Deluxe Entertainment Services Group Inc. (Deluxe) has named former NBC and ESPN marketing executive Brad Soroca its chief marketing officer. Bringing two decades of marketing and brand-building experience in media and technology, he will drive Deluxe’s brand and marketing strategies and identify market insights to inform development of new products and services that address the changing needs of global media creators and providers. Soroca is based in New York.
“Brad’s expertise is in building brands and products at the intersection of content and technology,” said Deluxe CEO John Wallace. “As the marketplace shifts and Deluxe evolves as a global services provider, Brad will keep the pulse of our customers to identify new products and services that meet their evolving and complex needs.”
Soroca has led startups and global media brands in initiatives to drive innovation and change across sports, entertainment, music, news and local media, supported by a range of monetization models including advertising, e-commerce and subscriptions. He is the former COO and CMO of eMusic & Wondering Sound, where he oversaw the cloud platform for downloading and streaming music. As SVP of marketing and research for NBC Local Media, he led the rebrand of 10 local markets, identifying opportunities to grow business through content, marketing, and product innovations; and restructured the NBC Local creative group to produce more content, more frequently by setting up an external production group that could shoot/edit/finish video for any platform. Prior to NBC he drove strategic digital marketing for ESPN.com, where he helped launch ESPN 360, an early OTT platform that would become ESPN3. Soroca began his career in advertising and joins Deluxe most recently from his CEO post at early stage tech startup Arazoo, a cloud-based workflow tool for design professionals.
Soroca said, “With the explosion in demand for content there’s a massive need for more tools, more services, and different types of talent to address the global and complex world of creation and distribution — and technology plays a key role in enabling these businesses as they evolve. With a long and strong history of innovation and an enormous amount of assets, Deluxe is in a rare and opportunistic position to shape the future of the media in this exciting time.”
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More