Tuesday, April 28th, 2015

3:50 PM - 5:00 PM

Track I: Salon I - Live Webcast from this Room

Leveraging Content and Celebrity For Cross-Platform Success: Brands and Entertainers Collaborate

Justin Hochberg, CEO, Just Entertainment

Bill Sanders, SVP, Personal Brand Management, PMK*BNC

Evan Sroka, Corporate Finance Executive, Creative Artists Agency (CAA)

Scott Manson, Chief Operating Officer, SB Projects

Sara Cummings, Advertising Solutions, Microsoft

Rob Lee, President and Founder of Bayonne Entertainment

Steven Masur, Senior Partner, Cowan DeBaets Abrahams & Sheppard LLP, Moderator

brings unique strategic business experience to CDAS. He has counseled enterprise level clients including Shazam, Virgin Mobile, Liberty Media, Yamaha, Nielsen Buzzmetrics, Bob Vila and Conde Nast Publications in corporate, digital media, and new business matters. He has also helped clients in a wide variety of early stage businesses, including mobile, games, digital music, film, publishing, advertising, retail sales, software and hardware to achieve breakthrough results. Mr. Masur's transactional experience includes a wide variety of deals in angel and venture capital finance, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and other strategic transactions in the US and abroad. He is passionate about helping new businesses break through to the mass market, and frequently assists clients with identifying and formalizing partnership opportunities with Fortune 500 and celebrity brands. Mr. Masur is especially knowledgeable about mobile, internet, social media, emerging content distribution models, e-commerce, games and mobile payments. Mr. Masur serves a variety of corporate and nonprofit boards and industry associations, lectures and regularly writes about major issues in venture capital, emerging businesses, entertainment law, technology and corporate strategy.

 

Justin Hochberg is the founder of Just Entertainment Inc. a Television and new media studio focusing on branded entertainment and reality TV with projects at half a dozen US networks and working with fortune 500 brands and digital agencies. Over the course of Hochberg's career he created and sold over 40 TV series and completed more than $112 million in product integration deals with broadcast and cable networks and over 150 of the world's leading brands including P&G, the NFL, Pepsi, Sports Illustrated, Royal Caribbean, Marquis Jet, Staples, DirecTV, Planet Hollywood Resorts, Fosters, Las Vegas Convention Visitors Bureau, Dick Clark's “Rockin New Years Eve”, Skype, Ask.com, Camping World, , Deutsch Advertising, NYC 2012, the N.Y.P.D., and Tony Winner “Kinky Boots”. Hochberg made TV headlines recently for guiding four different cable networks into reality programming for their first time, brokering over 20 different branding deals on them. Among them USA Network's first reality series, “The Moment”, hosted by Super Bowl MVP Kurt Warner and TNT's "The Great  Escape", an action-packed program Hochberg created and produced with Hollywood greats Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Bertram van Munster. In addition, this past summer he launched “Race to the Scene,” a movie themed competition series for the Reelz Channel hosted by Dolph Lundgren, which Hochberg engineered the sale of to a dozen countries before its US premiere, followed by CNBC's new #1 rated show, “The Profit”. Hochberg was recently nominated for the Critic's Choice Award for Best Reality Series and Real Screen's Best Documentary, and has been recognized as Hollywood Reporter's “50 Most Powerful Reality Producers”. Prior to entering the television industry, Hochberg served as Microsoft Corporation's Director of Business Development for Interactive TV, before becoming the company's Head of Business Development for its Digital Media TV efforts.

 

Evan Sroka is a Corporate Finance executive at leading entertainment and sports agency Creative Artists Agency (CAA).  Sroka works in the Los Angeles office and represents many of the world’s leading talent and entertainment brands in identifying and executing new business opportunities. Sroka began his career at The Walt Disney Company, where he worked on the Corporate Strategy and Business Development team and helped compile the company’s annual strategic plan.  Subsequently he held roles at Hellman & Friedman, where he executed a number of buy-outs and capital raisings; Inner Circle Sports, where he advised clients on the purchase and sale of several sports franchises; and Activision Blizzard, where he led Strategic and Financial Planning for the company’s production operations. He joined CAA in the summer of 2012. Sroka graduated from Harvard College with degrees in Economics and Statistics and Harvard Business School with an MBA.

 

Sara Cummings, Advertising Solutions, Microsoft: Sara Cummings works on the Advertising Solutions team for Microsoft’s Advertising and Online Business Group. Within the Advertising Solutions team her focus is on connecting and integrating brands with highly-engaged audiences across MSN.com, Skype, Xbox and Windows 8 which also includes leveraging Microsoft unique brands and technology.

In her role at Microsoft Sara has served some of the biggest brands in the auto and entertainment industries including Infiniti, Nissan, Honda, Mazda, Sony Pictures, Fox and Lionsgate to name a few.

Sara has over 10 years of marketing experience working with top global brands. Prior to Microsoft, Sara worked at Yahoo! in digital advertising. In addition, Sara has worked for advertising agencies including OMD, Mass Connections, and Fanscape. A native of California, Sara holds a BS in Business with an emphasis in Marketing from California State University, Long Beach. Sara has also taken courses at UCLA extension which includes a course on Producing for New Hollywood. Sara is currently producing and directing her first documentary set to release early 2016.

 

Bill Sanders, SVP, Personal Brand Management, PMK*BNC; During his 20+ year career, Bill Sanders has established himself as one of the most foremost experts in talent marketing and brand building. His work with icons such as Yao Ming and Steve Nash in many ways set the standard for athlete marketing and brand building. By helping clients build, maintain and protect their brands, Bill’s strategic approach increases client marketability, raises brand awareness and increases their revenue. Bill believes the key to effective talent marketing is the formulation of a long-term player/brand strategy, which includes a substantial commitment to community involvement, media relations and social media plans, and the pursuit of appropriate corporate partners. Bill and his staff are dedicated to the development of individual marketing strategies that highlight each client’s strengths, talents and interests.  During his tenure at BDA Sports Management, Bill aligned his clients with numerous global brands, including: Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Gatorade, Vitamin Water, Visa, American Express, Apple, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, Guinness, Bridgestone, Raymond Weil, Tag Heuer and many more.  Prior to joining BDA Sports Management, Bill spent several years as VP of Theatrical Sales/General Sales Manager at Lions Gate Films and Trimark Pictures.  Bill earned his MBA, with an emphasis in Marketing and Entertainment Studies, at UCLA in 1998. He earned his Bachelors of Arts in Political Science from Loyola Marymount University in 1988. Bill also teaches Sports Marketing at LMU each spring semester. He resides in Pacific Palisades, California with his wife, Elizabeth and their son, Brendan.

 

Scott Manson is Chief Operating Officer of SB Projects, a company at the intersection of music, film, television, technology, culture and social good. Manson leads the team’s corporate development initiatives including identifying and structuring partnerships for SB Projects as well as their elite roster of clients including Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, and Martin Garrix. His creative and strategic dealmaking skills are instrumental in overseeing business development opportunities as well as managing the company's day-to-day operations.

Prior to joining SB Projects in 2012, Manson served as an attorney in the Business Trial & Litigation Group at O’Melveny & Myers LLP where he worked on the firm’s most complex commercial cases for their Fortune 500 clients.  In addition to his instrumental role in the discovery Psy online and as one of the creators of television’s top new drama Scorpion on CBS, Manson leads the charge on the company's expansion outside of SB Projects core business of music. Manson spearheaded the creation of Silent Labs, a technology incubator with best in class partners from Israel, and the Creative Studio, a production studio in partnership with award-winning advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty and their parent company Publicis Groupe.   Manson is actively involved in non-profit organization Pencils of Promise and resides in Los Angeles with his wife Anne who is a fashion trend forecaster and consultant.

 

Rob Lee, President and Founder of Bayonne Entertainment:  Rob Lee is an independent television producer and media executive.  His areas of expertise include all creative and business aspects of entertainment content.  As a creative producer, industry executive, talent manager, agent and lawyer, his nearly 25 years of experience enables him to create and sell valuable original programming as well as uniquely provide valuable advice and strategy to the television and digital marketplace.  With his background and successful track record, Mr. Lee possesses direct access at the highest level to programmers, executives, agents and creative talent.  Since 1999 Mr. Lee has served as the President and founder of Bayonne Entertainment.  Currently, Bayonne is producing ‘Millionaire Matchmaker’ for Bravo (8 cycles), ‘Love In The City’ for OWN, and ‘Euros Of Hollywood’ for Bravo.  Bayonne recently finished production on 7 cycles of ‘Randy Jackson Presents: America’s Best Dance Crew’ (MTV) and ‘House Of Joy’ (NuvoTV).  The company is also producing several pilot presentations for various networks including ‘Fountain of Youth’ for HBO, ‘The Post Game’ for USA, ‘EmBedded’ for E! and ‘Family Love’ for Bravo…to name a few.   In 2012, Bayonne, made an overall production/consulting deal with CORE Media Group (producers of American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance).  As CORE’s consultant, Lee put together its scripted division Halfire/CORE, specializing in direct to series production.  This division now has series in production and development across several broadcast and cable platforms.   Bayonne has also produced the television movies ‘My Future Boyfriend’ (ABC Family) and ‘The Night Before The Night Before Christmas’ – based on a story written by Lee (Hallmark Channel), the highly acclaimed sports documentary ‘Tim Tebow: Everything In Between’ (ESPN) and the 1-hour special for the UP Network, ‘I Forgive You’.   From (2004-2007), Bayonne produced the hit show ‘Blowout’ (Bravo) and used that success to launch the multi-million dollar hair care line Jonathan Product through QVC and Sephora.   While running Bayonne Entertainment, Mr. Lee simultaneously served as Executive VP Worldwide Head of Programming (2007-2008) at IMG Global Media, the world’s largest independent producer and distributor of sports programming and a major player in the world of fashion – owning IMG Models and producing Mercedes Benz’ Fashion Week around the world.  There, he launched the make-up competition television series ‘Blush’ on Lifetime with production partner Proctor & Gamble through its Max Factor label.

Steven Masur, Senior Partner, Cowan DeBaets Abrahams & Sheppard, LLP: focuses his practice on corporate finance, M&A, intellectual property, strategic transactions, entertainment and new business concepts. He has over 20 years of experience advising digital media and entertainment clients on their corporate and intellectual property transactions and day-to-day business issues. Mr. Masur