Rosemarie Ryan and Ty Montague, who earlier this year exited their respective positions at JWT as North American president and North American co-president/chief creative officer, have resurfaced with their much anticipated new venture, Co:, a Manhattan-based brand studio which partners them with Neil Parker, former global head of strategy for branding firm Wolff Olins, and Richard Schatzberger, who had been director of creative technology at BBH.
Parker serves as chief strategy officer at Co: while Schatzberger is chief technology experience officer. Parker’s experience also includes having worked as a management consultant and as part of IBM’s corporate strategy group. Prior to BBH, Schatzberger worked in interaction design and product innovation at Motorola.
Additionally Co: is looking for a partner to fill the role of chief commercial officer to manage the co-ventures practice, forging relationships that allow Co: to co-fund strategic ventures with marketers and with start-ups.
Co: is being structured so that its core team can readily collaborate with other shops and talent, ramping up resources and workforce depending on the nature of the task at hand be it the development of new brands and businesses, and/or brand messaging. “It’s the studio model brought to marketing services,” said Co: co-founder Montague. “Old film studios used to be vertically integrated in that they owned everything–actors, producers, directors, cameras, theaters. Today a film studio is a small, senior group of executives, a little bit of infrastructure and a pile of money, with talent custom-assembled on a project basis. Much more efficient.”
Co: released a list of “co-conspirators” spanning mobile, interactive, PR, design, entertainment, brand story, transmedia narrative, data and analytics, direct/CRM, media strategy and buying, business strategy, brand strategy, social media strategy, sustainability/CSR, experience and events, IP and capital, software and technology, social platforms and gaming. Co:’s model allows this constellation of independent specialist experts to deliver better, more innovative thinking in a coordinated and collaborative fashion.
Co-conspirators that have joined Co: to date include: Behance, BERG London, Big Spaceship, Brand Synchronicity, Breakfast, Campfire, Collins, Consigliere, Cool Hunting, CreativeFeed, Cunning, DKC, Dosage, GMD Studios, Headmint, Horizon Media, IfWe RanTheWorld, Imagination, Juba Plus, Largetail, Made By Many, MarketShare, Medialink, Meteor Solutions, MIR, MotiveQuest, Naked Communications, Player Three, Powell Communications, Propellerfish, Purpose, Red Bricks Media, Skyrockit, Sleuth, Starling, Tether, The KM Co, Tronic, Unconventional Partners, Vast Ventures, Victors & Spoils, and Your Majesty.
“We’ve chosen a roster of ‘co-conspirators’ who are best in class at what they do and expert collaborators,” said Schatzberger. “This makes Co: about scalability and not about scale, so brands don’t have to pay for anyone who is not working on their business. Brands get the right talent for the right project for the right outcome.”
Ryan, co-founder of Co:, related, “The CMO now has the most dangerous job in business, due in large part to the networked age we are living in. It used to be that audiences, money, and time were abundant–now, these things are scarce. Brands, channels and agencies are now abundant. CMOs need to be armed with the tools they need to succeed in a networked age.”
Co: draws its name from the way it works with marketers and partners: co-creation, collaboration, and co-venturing. Designed to eradicate costly inefficiencies in the marketing world in which return on investment is more crucial than ever, Co: opens with the ability to scale from a five- to a 1500-person organization from inception.
“A recent study showed that there were 2.5 million brands in the world in 1997, and 8 million by 2008,” said Parker. “In that same time frame, there has been a 50 percent decline in brand trust, along with a 90 percent decline in perceived product differentiation. We’ve designed Co: to help CMOs eradicate the commoditization of brands, leading to more meaningful consumer experiences.”
Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey Launch Production House 34North
Executive producers Ron Cicero and Bo Clancey have teamed to launch 34North. The shop opens with a roster which includes accomplished directors Jan Wentz, Ben Nakamura Whitehouse, David Edwards and Mario Feil, as well as such up-and-coming filmmakers as Glenn Stewart and Chris Fowles. Nakamura Whitehouse, Edwards, Feil and Fowles come over from CoMPANY Films, the production company for which Cicero served as an EP for the past nearly five years. Director Wentz had most recently been with production house Skunk while Stewart now gains his first U.S. representation. EP Clancey was freelance producing prior to the formation of 34North. He and Cicero have known each other for some 25 years, recently reconnecting on a job directed by Fowles. Cicero said that he and Clancey “want to keep a highly focused roster where talent management can be one on one--where we all share in the directors’ success together.” Clancey also brings an agency pedigree to the new venture. “I started at Campbell Ewald in accounts, no less,” said Clancey. “I saw firsthand how much work agencies put in before we even see a script. You have to respect that investment. These agency experiences really shaped my approach to production--it’s about empathy, listening between the lines, and ultimately making the process seamless.” 34North represents a meeting point--both literally and creatively. Named after the latitude of Malibu, Calif., where the idea for the company was born, it also embraces the power of storytelling. “34North118West was the first GPS-enabled narrative,” Cicero explained. “That blend of art and technology, to captivate an audience, mirrors what we do here--create compelling work, with talented people, harnessing state-of-the-art... Read More