Rocket Brand and Strategic Services (RBSS), a new company focused upon creative branding and strategic planning, has opened in Santa Monica, founded by former Pittard Sullivan executive Rob Maresca.
For the last three years, Maresca was executive VP, strategy and planning, at entertainment marketing and communications firm Pittard Sullivan, which closed a month ago (SHOOT, 4/13, p. 7). During his tenure there, he supervised the branding and strategic planning for dozens of clients worldwide, including TV Guide, Open TV, The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and Deutsche Telekom.
RBSS will specialize in creating brands and developing strategic planning for a diverse clientele in the areas of entertainment, technology and distribution. Calling this launch the logical next step in his career, Maresca noted that he was fortunate to have honed his skills by working with the talented staff at Pittard Sullivan.
"With the ‘commodization,’ if you will, of content and service offerings—with the whole new digital economy—there’s a real need to build very strong brands so there’s some point of differentiation between them," explained Maresca. "Being able to build strong brands isn’t necessarily a competency that a lot of these companies have in-house. And given the shrinking economy, it’s not the kind of competency they can afford to have in-house at the level they need to have it.
"Entertainment has to include all forms of distribution," continued Maresca, "so companies need to figure out how a piece of entertainment lives across all the different platforms. You have to be more relevant to your viewers these days, and you have to be able to reach them where they are."
RBSS is now working with several clients which Maresca declined to identify, although he related that two are networks, another is a large Internet technology company and a fourth is a live-event management group. And he added, "Once we set the strategy, it needs to be executed, and that’s the kind of service I’m offering, as well"—by providing creative design and production resources that include many former Pittard Sullivan artisans on a freelance basis.
From 1996 to early 1997, Maresca served as head of marketing at Hanna-Barbera, following a five-year stint in the same capacity at Tyco Toys. Before this, he worked for 10 years as an account executive and manager at various ad agencies, including Ogilvy & Mather and Young & Rubicam, both New York.
