The Digital Hollywood Experience

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Wednesday, October 17, 2018

2:15 PM - 3:30 PM

Track I: Ahmanson Hall, Live Webcast from this Room

The Future of Brand Partnerships and Influencer Marketing

Kendra Bracken-Ferguson, Chief Digital Officer, CAA-GBG, a division of CAA

Beau Avril, Global Head of Business Operations, FameBit By YouTube

Maude Standish, VP of Programming, Fullscreen

Natasha Vaquer, Vice President of Talent Partnerships & Influencer Strategy, Refinery29

Simon Kelly, Co-CEO and Chief Enthusiasm Officer, Story Worldwide

Dan Ghosh-Roy, SVP Audience Development, Complex Network

Corey Weiss, Head of Business Development, ipsy, Moderator

 

Dan Ghosh-Roy, SVP Audience Development, Complex Network: Senior Vice President of Audience Development, Complex Networks: Dan Ghosh-Roy oversees the audience development team at Complex Networks tasked with identifying and growing an engaged millennial audience for the company’s portfolio of brands - Complex, Rated Red, First We Feast, and Pigeons & Planes. Using a mix of data analysis, creative, social/paid media, content marketing and SEO, his team influences content creation on all platforms across the company. Since joining the company in 2016,Dan has increased Complex’s social pages by millions of fans to become a powerful integrated network that drives fan

engagement and tune-in on a daily basis. In 2017 Complex’s Instagram increased over 67% to 2.5 million fans, Complex Twitter grew by 40% to over 1.4 million fans, and in 2016 he launched the Rated Red brand which has grown to over 2.5 million fans across platforms. Prior to Complex, Ghosh-Roy was the Head of Digital for Beyoncé where he broke the internet with the releases of “Formation” and ”Lemonade”. He’s a digital media veteran with a background in music and entertainment and spent his early career at Napster and then joined EMI Music to execute the digital campaigns for Katy Perry, “Teenage Dream”, Coldplay, “X&Y” and many more. From there he moved on to Ultra Music where he grew their YouTube channel to over 2mm subscribers and the #11 Channel overall on the platform.

 

Kendra Bracken-Ferguson, Chief Digital Officer of CAA-GBG: For almost two decades, Kendra Bracken-Ferguson has helped to define and navigate the digital space as a creative force for brands and influencers, becoming a recognized and sought-after business innovator and global digital architect. Now the Chief Digital Officer of CAA-GBG, the largest brand management agency in the world with 24 offices in over 20 countries, Kendra leads a global team of digital marketing experts and social media natives. The BrainTrust, the social media agency that Kendra founded in 2016, joined CAA-GBG which is a joint venture between Global Brands Group Holding Limited (“Global Brands”), and Creative Artists Agency (“CAA”). Prior to BrainTrust gaining notoriety and success, Kendra saw an opening in the market for digital, social and influencer marketing, and she co-founded Digital Brand Architects. Now in its sixth year, DBA grew quickly from an idea at a kitchen table into the go-to firm for influencer management. Before launching DBA, Kendra created the social media footprint for fashion behemoth, Ralph Lauren, where she was the company’s first Director of Digital Media. Kendra's work during and since her time at Ralph Lauren was informed by her years as Vice President, Digital at Fleishman-Hillard, New York, where she led the digital consumer team in developing social media strategies for clients including AT&T, DKNY, and P&G.  A compelling and charismatic keynote speaker and industry leader, Kendra has been awarded the Emerging Voice Award by her alma mater Purdue University, named one of the "Most Influential African American Women" by Essence Magazine, Zimmer Children’s Museum board member and noted by Mobile Marketer as a "Mobile Women to Watch” amongst other industry accolades. Working ahead of trends and predicting opportunities, Carpe diem is not just a saying to Kendra - it is a way of life.

 

Natasha Vaquer is the Vice President of Talent Partnerships & Influencer Strategy for Refinery29 out of Los Angeles. Her focus is on developing branded content with influencers and talent across social platforms. Prior to joining Refinery29, Natasha was the Head of Talent Acquisitions at StyleHaul, the largest fashion and beauty multichannel network on YouTube. Natasha signed over 2,000 creators and 100 million monthly views to the network and worked with leading creators on brand and strategic partnerships. Prior to StyleHaul, Mrs. Vaquer was part of the business development team at United Talent Agency working on strategic partnerships for the agency. She joined UTA after spending several years as an investment banker at Deutsche Bank and Bear Stearns.

 

Beau Avril, Global Head of Business Operations, FameBit By YouTube : As Global Head of Business Operations, FameBit By YouTube, Beau manages all aspects of FameBit’s revenue generation and business operations, from direct sales to the self-service marketplace. In addition to sales and revenue oversight, Beau manages FameBit’s end to end go-to-market strategy and core offering.  This includes FameBit’s connection to Google and YouTube ads products, measurement tools, pricing, and packaging as well as partnerships with talent agencies, MCN’s, and creators. FameBit was acquired by Google in October 2016 and is now YouTube’s in-house branded content arm, offering 100% creator driven branded content at scale and leveraging the best of Google data, measurement, and analytics to drive results for brands. Prior to his role leading FameBit By YouTube, Beau was the Global Head of Product Commercialization for Google Preferred where he was responsible for bringing Google’s premium video solutions to global markets. This included partner inventory and O&O (YouTube) as well as oversight of YouTube’s “Partner Sales Program” which enables shared inventory sales between Google, traditional media companies, and YouTube’s multi-channel networks. Previously at Google, Beau led YouTube sales development for priority accounts in the Finance, Auto, Entertainment, and Travel industries. Before joining Google, Beau worked in programming distribution for CBS Television Distribution Group. Beau attended Cornell University and lives in Los Angeles.

 

Simon Kelly, Co-CEO Story Worldwide: Simon Kelly has been recognized as a pioneer of the branded content industry and is credited with introducing the first integrated approach for custom content providers in the US. Since then Kelly and his partners at Story Worldwide have evolved that audience-first approach to create a brand narrative practice that he believes will replace traditional advertising. Kelly began his career with IDG, then went on to co-found TPD, one of the leading independent custom publishers in the UK at the time. In 1995, Kelly moved to Seattle to launch the company’s US operation with the launch of Microsoft Magazine – incidentally its companion web-site also marked the launch of one of the world’s first web-zines. In 1997 he spearheaded the launch of the Custom Publishing Council and in 1999 he was named in the Folio: 40 for his work integrating print and web content. Kelly was the first recipient of the John Caldwell Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the content marketing industry. In 2001 TPD became part of Interpublic. In 2005 Kelly and his partners bought it back and rebranded the company Story Worldwide. (www.storyworldwide.com). Since then, they have transformed a custom content company into a global, multi-channel content advertising and branding agency. Story Worldwide’s signature approaches, storyfinding and making, help turn their clients’ brands into engaging media channels. Today, with over 100 employees and offices in New York and Seattle, Story is leading the post-advertising revolution. Story’s clients include FX Network, Lexus, Unilever, USVI, RCI, Pernod Ricard, Criteo and SEI. Most recently Story led the world record-breaking twitter marathon for every Simpsons episode ever.  Simon regularly addresses marketing, advertising and media professionals about the rapidly-changing advertising landscape and why it is that brands that tell the best stories will win in the post-advertising age.

 

Corey Weiss is Head of Business Development and a founding team member and at ipsy, the world’s largest and most passionate online beauty community, anchored around sampling and entertainment. Corey joined ipsy in 2011 with a mission to inspire women around the world to express their unique beauty. By leveraging multiple channels to market and promoting and selling digital media, entertainment, and consumer products, Corey has helped grow the ipsy community to over 2.5M glam bag subscribers and over 10,000 of today’s best beauty content creators, reaching over 30M women each month, making ipsy the leading source of influence in the beauty industry. Prior to joining ipsy, Corey spent the past 20 years, working with top entertainment and digital media companies including Twentieth Century Fox, The Walt Disney Company, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, and most recently Yahoo! as Head of Global Consumer Marketing for Entertainment, Sports and Original Video. Under his leadership the media properties experienced year-over-year growth including the #1 position for Yahoo! Sports, Fantasy Football, Yahoo! TV, omg! and original video. In addition to starting two companies of his own, Corey was on the founding team at Maverick Online Entertainment, WireBreak Entertainment and at Movielink, an online movie rental service formed by five major Hollywood studios. Specialties: Digital, social and traditional media, digital distribution and marketing strategy, strategic partnerships, business development, advertising sales, consumer and trade marketing, brand development, mobile marketing