The Digital Hollywood Experience

 

Thursday, January 14th, 2021

3 PM – 3:45 PM – Eastern Time Zone

All-Digital & Online

Session II:

Multi-Platform XR/5G Advertising/Retail Innovation

5G is arriving at just the right time for the XR/AR retail and advertising industry. With consumers ready to pounce on every nuance and innovation in communication, the creative community is responding. In the coming year, we hope to see magical results and thumbs-up consumer reviews of their efforts. The world is waiting for XR!

Raffaella Camera, Head of Market & Innovation Strategy, Global, Accenture

Tony Parisi, Head of AR/VR Ad Innovation, Unity3D

Silke Meixner, Partner, Global Business Strategy, IBM Global business

Neha Singh, founder & CEO, Obsess

Eric Shamlin, SVP of Growth, MediaMonks

Bill Newell, CEO, SparX Works Inc., Moderator

 

Tony Parisi, Head of AR/VR Advertising Innovation, Unity: Tony Parisi is the Head of AR/VR Advertising Innovation at Unity Technologies, where he oversees the company's strategy for virtual and augmented reality brand advertising and monetization. As a virtual reality pioneer, serial entrepreneur, and angel investor, Parisi co-created 3D graphics standards, including VRML, X3D and

glTF, the new file format standard for 3D web and mobile applications. Parisi is the author of O'Reilly Media's books on Virtual Reality and WebGL: Learning Virtual Reality (2015), Programming 3D Applications in HTML5 and WebGL (2014), and WebGL Up and Running (2012). Parisi has become one of the leading spokespeople for the immersive industry, speaking on industry trends and technology innovations in virtual and augmented reality at numerous industry conferences. He was recently named #16 in Next Reality's 30 People to Watch in Augmented Reality in 2019.

 

Raffaella Camera, Head of Market & Innovation Strategy, Global, Accenture Extended Reality (XR): Raffaella Camera is part of the Accenture Extended Reality (XR) practice and serves as Head of Market & Innovation Strategy, Global. Joining Accenture in February 2017, Ms. Camera shapes virtual reality and augmented reality (VR/AR) offerings, directs the strategy for the creation of XR experiences, manages direct sales in collaboration with internal account teams, oversees indirect sales through the development of assets such as case studies and demos, develops partnerships with external content creators, and leverages partnerships with the VR/AR ecosystem to create revenue opportunities. Ms. Camera brings 20 years of experience in growing and promoting businesses in the digital ecosystem and direct experience in AR, VR, live video, social and ecommerce. As a business development, strategy, partnership and account management leader, she has helped grow advertising agencies and strategic corporate divisions of digital, entertainment, advertising, ecommerce and emerging technology companies. Within the digital space, Ms. Camera has sold and created digital campaigns (websites, mobile, display, earned media, SEO, SEM, social); defined, set up and run ecommerce businesses (corporate and startups); developed and run partnerships for a recognition-based and AR/VR-based mobile platform; created launch plans and partnerships for live video-based social platforms; and set up the digital partnerships portfolio for an entertainment company. Over her career, Ms. Camera has acquired and managed more than $200 million in business for clients and partners, including major retailers, consumer goods and services, broadcast media companies, automotive manufacturers, and travel and leisure companies. She has also been a key participant in raising and closing $40 million+ in funding. Ms. Camera has won multiple awards in advertising and emerging technology, including Best VR Branded Entertainment at VR Fest, Communication Arts, Webby, and IDG’s DEMOgod Award for Best AR Retail Shopping solution.  An MBA graduate of University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business, Ms. Camera also holds a masters of piano performance from the USC Thornton School of Music and undergraduate degrees from universities in Italy. As a former concert pianist, Ms. Camera performed at a variety of concert halls in Europe and received her SAG membership in the US.

 

Silke Meixner has been recognized as a leading digital business strategist, helping CMOs achieve digital transformation through digital marketing, business and brand strategies that drive end-to-end customer experiences. She helps senior marketing executives navigate their role in orchestrating change across broad ecosystems of internal and external partners to maximize short- and long-term marketing ROI. Silke has deep industry knowledge in technology, media, industrial goods, consumer goods and services where she has operationalized their digital transformation agenda to foster data-driven cultures, with empowered teams that better address market shifts and capture new revenue opportunities. Silke started her career developing new revenue growth platforms for leading companies such as Universal Studios, eToys, and Deloitte before joining IBM’s Digital Strategy practice. Silke enjoys helping marketers succeed in harnessing the power of AI, cognitive abilities and digital tools and enablers to accelerate agile marketing management, marketing operations and commercial capabilities in new product development, e-commerce and brand strategy at leading multinational organizations.

 

Neha Singh is the Founder & CEO of Obsess, an experiential e-commerce platform enabling brands to create visual, immersive, branded online virtual stores. She was previously the Head of Product at Vogue, where she was the first tech person to be hired by Vogue. Prior to that, Neha was VP of Product and Engineering at AHAlife, an e-commerce startup for luxury lifestyle products. Neha began her career at Google, where she was a Software Engineer and Tech Lead for 5 years and worked on Google AdWords and Google News. She holds an undergraduate Computer Science degree from The University of Texas at Austin and a graduate Computer Science degree from MIT.

 

Eric Shamlin, SVP of Growth, MediaMonks: Eric Shamlin leads entertainment growth at MediaMonks, where he heads up innovative partnerships with leading technology and entertainment brands. With a broad background in technology, visual effects and entertainment, Shamlin is pioneering the future of entertainment powered by digital, interactive and immersive technologies. Eric Shamlin is a two-time Emmy winner, 12-time Cannes Lion winner and 19-year member of the Television Academy where he holds seats on the Digital Strategy Committee, Interactive Media Peer Group and co-chairs the Experience Design Work Group.

 

Bill Newell, CEO, SparX Works Inc.: As a founding partner of SparX Works Inc., Bill Newell brings more than 18 years of corporate and entrepreneurial experience to the company. Bill has been involved in production and multimedia from its early days and has had key roles in establishing many of the business processes that today are often taken for granted. Bill's areas of expertise include finance, technology, production, and operations. Bill's ability to increase productivity without sacrificing quality has been proven time and time again and is a key asset to the company. A longtime associate of his partner, Sarina Simon, Bill came to North South Studios from the Knowledge Kids Network where he served as Chief Operating Officer for five years. Bill co-founded the Knowledge Kids Network and was instrumental in defining its business objectives, operational processes, and company structure. His thorough planning and oversight launched the KidsEdge websites. This network of award-winning websites contained more than 250 games, thousands of articles, and had the capacity to support 3.5 million users. During his tenure at the Knowledge Kids Network, Bill also executive produced a 12 minute animated movie entitled, DotzWorld, which premiered on the AOL network and featured 25 original characters. Bill's insightful finance skills were invaluable to the company in its negotiations with AOL and other prominent partners. Prior to joining the Knowledge Kids Network, Bill was Vice President of Production for IXL Los Angeles, a NASDAQ listed Internet services company with more than $12 million in yearly revenue in the Los Angeles office alone. As VP of Production, Bill oversaw all aspects of production and provided sales support for IXL's west coast offices. Always prolific, he supervised and managed the design and implementation of over 100 projects including assignments for Polygram, Fox, Warner Brothers, NewsCorp, Baker and Taylor, Mazda, Kawasaki, Universal Studios, and Technicolor, among others. Making use of his extensive finance background, Bill brought financial discipline to his production team and productivity increased over 200% during his tenure at IXL. Before joining IXL, Bill was Vice President of Production for Digital Planet, an Internet services company that was later acquired by IXL. As VP of Production, Bill provided direct management of technical, production, and creative teams. He also oversaw all proposal submissions, bids, technical analyses, and creative treatments for media, technology, and consumer companies including Intel, Mattel, the US Postal Service, Disney Online and Allstate. Bill is also a veteran of the multimedia pioneering company, Philips Media, where he worked for four years as an Executive Producer, managing two in-house production groups. In this executive role, Bill directed a 35 member staff and produced six educational CD ROM products. He also directed the localization of numerous products for the Japanese, English, Swedish and American markets.