions," was a line from the first film in the franchise. The result of the deal was around $300,000 worth of PR and marketing for the toon studio and Paramount, which released the pic, and a 50% boost in sales for the Georgia-grown onions.
Following that success, DreamWorks signed on House Foods' tofu to support "Kung Fu Panda 2," given that a character in the film runs a noodle shop that serves up the product.
Locking down an early deal isn't without its complications, however.
Because marketers need a long lead time to schedule a co-promotion alongside their regular activities to launch a car or burger, for example, it can be hard or impossible to move a campaign when a studio decides to shift a release date.
That happened to Carl's Jr. when Sony changed the date for "The Green Hornet" five times, giving it two dates in summer 2010, then two more in December, before finally moving it to Jan. 14. Carl's Jr., which pushed the pic at Comic-Con in San Diego last summer, finally had to pull the trigger on its tie-in, rolling out toys and signage at its eateries over Thanksgiving.
The ever-crowded summer release calendar and the playability of pics outside that frame has enabled Hollywood to turn to a year-round sked for its higher-profile releases. And that's given brands the chance to partner up with pics during the spring and fall, as well, and not get lost in the clutter of spots competing for attention during the summer.
Last year, Sony was able tune up a deal with HSN for an innovative TV effort around "Eat Pray Love," while Nivea stood out with its tie-in around New Line's "Valentine's Day." Par's "Up in the Air," an R-rated drama, also managed to land American Airlines and Hilton Hotels in the fall.
This year, Universal has opened up the Easter holiday to brands for the first time to back its toon "Hop," whose star is the Easter Bunny. Fox's "Alvin and the Chipmunks" franchise and reboot of "Planet of the Apes"; Par's "The Adventures of
Tintin" and next "Mission: Impossible"; Warner Bros.' "Sherlock Holmes 2" and "Happy Feet 2"; DreamWorks' "Real Steel"; Disney's "The Muppets"; Summit's "Twilight: Breaking Dawn"; and Relativity's "Immortals" also offer up promo opportunities outside the summer sesh.
US Box Office: Justin Bieber’s ‘Never Say Never’ Leads Friday With $12.4 Mil
By Pamela McClintock – The Hollywood Reporter
The race is on between Paramount’s Justin Bieber: Never Say Never and Sony’s Adam Sandler - Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy Just Go With I.
In an impressive start, Never Say Never opened to an estimated $12.4 million from 3,105 theaters on Friday to beatJust Go With It, which grossed an estimated $9.7 million from 3,548 theaters.
Both movies should crack the $30 million mark for the full weekend. Heading into the frame, most box office observers expected Just Go With It to win the session, but Never Say Never is now a real contender.
Concert films generally drop more than regular movies as the weekend unfolds, and that’s the reason why no one is ready to call the contest between Never Say Never, directed by Jon M. Chu, and Just Go With It, directed by Dennis Dugan.
Of those turning out for Bieber's bigscreen debut, 84% were females, with 67% under the age of 25. Just Go With It played to a distinctly older audience, with 67% of those buying tickets over the age of 25. The Sandler-Aniston pairing played heavily to females, or 61%.
In 2008, Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour opened to $8.7 million on Friday on its way to grossing $31.1 million for the weekend.
Moviegoers liked Never Say Never and Just Go With It, portending good word of mouth. Bieber fans gave Never Say Never an A CinemaScore, while Just Go With It received an A- (females gave the romantic comedy an A).
Never Say Never cost a modest $13 million to produce; Just Go With It, $80 million. Disney’s animated family film Gnomeo & Juliet opened to an estimated $6.1 million from 2,994 theaters on Friday. The 3D film should pick up Saturday and gross north of $20 million for the weekend. Focus Features’ Channing Tatum Roman epic The Eagle, directed by Kevin Macdonald, opened to an estimated $2.8 million from 2,296 theaters, in line with expectations. Coming in No. 5 on Friday was Screen Gems holdover The Roommate, which grossed $2.6 million in its second Friday for a cume of $20.3 million.
Arrested Development creator Mitch Hurwitz’s guide to getting a sitcom cancelled
Arrested Development, threatened with cancellation throughout its 53-episode run, got the axe eventually, as has Mitch Hurwitz's latest project Running Wilde. So who better to explain how to get the televisual axe?
Mitch Hurwitz - The Guardian, Saturday 12 February 2011
The Bluths from Arrested Development.
Have a confusing title
Come up with an unwieldy title that perhaps comes from the realm of psychology, so that the title of your show is almost instantly forgettable. For example, if you were to call the show "Welcome Matt", an audience could immediately understand the concept: this must be a character named Matt and he must either be a welcoming person or stepped on. If you call a show "Arrested Development" it's confusing and sufficiently disorientating to guarantee that a wide audience never discovers the fruits of your labour.
Audiences love fast cars and exciting vehicles
So see if you can put in some heavy machinery like a stair-car, that isn't easily associated with speed or sex appeal. Try to do too much for a 20-minute programme If in your particular medium an audience is used to a simple plotline or maybe one or two stories, see if you can get eight in there, and find a way that they somehow intertwine. Also, it's important that you have a lot of anxiety when they don't intertwine, sufficient to deprive yourself of sleep so that you are miserable during the production of the show – but then upon completion of the show, you're guaranteed to be miserable, because nobody will watch it.
Add a sprinkle of incest
They'll never admit it, but viewers love sex. In fact, they love any sort of titillation, with the exception of incest. So focus on that.
First impressions are everything
So if you can screw that up, you're made. With Arrested Development, we tried showing the deep disdain that connects a family. We wanted to hold up a mirror to American society. And, just as predicted, America looked away.
Don't be afraid to give characters the same names
Audiences tend to run from confusion. So a show, for instance, where one character is named George Michael, one character is named Michael, one character is named George and one character is named George Oscar (and perhaps another character is named Oscar), will be the kind of show you can almost guarantee people won't develop a fondness for.
Make easy jokes about minority groups
Whether they be Mexicans, Jews or homosexuals, any group can be dismissed with a few stereotypical cracks. At least, that's what we tried to do. And given their "lack of coming to the party", it seems we succeeded!
Squander iconic guest stars
As an example, Liza Minnelli has famously appealed to the homosexual audience. Note: it's very important to alienate the homosexual audience first, or they might "come to the party".
Don't bother with a laughter track
Audiences don't always know "when to laugh". By omitting a laugh track you can almost guarantee they'll never find out.
Audiences like nicely dressed characters. They also enjoy nudity
Split the difference by putting your character in a pair of cut-offs and call him a Never-Nude. Advanced: feel free to dip him in a vat of blue paint. That's a real turnoff.
Make a show for British sensibilities
And then show it in America.