Talent Agency

February 8th, 2011 by admin

At ICONS INTERNATIONAL, the specialists in emerging markets and innovation, we have the strategic role of bringing together the “Demand” (TV & Film production, Events, Sports events, Music events and much more) and the “Offer” (actresses, actors, authors, film directors, musicians, models, producers, professional athletes, writers and other people in various entertainment businesses). We are well established and our success is determined by networks upon networks of contacts as well as having access to professional casting services. Many of these casting resources are not available to the general public.

We are the talent agent, or booking agent, “par excellence” that has already been chosen by leading companies and have found many jobs for authors, film directors, musicians, models, producers, professional athletes, writers, actors and actresses interested in working theatrically (stage, film or television) as well as in commercials.

We engage the “talents” (actors, models, voice-over artists, etc.) and the “buyers” (casting directors, advertising agencies, TV & Film production companies, photographers and direct clients, etc.).

Our major role is to promote talents to the buyers, submitting talents that have the appropriate age, race, sex, look and talent that the buyer is seeking for his/her project. We submit actor’s head-shots or the model’s composite card or portfolio to buyers, organize auditions (the talent is the only one who can get the job through the audition) and coordinate the details of wardrobe and directions as well as negotiate the contract or pay.

In cohesion to our company policies in the matter of transparency, we anticipate that for our work we do not take charges for representation but negotiate case by case a commission that may vary from 10 to 30% of the gross contracted amount, depending on the profile of the candidates and the job to be done.

However we may recommend steps that will cost money, especially when talent is starting out. At the first introduction we may suggest new photos, promo-video’s, training, test auditions and casting calls, professional acting classes, get you involved in some acting at the local scene or community drama club / theatre (getting a little experience under your belt), workshops or other promotional solutions for attracting good contacts for new talent. We have selected the best professionals (best photographers) or shots to make into head-shots and much more.

Apart from the above direct expenses, if we incur and cover upfront costs, over and above our contracted commission (travel expenses or other), we will ask to be reimbursed for these last expenses only after the talent begins work.

We are always seeking for Acting Roles (Cast) and associated support roles:

  • Male Lead Actors
  • Female Lead Actors
  • Actresses
  • Actors
  • Extras
  • Dancers
  • Stunt performers
  • Stunt Doubles
  • Stand-ins
  • Narrators
  • Presenters

… and support people for Actors:

  • Dialogue coach
  • Choreographer
  • Stunt coordinator
  • Make Up
  • Hair Stylist
  • Wardrobe
  • Costume Designer
  • Personal Assistant

At ICONS INTERNATIONAL, the specialists in emerging markets and innovation, we will be glad to present you the opportunities and help you to be successful in this fascinating business.

Please forward your inquiries to info@iconsfze.com . We will be glad to inform and assist you.

We wish the best for you and hope to see you on the big screen soon.

Good luck.

Yours truly

Management team
ICONS FZE

Filed under: Talent Agency

Legend TV & Film Production

February 8th, 2011 by admin

Click for: LEGEND TV SHOW REEL
HIGH DEFINITION MOVIE PRESENTATION

PRESS RELEASE:
ICONS INTERNATIONAL, the specialists in emerging markets and innovation, is the Official Agent of “Legend” – TV & Film Production.

To publicize this new agreement, ICONS will promote the production of a one hour television documentary, filmed in Full High Definition (HDTV) that will showcase the Emirate of Ras Al Khaimah. For more information please visit the RAK Television Documentary.

Legend Film & Television production company is a specialist communications & media production company servicing both the corporate and global film and television markets .

A British company living in Dubai! We put up with the heat, you get the experience that we have built up working with the worlds top TV Channels, Advertising Agencies and Blue Chip Corporations.

Our people started filming in the 70′s and 80′s, when TV cameras had valves in them and took half the day to warm up. We shot on 35mm film in the depths of Siberia and the badlands of Mexico. Twelve years ago we got to know High Definition cameras (HD cameras first appeared in Japan in the early 80′s) and nowadays we mix modern HD cameras with 35mm film lenses giving true movie quality to our projects.

Legend Film & Television has an Award winning team which have decades of quality production experience and have successfully delivered assignments for the likes of the BBC, Discovery Channel, MTV, etc. All of the filming is undertaken utilising leading HD (High Definition) cameras and technologies thus ensuring that your message is delivered with stunning clarity visually, aurally and creatively. The quality of their production work is further enhanced by having one of the UK’s leading Executive Producers as the head of all aspects of production and creativity.

The following provides a brief insight into some of the offerings Legend Film & Television Production can deliver to you by ensuring more effective utilization of digital film media in positively communicating your message to your corporate audience. Clearly this is not exhaustive and is purely limited by the creativity we engender in a clients mind and vision:

  • We will profitably raise your profile within the markets you currently operate, or wish to operate in the future, by helping you to maximize the potential of:
  1. Corporate digital media presentations
  2. Embedded digital media in corporate web-sites
  3. TV Commercials
  4. Viral Marketing
  • We will help you communicate productively with all of your stakeholders; both internally and externally, thus enabling more effective management of their individual needs and wants:
  1. Vision & Mission
  2. Corporate Objectives
  3. Induction Training
  4. Health, Safety & Environment Training
  5. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
  • We enable you to deliver effective and positive communication with all of your stakeholder audience and permit you to highlight areas such as:
  1. The detail of the Landscape & Eco-system within which you operate.
  2. Customer Satisfaction – what it looks like!
  3. Supplier Relationships
  4. Shareholder Relationships
  5. Investor Relationships – making your company come alive!
  • We are able to support you in the development of unique tools, for example, mapping and visualizing your supply chain – Meet the delivery team!
  • We will also have many opportunities for sponsoring documentaries, films and events; this will include opportunities for Product Placement.

I hope the above will be of interest to you, if you wish to discuss and expand what we are able to do for you please do not hesitate to contact ICONS at the following e-mail address info@iconsfze.com . Hopefully we will have the pleasure of meeting you in the near future.

Yours truly

Management team
ICONS FZE

Filed under: Legend TV & Film Production

Advertising

February 8th, 2011 by admin

Advertising is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to purchase or take some action upon products, ideas, or services. It includes the name of a product or service and how that product or service could benefit the consumer, to persuade a target market to purchase or to consume that particular brand. These messages are usually paid for by sponsors and viewed via various media. Advertising can also serve to communicate an idea to a large number of people in an attempt to convince them to take a certain action.

Commercial advertisers often seek to generate increased consumption of their products or services through branding, which involves the repetition of an image or product name in an effort to associate related qualities with the brand in the minds of consumers. Non-commercial advertisers who spend money to advertise items other than a consumer product or service include political parties, interest groups, religious organizations and governmental agencies. Non-profit organizations may rely on free modes of persuasion, such as a public service announcement.

Modern advertising developed with the rise of mass production in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mass media can be defined as any media meant to reach a mass amount of people. Different types of media can be used to deliver these messages, including traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, television, radio, outdoor or direct mail; or new media such as websites and text messages.

In 2010, spending on advertising was estimated at more than $300 billion in the United States and $500 billion worldwide.

The 1960s saw advertising transform into a modern approach in which creativity was allowed to shine, producing unexpected messages that made advertisements more tempting to consumers’ eyes. The Volkswagen ad campaign—featuring such headlines as “Think Small” and “Lemon” (which were used to describe the appearance of the car)—ushered in the era of modern advertising by promoting a “position” or “unique selling proposition” designed to associate each brand with a specific idea in the reader or viewer’s mind. This period of American advertising is called the Creative Revolution and its archetype was William Bernbach who helped create the revolutionary Volkswagen ads among others. Some of the most creative and long-standing American advertising dates to this period.

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the introduction of cable television and particularly MTV. Pioneering the concept of the music video, MTV ushered in a new type of advertising: the consumer tunes in for the advertising message, rather than it being a by-product or afterthought. As cable and satellite television became increasingly prevalent, specialty channels emerged, including channels entirely devoted to advertising, such as QVC, Home Shopping Network, and Shop TV Canada.

Marketing through the Internet opened new frontiers for advertisers and contributed to the “dot-com” boom of the 1990s. Entire corporations operated solely on advertising revenue, offering everything from coupons to free Internet access. At the turn of the 21st century, a number of websites including the search engine Google, started a change in online advertising by emphasizing contextually relevant, unobtrusive ads intended to help, rather than inundate, users. This has led to a plethora of similar efforts and an increasing trend of interactive advertising.

The share of advertising spending relative to GDP has changed little across large changes in media. For example, in the US in 1925, the main advertising media were newspapers, magazines, signs on streetcars, and outdoor posters. Advertising spending as a share of GDP was about 2.9 percent. By 1998, television and radio had become major advertising media. Nonetheless, advertising spending as a share of GDP was slightly lower—about 2.4 percent.

A recent advertising innovation is “guerrilla marketing”, which involve unusual approaches such as staged encounters in public places, giveaways of products such as cars that are covered with brand messages, and interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become part of the advertising message. Guerrilla advertising is becoming increasing more popular with a lot of companies. This type of advertising is unpredictable and innovative, which causes consumers to buy the product or idea. This reflects an increasing trend of interactive and “embedded” ads, such as via product placement, having consumers vote through text messages, and various innovations utilizing social network services such as Facebook.

Public service advertising

The advertising techniques used to promote commercial goods and services can be used to inform, educate and motivate the public about non-commercial issues, such as HIV/AIDS, political ideology, energy conservation and deforestation.

Advertising, in its non-commercial guise, is a powerful educational tool capable of reaching and motivating large audiences. “Advertising justifies its existence when used in the public interest—it is much too powerful a tool to use solely for commercial purposes.” Attributed to Howard Gossage by David Ogilvy.

Public service advertising, non-commercial advertising, public interest advertising, cause marketing, and social marketing are different terms for (or aspects of) the use of sophisticated advertising and marketing communications techniques (generally associated with commercial enterprise) on behalf of non-commercial, public interest issues and initiatives.

Marketing mix

The marketing mix has been the key concept to advertising. The marketing mix was suggested by professor E. Jerome McCarthy in the 1960s. The marketing mix consists of four basic elements called the four P’s:

  • Product is the first P representing the actual product.
  • Price represents the process of determining the value of a product.
  • Place represents the variables of getting the product to the consumer like distribution channels, market coverage and movement organization.
  • The last P stands for Promotion which is the process of reaching the target market and convincing them to go out and buy the product.

Advertising theory

It clarifies the objectives of an advertising campaign and for each individual advertisement. The model suggests that there are six steps a consumer or a business buyer moves through when making a purchase. The steps are:

  • 1.     Awareness
  • 2.     Knowledge
  • 3.     Liking
  • 4.     Preference
  • 5.     Conviction
  • 6.     The actual purchase

Means-End Theory – This approach suggests that an advertisement should contain a message or means that leads the consumer to a desired end state. Leverage Points – It is designed to move the consumer from understanding a product’s benefits to linking those benefits with personal values. Verbal and Visual Images.

Types of advertising

Virtually any medium can be used for advertising. Commercial advertising media can include wall paintings, billboards, street furniture components, printed flyers and rack cards, radio, cinema and television adverts, web banners, mobile telephone screens, shopping carts, web popups, skywriting, bus stop benches, human billboards, magazines, newspapers, town criers, sides of buses, banners attached to or sides of airplanes (“logojets”), in-flight advertisements on seatback tray tables or overhead storage bins, taxicab doors, roof mounts and passenger screens, musical stage shows, subway platforms and trains, elastic bands on disposable diapers, doors of bathroom stalls, stickers on apples in supermarkets, shopping cart handles (grabertising), the opening section of streaming audio and video, posters, and the backs of event tickets and supermarket receipts. Any place an “identified” sponsor pays to deliver their message through a medium is advertising.

Digital advertising

Television advertising / Music in advertising

The TV commercial is generally considered the most effective mass-market advertising format, as is reflected by the high prices TV networks charge for commercial airtime during popular TV events. The annual Super Bowl football game in the United States is known as the most prominent advertising event on television. The average cost of a single thirty-second TV spot during this game has reached US$3 million (as of 2009). The majority of television commercials feature a song or jingle that listeners soon relate to the product. Virtual advertisements may be inserted into regular television programming through computer graphics. It is typically inserted into otherwise blank backdrops or used to replace local billboards that are not relevant to the remote broadcast audience. More controversially, virtual billboards may be inserted into the background where none exist in real-life. This technique is especially used in televised sporting events. Virtual product placement is also possible. Infomercials: An infomercial is a long-format television commercial, typically five minutes or longer. The word “infomercial” combining the words “information” & “commercial”. The main objective in an infomercial is to create an impulse purchase, so that the consumer sees the presentation and then immediately buys the product through the advertised toll-free telephone number or website. Infomercials describe, display, and often demonstrate products and their features, and commonly have testimonials from consumers and industry professionals.

Radio advertising

Radio advertising is a form of advertising via the medium of radio. Radio advertisements are broadcast as radio waves to the air from a transmitter to an antenna and a thus to a receiving device. Airtime is purchased from a station or network in exchange for airing the commercials. While radio has the obvious limitation of being restricted to sound, proponents of radio advertising often cite this as an advantage.

Online advertising

Online advertising is a form of promotion that uses the Internet and World Wide Web for the expressed purpose of delivering marketing messages to attract customers. Examples of online advertising include contextual ads that appear on search engine results pages, banner ads, in text ads, Rich Media Ads, Social network advertising, online classified advertising, advertising networks and e-mail marketing, including e-mail spam.

Product placements

Covert advertising, also known as guerrilla advertising, is when a product or brand is embedded in entertainment and media. For example, in a film, the main character can use an item or other of a definite brand, as in the movie Minority Report, where Tom Cruise’s character John Anderton owns a phone with the Nokia logo clearly written in the top corner, or his watch engraved with the Bulgari logo. Another example of advertising in film is in I, Robot, where main character played by Will Smith mentions his Converse shoes several times, calling them “classics,” because the film is set far in the future. I, Robot and Spaceballs also showcase futuristic cars with the Audi and Mercedes-Benz logos clearly displayed on the front of the vehicles. Cadillac chose to advertise in the movie The Matrix Reloaded, which as a result contained many scenes in which Cadillac cars were used. Similarly, product placement for Omega Watches, Ford, VAIO, BMW and Aston Martin cars are featured in recent James Bond films, most notably Casino Royale. In “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer”, the main transport vehicle shows a large Dodge logo on the front. Blade Runner includes some of the most obvious product placement; the whole film stops to show a Coca-Cola billboard.

Celebrity branding

This type of advertising focuses upon using celebrity power, fame, money, popularity to gain recognition for their products and promote specific stores or products. Advertisers often advertise their products, for example, when celebrities share their favorite products or wear clothes by specific brands or designers. Celebrities are often involved in advertising campaigns such as television or print adverts to advertise specific or general products. The use of celebrities to endorse a brand can have its downsides, however. One mistake by a celebrity can be detrimental to the public relations of a brand. For example, following his performance of eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, swimmer Michael Phelps’ contract with Kellogg’s was terminated, as Kellogg’s did not want to associate with him after he was photographed smoking marijuana.

Sales promotions

Sales promotions are another way to advertise. Sales promotions are double purposed because they are used to gather information about what type of customers you draw in and where they are, and to jumpstart sales. Sales promotions include things like contests and games, sweepstakes, product giveaways, samples coupons, loyalty programs, and discounts. The ultimate goal of sales promotions is to stimulate potential customers to action.

Media and advertising approaches

Increasingly, other media are overtaking many of the “traditional” media such as television, radio and newspaper because of a shift toward consumer’s usage of the Internet for news and music as well as devices like digital video recorders (DVRs) such as TiVo.

Advertising on the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices of Web-based advertising space are dependent on the “relevance” of the surrounding web content and the traffic that the website receives.

Diversification

In the realm of advertising agencies, continued industry diversification has seen observers note that “big global clients don’t need big global agencies any more”. This is reflected by the growth of non-traditional agencies in various global markets, such as Canadian business TAXI and SMART in Australia and has been referred to as “a revolution in the ad world”.

At ICONS INTERNATIONAL, the specialists in emerging markets and innovation, we will be glad to attend your needs in advertising.

Please forward your enquiries to info@iconsfze.com . We will be glad to inform and assist you.

Yours truly

Management team
ICONS FZE

Filed under: Advertising

Product Placement

February 8th, 2011 by admin

Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the good or service is featured. Product placement became common in the 1980s.

In April 2006, Broadcasting & Cable reported, “Two thirds of advertisers employ ‘branded entertainment’—product placement—with the vast majority of that (80%) in commercial TV programming.”

The story, based on a survey by the Association of National Advertisers, said “Reasons for using in-show plugs varied from ‘stronger emotional connection’ to better dovetailing with relevant content, to targeting a specific group.”

Recognizable brand names appeared in movies from cinemas earliest history. Before films were even narrative forms in the sense that they are recognized today.

Incorporation of products into the actual plot of a film or television show is generally called “brand integration”. An early example of such “brand integration” was by Abercrombie & Fitch when one of its stores provided the notional venue for part of the romantic-comedy film Man’s Favourite Sport? (1964) starring Rock Hudson and Paula Prentiss.

Products placed in TV shows!
Product placement, whereby companies and corporations pay to have their products included in television programming for marketing purposes is highly prevalent in reality television.

The following is a list of television shows with the most instances of product placement (11/07–11/08; Nielsen Media Research). Eight out of the ten are reality television shows.

  • The Biggest Loser 6,248
  • American Idol, 4,636
  • Extreme Makeover: Home Edition’, 3,371
  • America’s Toughest Jobs, 2,807
  • Deal or No Deal, 2,292
  • America‘s Next Top Model, 2,241
  • Last Comic Standing, 1,993
  • Kitchen Nightmares 1,853
  • Hell’s Kitchen, 1,807

Product placement has long been prevalent in sports as well, from professional sports to college sports, and even on the local level with high school sports. This can be attributed to sports being prevalent on television, which increases exposure to these products.

Actual product placement falls into two categories:

  • products or locations that are obtained from manufacturers or owners to reduce the cost of production, and
  • products deliberately placed into productions in exchange for fees.

Some placements provide productions with below-the-line savings, with products such as props, clothes and cars being donated for the production’s use, thereby saving them purchase or rental fees.

Producers may also seek out companies for product placements as another savings or revenue stream for the movie, with, for example, products used in exchange for help funding advertisements tied-in with a film’s release, a show’s new season, television documentaries or other event.

Product placement is also one of the sectors poised for the most growth, with PQ Media predicting the 2009 figures to more than double by 2014, when product placement is projected to be a $6.1 billion market. A major driver of growth for the use of product placement is the increasing use of digital video recorders (DVR) such as TiVO, which enable viewers to skip advertisements. This ad-skipping behavior increases in frequency the longer a household has owned a DVR.

Certain products are featured more than others. Commonly seen are automobiles, fashion brands, hospitality brands, travel, consumer products, food and drink, consumer electronics and computers, and tobacco products.

At ICONS INTERNATIONAL, the specialists in emerging markets and innovation, we will be glad to prospect the opportunities within this profitable and intriguing sector.

Please forward your enquiries to info@iconsfze.com . We will be glad to inform and assist you.

Yours truly

Management team
ICONS FZE

Some product placement examples:

  • Among the famous silent films to feature product placement was Wings (1927), the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It contained a plug for Hershey’s chocolate.
  • Another early example in film occurs in Horse Feathers (1932) where Thelma Todd’s character falls out of a canoe and into a river. She calls for a life saver and Groucho Marx’s character tosses her a Life Savers candy.
  • The film It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), directed by Frank Capra, depicts a young boy with aspirations to be an explorer, displaying a prominent copy of National Geographic.
  • In the film Love Happy (1949), Harpo Marx’s character cavorts on a rooftop among various billboards and at one point escapes from the villains on the old Mobil logo, the “Flying Red Horse“.
  • In the film noir Gun Crazy (1949), the climactic crime is the payroll robbery of the Armour meat-packing plant, where a Bulova clock is prominently seen.
  • In 1995 one of the most successful movie product tie-in was when Karen sortito created a BMW campaign for the film GoldenEye. The BMW car, a Z3, was a new model at the time. Afterwards, while the film was number one at the box office, sales of the car spiked.
  • For the next film in the James Bond franchise, Tomorrow Never Dies, Sortito created a $100 million promotional campaign that included tie-ins with Visa, L’Oréal, Ericsson, Heinekin, Avis rental cars and Omega watches. The film brought in more than $300 million dollars.
  • The film I, Robot, though set in the future, makes heavy use of product placements for Converse trainers, Ovaltine, Audi, FedEx, Dos Equis, and JVC among others, all of them introduced within the first ten minutes of the film. One particular scene borders into an actual advertisement in which a character compliments Will Smith’s character’s shoes to which he replies “Converse All-Stars, vintage 2004.” (the year of the film’s release). Audi invested the most on the film, going so far as to create a special car for the film, the Audi RSQ. It was expected that the placement would increase brand awareness and raise the emotional appeal of the Audi brand, objectives that were considered achieved when surveys conducted in the United States showed that the Audi RSQ gave a substantial boost to the image ratings of the brand. The Audi RSQ is seen during nine minutes of the film, although other Audis like the Audi A6, the Audi TT and the Audi A2 can be seen sprinkled throughout the film.
  • The film 17 Again makes heavy use of product placement featuring cereals, sandwich fillers, chips, stereo systems, and auto mobiles.
  • The film The Island, directed by Michael Bay, features at least 35 individual products or brands, including cars, bottled water, shoes, credit cards, beer, ice cream, and even a search engine.
  • The film Casino Royale features peculiarly blatant product placement during a exchange between James Bond and Vesper Lynd in which she enquires seductively whether he wears a Rolex watch. “Omega,” he replies suavely. “Beautiful,” she purrs.
  • The comedy film Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby also contained a high amount of product placement. Characters repeatedly mention brands under the disguise of NASCAR sponsorship.
  • Bill Cosby’s film Leonard Part 6 showcased Coca Cola product placements.
  • The film Catch Me If You Can makes heavy handed use of a Sara Lee placement by mentioning it six times throughout the movie.
  • The 2001 film Evolution features product placement integral to the entire film. When mutated lifeforms attack earth, the characters use a large amount of Head & Shoulders dandruff shampoo as a source of selenium disulfide, which is poisonous to the creatures.
  • The 2001 film Josie and the Pussycats featured a large amount of blatant product placement for brands such as Puma, Target, McDonalds and TJ Maxx. This appears to be done ironically, as the plot of the film revolves around subliminal messages in advertising.
  • The Japanese animated series Code Geass is sponsored by the Japanese branch of Pizza Hut. Despite the fact that the series is set in an alternate reality, at least one main character is depicted ordering and receiving a Pizza Hut pizza on several occasions. The company’s logo also appears throughout the series.
  • The 2009 film Star Trek, in a scene where young James Kirk drives and crashes an old corvette, he operates a Nokia touch-screen smartphone. Before the car crashes, audiences will hear the Nokia trademark ring tone.
  • The film The Cat in the Hat (2003) contained product placement where all residents of the town drive a Ford Focus.

Filed under: Product Placement