As chief technology catalyst, North America, for McCann Worldgroup, Lori H. Schwartz is charged with focusing on partnerships and innovation, working to understand different technologies, how they’re enabling opportunities to connect with consumers, how those technologies are involved in content, licensing, information and data, and interpreting all this to discern what’s most relevant for clients and marketers.
In the context of the recently wrapped Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Schwartz also took on the role of tour guide, taking select clients through the booths to explore innovations that are not only cool but that could also affect consumer behavior, perhaps getting a taste for how things could change over the short and long haul. She explained that McCann wants its clients to see first hand why and how technology is so important to the marketplace at large.
McCann too sees the importance of CES. While the agency’s media side has had a strong presence at the show over the years, this was the first time that a significant creative contingent turned out for the event.
Among the many exhibitors that caught Schwartz’s eye were:
• Fulton Innovation which showcased wireless electricity and cereal boxes that lit up. The technology allowed for electric connectivity in packaged goods. “There are so many opportunities to leverage that capability not only from a creative standpoint but just from being able to make a box stand out in a retail environment,” observed Schwartz. “You can connect with consumers on a different level.”
• Intel with its Atom Processor. “It’s been around for awhile but it’s coming into its own,” said Schwartz. “It’s a chip that enables the connected home and smart appliances, which colored my whole experience at CES as to how the future households we’re trying to reach will be quite different.”
Schwartz also gained at CES big picture perspectives to share with clients that transcend any one technology. For example, much has been written about how numerous computer-makers are jumping aboard the tablet bandwagon in the wake of Apple’s success with the iPad. A self-described iPad aficionado, Schwartz at the same time noted that it doesn’t matter all that much which tablet you choose. What’s relevant, she observed, is that “we used to talk about the three-screen world, the four-screen world. But now with the idea of everything being cloud-based, people aren’t tied to a particular screen. We don’t have to differentiate so much between screens–mobile, the living room, or PC. Now it’s all one screen coming in a variety of sizes with the meat of processing and content happening in cloud, with content moving from one screen to another. Nothing is glued to any particular screen.”
During CES, Schwartz had a Samsung Galaxy tablet equipped with the location-based mapping capabilities of Point Inside, a company with which McCann partnered to help navigate about the show floor.
This created a personal mapping experience for McCann and its clients at CES, underscoring the power of location-based services, facilitating the seeking out of certain resources of interest. Ironically, though, this was undermined a bit, laughed Schwartz, by some difficulty in getting Wi-Fi at the CES venue.
L.A. Location Lensing Declines In 2024 Despite Uptick In 4th Quarter
FilmLA, partner film office for the City and County of Los Angeles and other local jurisdictions, has issued an update regarding regional filming activity. Overall production in Greater Los Angeles increased 6.2 percent from October through December 2024 to 5,860 Shoot Days (SD) according to FilmLA’s latest report. Most production types tracked by FilmLA achieved gains in the fourth quarter, except for reality TV, which instead logged its ninth consecutive quarter of year-over-year decline.
The lift across all remaining categories came too late to rescue 2024 from the combined effects of runaway production, industry contraction and slower-than-hoped-for post- strike recovery. With just 23,480 SD filmed on-location in L.A. in 2024, overall annual production finished the year 5.6 percent below the prior year. That made 2024 the second least productive year observed by FilmLA; only 2020, disrupted by the global COVID-19 pandemic, saw lower levels of filming in area communities.
The continuing decline of reality TV production in Los Angeles was among the most disappointing developments of 2024. Down 45.7 percent for the fourth quarter (to 774 SD), the category also finished the year down 45.9 percent (to 3,905 SD), which placed
it 43.1 percent below its five-year category average.
The two brightest spots in FilmLA’s latest report appeared in the feature film and television drama categories. Feature film production increased 82.4 percent in the fourth quarter to 589 SD, a gain analysts attribute to independent film activity. The
California Film & Television Tax Credit Program also played a part, driving 19.2 percent of quarterly category activity. Overall, annual Feature production was up 18.8 percent in 2024, though the... Read More