DIRECTOR: BARK BARK

BARK BARK agency+production+design+post

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BARK and get noticed

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Brian Tolleson 94C at BARK BARK headquarters in Atlanta

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BARK BARK for AMC and Microsoft

With a daily To Do list of making video magic for zombies and laundry detergent, packaged goods and Ziploc® bags, design celebrities and Hollywood blockbusters and so much more, BARK BARK Productions tackles and creates global brand integration campaigns. Emmy Award-nominated founding partner Brian Tolleson 94C describes his “deeper and smarter” concept. “Advertising shouldn’t be an interruptive message,” Tolleson explains. “We integrate product branding, helping our clients work together with television shows to create associated consumer affiliations for their brands.” He cites as examples the brand integration of HGTV Home’s David Bromstad and Sherwin-Williams paint, or Bravo’s Real Housewives and Titanic in 3D. “For the consumer, we create a natural connection between the two entities.”

Tolleson has designed a unique business model for his globally-recognized company. “We built BARK BARK to help advertisers reach consumers where content lives – commercials should enhance people’s lives and authentically communicate to the audience you’re speaking to. And the best way to do that is through the content they are already watching, already consuming, and already enjoying.” BARK BARK “knows how to get alongside the content and help you be a part of it. That’s what brand integration is all about, and that’s what we do.”

Going so far as to occasionally pre-visualize the production process in 3D for clients, the creative team at BARK BARK tackles everything from brainstorming concepts, to set and costume design, to scripting and casting, to innovative film and audio techniques, to post-production editing. From their creative headquarters suite in Atlanta and offices in New York City and Los Angeles, BARK BARK channels ideas into finished products that help advertisers more authentically and seamlessly reach the television audience.

At Emory College, Tolleson initially pursued a pre-med curriculum, but soon realized his interests lay elsewhere. He focused on creative writing and between his junior and senior years, interned at the Television Academy in Los Angeles. After graduation, he packed his bags for California without a job. His parents supported the move though didn’t fully understand the tenuous circumstances of his employment. “I told them I had a job, when in fact I’d given myself a small window to find one.”

Through “sheer determination and hounding the human resources personnel” he landed the job of his dreams at Creative Artists Agency as an assistant to a major motion picture agent. In short order, Tolleson’s career vaulted through feature film development and story editing production roles for Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Entertainment feature films such as Girl, Interrupted, Gladiator, Spy Game, Bewitched, and Stuart Little. Tolleson then ran Naked Eye Films, a branding and production company in Atlanta with pedigreed clientele.

Launched into creative and executive producer roles for MTV Networks in New York City, Tolleson put his talents to good use in creating over 100 hours of television for Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., CBS, and others. His creative pitch and strategic brand creation “resulted in the greenlight and launch of Logo, the first ever 24-7-365 channel for LGBT Americans,” he explains.

Career advice for creatives

“In the first phase of my career, I specialized in movies,” he recalls, pointing out that the film-to-television career shift was difficult. When he purposefully accepted a production position with Turner Pictures in Atlanta, “I took a step back to reinvent my career. Now it’s easier for producers to work in both mediums.”

Praising the foundation of a strong Emory liberal arts education, Tolleson looks back on his own professional journey. “I think you sometimes have to do the wrong thing before you get it right.” When choosing professional assignments to build experience, he recommends, “Just keep in mind it’s about tailoring a career over time rather than making a single choice.”

–Michelle Valigursky

An Orbitz flag is part of a new campaign, “Take Vacation Back.”

Orbitz wants to plant a flag, literally and figuratively, as an advocate for leisure travel and taking vacations.

In a big campaign that is to begin on Monday, Orbitz will urge consumers to “Take vacation back.” The television, print, online, social and other ads will feature a device of an oversize flag bearing the Orbitz logo.

In a television commercial meant to serve as an anthem for the campaign, consumers utter phrases that together form a manifesto: “We the people … will take our vacation days … all of them … and we will book our next trip before this one ends.”

In one vignette, an older woman seated poolside at a resort offers her own sly declaration: “We will turn the pool boy into a pool man.”

The “Take vacation back” theme will also appear in ads that Orbitz aims at the L.G.B.T. market, as in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. Those ads will feature a drag artist named Ms. Richfield 1981. Orbitz was one of the pioneers among dot-coms in marketing to L.G.B.T. consumers.

A new ad for Orbitz features a drag artist named Ms. Richfield 1981.

And ads aimed at the general market will also continue a recent Orbitz innovation of including L.G.B.T. characters amid the mainstream characters. For instance, in the anthem TV spot, a golfer is wearing a hat bearing the equal-sign logo of the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization.

The idea is to bring some emotion back into the online travel category, Orbitz executives say, as a way to differentiate Orbitz from competitors like Expedia and Travelocity and speak about something other than price. The most recent campaign for Orbitz had a rational theme, “When you Orbitz, you know.”

The concept of Orbitz’s helping to provide “an even better trip than you thought possible” seemed “like some white space” in the category, said Marie LaPlante, senior director for brand marketing at Orbitz.

“We want to capture the voice of the vacationer,” she added, which works because Orbitz is predominantly in the leisure-travel field.

The headline of a print ad reads, “Give us your pale, your pasty, your margarita-lacking masses.”

After all, said Christopher K. Orton, president at Orbitz.com and its Cheaptickets.com unit, “There’s nobody who’s against vacations.”

“Reminding people how great it is” to take a vacation is “a message that it’s time for,” he added, as consumers shift to more spending from an austerity mode.

In conjunction with the campaign, Orbitz is redesigning its Web site, orbitz.com, to make it easier to navigate.

The campaign will include discount coupons and an online vacation tool kit, offering “a countdown widget” to your next vacation, “down to the second,” Ms. LaPlante said, along with vacation music play lists and “tongue-in-cheek messages for out-of-office e-mail and signs for your cube.”

As Orbitz brings out the “Take vacation back” campaign, the Las Vegas tourism campaign that uses the theme “Only Las Vegas” is starting to introduce ads that carry the headline “Take back your summer.”

Marita Hudson Thomas, a spokeswoman at Orbitz, said executives at her company “weren’t at all aware of the Las Vegas campaign.” The Las Vegas ads turned up on Friday morning during ABC’s “Good Morning America,” held up by people standing outside the studio in Times Square.

The agencies working on the Orbitz campaign include BBDO New York, the creative agency of record, which is part of the BBDO Worldwide division of the Omnicom Group, and Optimedia, part of the Publicis Groupe, for media placement.

The budget for the campaign will be “flat or up” compared with what Orbitz spent last year, Mr. Orton said, declining to be specific. According to the Kantar Media unit of WPP, Orbitz spent $21.7 million to advertise in major media in 2011, compared with $36.1 million in 2010 and $36.6 million in 2009.

We were tasked with featuring room-to-room color coordination using scripts written by Sherwin-Williams’ ad agency, McKinney. Since the launch of the HGTV Home line, Sherwin-Williams has seen incredible growth in paint sales. Truly a success story for Brand Integration.

DIRECTOR: BARK BARK

BARK BARK agency+production+design+post