Thursday, April 30th, 2015

ThinkTank III. Plaza Room

12:50 PM - 2:00 PM

TV Everywhere: The Content & Commerce Opportunity - From Live Streaming & Video Syndication to Video Ad Insertion

Campbell Foster, Director of Product Marketing for Video Solutions, Adobe

Stephen Johnson, Senior Analyst, Design and Consumer Usability Research, Coach Media

Hassan Wharton-Ali, Head of Product, Kernel

Gene Pao, VP of Digital Media, Shout Factory

Marco Hansell, CEO/Founder, Speakr

Bill Jensen, American Crime Journalist & Producer, Moderator

Gene Pao is currently Vice President of Digital Media at Shout! Factory, where he leads all digital video efforts for the company—including direct-to-consumer video businesses, YouTube channels, and digital video production. Gene has a 15 year career in digital video, starting in 1999 at Firstlook.com, an idealab! Company, who pioneered the use of digital video in the promotion of music, movies, and video game products.  From 2001 to 2007, Gene developed digital and interactive video businesses for Disney and ESPN Media Networks including two of the first cable video-on-demand products, Disney Channel on Demand and Radio Disney on Demand.  From 2008 to 2011, he was VP, Digital Media and International Development for Fuel TV, the action sports cable network owned by Fox, where he applied television broadcasting principals to live webcasts of action sports events such as surfing, skateboarding, and snowboarding.  From 2011 to 2013, Gene held a number of digital media roles including Action Sports Consultant in YouTube’s Sports Partnership Group; VP Marketing for Golf Channel, part of the NBC Sports Network; and General Manager of Biggest Loser Digital, a joint initiative between NBC Universal and Shine America. Gene holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a Masters from Cornell University, and a BS from North Carolina State University.

 

Stephen Johnson is a Senior Analyst specializing in Interface Design and Consumer Usability Research. His consultancy, Coach Media (www.coachmedia.com), assists major media distributors in applying their technology, content, and intellectual property strategies to a multi-platform world.

 

Hassan Wharton-Ali – Kernel Co-Founder & Head of Product: Hassan has over 15 years experience in the Media & Entertainment industry working on major product releases at companies such as Technicolor, Hulu and Miramax. Working in all aspects of content creation and distribution, Hassan has successfully managed and launched high profile media initiatives involving post-production, theatrical releases, home entertainment, OTT, social media, and TV Everywhere. Hassan has consulted with major studios and technology companies including Sony, Disney, FOX, Discovery Channel, AT&T, and Fuhu. Hassan is a member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers and holds two patents in the areas of video encoding and user interface design.

 

Marco Hansell has served as Speakr Chief Executive Officer and as a director since the company’s inception. Mr. Hansell started a digital agency in 2003 that helped launch digital careers and monetize digital identities of artists: John Legend; Ludacris; E-40; Game; Bobby Valentino, Chingy and more.  In his capacity as founder of Fan Force LLC,  Mr. Hansell identified and developed new media technologies built around promoting and monetizing digital brands.  Mr. Hansell’s understanding of the strength of influencer marketing, strong contacts in both the social media and entertainment world has helped him launch Speakr with extremely low cost and quickly develop revenues.  In two and a half years, Mr. Hansell has transformed an initial investment of roughly $15,000 into a company that booked more than $1m in revenue in 2012 and reached more than 400 million daily impressions. In the company’s recent years of operations Speakr reaches nearly 1 billion impressions and manages nearly 80% and 50% respectively of the top 100 Twitter and Instagram Social Influencer campaigns run by top brands such as every major film studio including, Paramount, Universal Pictures, Warner etc. companies like Corona, Microsoft and more.  Mr. Hansell has been consistently been ahead of the curve in technology development and integration, particularly as it concerns monetizing digital brands as well as influencer marketing strategies.  Strategies such as digital street teams, online fan clubs, widget distribution and viral video promotion, live artist chats, vanity phone numbers and lastly Speakr are just a number of innovative technologies and strategies that Mr. Hansell has developed or helped spearhead years before these tactics became mainstream.  In 2005, Mr. Hansell received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Babson College – the institute with the #1 ranked Entreprenuership program for fourteen consecutive years according U.S. News and World Report.  During his studies at Babson, Mr. Hansell had extensive training in business development: financial planning; forecasting; business plan development; marketing/sales; accounting and countless other facets of the contemporary entrepreneur.  In only his freshman year, Mr. Hansell was given financing from Babson to run an apparel company for his university.   Also while at Babson, Mr. Hansell’s other endeavors included: operating an independent label; conducting street promotions for BMG prior to the Sony merger and developing the digital agency Elevator Media.

 

Bill Jensen is an American crime journalist, producer and brawler. He has written crime feature stories for Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Magazine, Boston Magazine, and New York Times. A sought-after consultant in the digital media space, he recently arrived in Los Angeles to develop true crime reality programming. He sold his first show in the Spring of 2014 and has been featured as an on-camera personality in both news and crime shows. Referred to as an “expert on amateur digital detectives” by both MSNBC and Al Jazeera America, Jensen presented his panel “Solving Murders With Social Media” at the 2014 SXSW Interactive and the National Cybercrime Conference. He co-founded the Long Island Press newspaper (where he hired Amy Fisher as a crime columnist), True Crime Report and nerd news and self-loathing site Topless Robot. He has a master’s degree in religious studies from the University of Kansas, played professional roller hockey (earning the first minor penalty in Major League Roller Hockey history), and has been an editor at ToyFare magazine, Boston Phoenix and the Village Voice, where he went on to become head of digital for the 17 newspaper chain

Campbell Foster, Director of Product Marketing for Video Solutions, Adobe:  Campbell Foster is director of product marketing for Video Solutions at Adobe, leading global efforts to drive adoption of video engagement, data, optimization, and monetization technologies with Adobe Primetime. He is a published author and researcher, and frequently speaks at industry events on TV Everywhere, video monetization, and IPTV trends and topics.  Prior to Adobe, Campbell led global product marketing for Google DoubleClick, managing ad serving, video, RTB, programmatic, and rich media products. He also served as a founding member of the DoubleClick Ad Exchange management team.  Campbell earned an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and received a BA in English from Cornell University.