By Allan Maurer
CHAPEL HILL, NC—John Roberts lusted after his brother’s Fischer Price movie camera when he was in the third grade, but was having some behavior problems. His parents made him a deal. Clean up his act, and he could have the camera. He did and today, at 22, he heads up Third Floor Productions, which creates commercial films for a variety of clients.
Roberts named his company, now a division of Chapel Hill-based Innovation Management, after the location of his first studio, the third floor attic of his parent’s home. From the time he got his hands on that now antiquated plastic black and white camera, he started making movies.
He admits, “They were really bad movies at first. But I just constantly did that weekends and after school.” Wondering if he couldn’t get a show on local TV, he took a course, wrote a proposal and by the sixth grade he produced a variety program called “The Big Bad Show,” he says, “was pretty bad for three years.” He did the show from age 12 until he was 18.
Eventually, however, “We found our niche in quirky comedy content, sort of like what we provide clients now,” Roberts says. A local independent weekly, “The Spectator,” ranked the show as the best public access offering in the Triangle and a cable TV channel expressed some interest in it.
This industry suits me best
He also completed three feature films, which were screened at Raleigh’s Rialto, an art theatre.
Roberts attended film school at the North Carolina School of the Arts, studying production. In his freshman year, he began doing a lot of work for the University of North Carolina PBS affiliate and became an associate producer of the “Our State” program.
Founded in 2002, his three-person company has since done work for ad agencies, political campaigns (Kerry-Edwards), non-profits and Fortune 500 companies. Roberts says he’s right where he wants to be in terms of filmmaking, doing commercial content. “It’s the kind of work that suits me best,” he says. “This industry is fast-paced and I’m having a blast.”
Kevin Leibel, president of Innovation Management, says, “We were one of John’s clients for a number of years. We help companies across the world with innovation strategies and new products. We try to do things differently here, and sometimes it helps to visualize ideas with movement and concepts such as John’s group does. We do visual concept development, viral campaigns for clients who include Gatorade, Quaker, First Alert, Taco Bell, Gillette, Mead, Alcoa, Pillsbury, Coca Cola and BrightView Technologies.”
Understanding behaviors
Leibel founded Innovation Management in 1994 and the eight-employee company has never raised venture capital. He has some natural sympathy for Roberts. As a teenager, Leibel, rather than bag groceries, started his own neighborhood-based advertising agency called Promotions.
What excites Leibel about Third Floor Productions is that he sees it as skilled in reaching young, Internet and tech savvy consumers with highly visual viral marketing campaigns. His company has helped the Health and Wellness Trust Fund develop strategies for reaching teenagers and young adults. “So we do a lot of work understanding the behaviors of that group,” he says. (A look at his company’s Web site shows that research informs most if not all of what it does).
That, he says, means, “We have the ability to take a client’s message and translate it into the words and pictures the target audience really understands.”
But he also sees an opportunity to help both traditional and technology companies tell their stories in short but effective films. “We have the ability to create a story someone can watch and in two minutes get the knowledge they need to understand the message.”
Leibel, who is an adjunct professor at the Kenan Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, thinks that approach could be effective for companies trying to get their point across to raise money for new technology products or for any company attempting to educate potential customers. “It’s about communication,” he says, and adds that film, video and viral means do it more solidly than other methods today.
“A lot of tech companies don’t have the money to do traditional marketing. A lot of tech companies with no way of marketing are stuck in their cage. This could give them a tool. They can post it on their Web site, Youtube, so many places where if it’s interesting, it could take off,” Leibel says.
A video can be produced for about $3,000 to $5,000, he says. “It’s a new way of thinking about how you take your ideas and put them in front of an audience and attract its attention. Roberts has done that.”
Demos of Robert’s work are available on his company Web site: www.thirdpro.com
Also see: www.innovationmanagement.com
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