Mediaboss Marketing

The Cleveland Cavaliers star forward sat down with Hollywood Reporter to discuss his growing media empire.

When sports stars achieve global fame, the assumption is that they do socompletelythrough the meritocracy of the playing field. More so than any other modern icon, a sports star does not have to be beautiful or rich or connected, they simply have to be great at what they do.

LeBron James is undoubtedly great at what he does, but that alone is not the source of his power as an international idol.

LeBron is featured in an issue of Hollywood Reporter, where the magazine was able to get an in-depth look at the star as he extends his global image from beyond the basketball court. But the piece is not a view inside LeBron the person; its a view inside LeBron the product.

Ever since the fateful decision of 2010, where LeBron created a spectacle out of his free agency choice to join the Miami Heat, he has been careful to monitor how he can control his perception with the media.

When he chose to return to Cleveland for this year, he did so by publishing a piece at Sports Illustrated outlining his choice. This move was perhapsdone as retroactive damage control for the outrage in Cleveland for leaving.

James discusses his role in the upcoming Judd Apatow film Trainwreck, and the anecdotes from James and Apatow portrays the basketball star as the perfect mixture of humility, informality and dedication to whatever craft he approaches.

From Hollywood Reporter:

We tested the movie, and he gets laughter as big as anyone, says Apatow. The only fear you ever have with people of his stature is whether or not theyre game to have fun and take chances. Theyll say: I dont want to say that. That will sound weird. Thats not good for my reputation. LeBron is a very strong actor, and he has a fantastic sense of humor. We do a lot of improvisation, and he was really good at it. As a result, its a really fun, wild, slightly strange performance that really scores.

James admits that he was as anxious on the New York City set of Trainwreck as he was for his very first NBA game. Last summer on a Nike promotionaltrip to China, he had his entourage Carter, Mims read the other characters. I was just trying to stay ready, he recalls. I was very nervous all the way to the point where they said, Action.

See the article here:
LeBron on fame, movies and growing media empire

Social media star is an actual job title now, with so-called influencers raking in tens of thousands a month to craft tweets, Vines, and other content for paying brands. Twitter sees this activity and has decided it wants a cut: The company just bought Niche, a talent agency and analytics firm that connects some 6,000 top content creators with advertisers.

Now Twitter and its 6-second video-looping service Vine, where some of social medias biggest stars were born, control the connection between creators and brands that want to make ads that dont seem like ads. That means the company presumably gets a cut when popular Viners signed to Niche make clips for brands.

Vine doesnt insert ads into your feed, but that doesnt mean theres no advertising on the app. The platforms most popular users have signed on with Niche or other social media talent agencies (yes, those are a thing now) to connect with companies who will pay for content. A prime example is HP, which hired Viners to create clips using the companys x360 Pavilion hybrid PC. Not only did the clips rack up millions of loops on Vine, but HP then strung the Vines together to create a TV commercial, getting even more bang for its buck.

As more users and creators use different products as a way to share whats happening in their world, brands are also looking to partner with those individuals in hopes of generating moments that resonate with the people they are trying to reach, Twitter product management director Baljeet Singh said in a Wednesday blog post.

Niche and Twitter developed a close relationship shortly after Niche launched in late 2013, and that partnershipand now ownershipgives Twitter an advantage when it comes to attracting advertisers. Now the network can simply point to talent and say, This person has millions of followers. Want to buy placement? Vines are also embeddable and viewable within tweets, giving advertisers cross-platform promotional opportunities.

The Niche acquisition also brings Vine stars into the Twitter fold. Twitter has allowed Vine to grow as a stand-alone service with little overlap, and now that the network has its own native video creation tool, it seemed like the two services were starting to duplicate efforts. But Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has said that Vine and Twitter video are complementary services with different purposesVine encourages creativity, while Twitter will now enable real-time news to unfold visually. Costolo reiterated the importance of both kinds of video at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference this week.

Content creators want to go into an ecosystem, deliver great experiences to users and tell stories, and then make money from it, he said.

Twitter is struggling to add new users, but with Niche, at least it can make money off its most popular ones. Costolo said there will be "more to come" on that front.

Your message has been sent.

There was an error emailing this page.

Visit link:
Why Twitter just bought a social media talent agency

The targeted suppression or manipulation of the media in conflict regions such as Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, and the Palestinian territories is one of the most significant reasons for the general worsening of worldwide press freedom, according to the 2015 index published by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

The organization said many countries cite the protection of national security interests to impose restrictions on press freedom. "Journalists become the preserve of the opposing parties when control over information is used as a strategic war aim as is the case currently in eastern Ukraine or Syria," said RSF spokesman Michael Rediske in Berlin.

RSF's annual index evaluates the situation of press freedom in 180 countries. It is based on a survey of all aspects of independent journalistic work, which the non-profit organization sends out to hundreds of journalists, researchers, lawyers, and human rights activists worldwide, as well its own network of correspondents. The 87 questions focus on media diversity, media independence, the journalistic environment and self-censorship, the legal system, institutional transparency, as well as media production infrastructure. There is also a category for "acts of violence and infringements," which the Paris-based organization keeps a record of independently. This accounts for all incidents between October 2013 and October 2014.

Many NATO member countries and stable democracies still fall short of a 'good' score

Truth - the first casualty of war

In the notes accompanying the current index, RSF said many of the armed conflicts of the past year were partly conducted as information wars. Whether in Ukraine, Syria, Iraq, the war between Israel and Hamas, or in South Sudan, the opposing sides attempted to shut down independent news sources or use them to broadcast their own propaganda.

National security as a cover for repression

In many countries, supposed threats to national security served to justify restrictions on press freedom and other basic civil rights. Russia, for example, used the war with Ukraine to impose further repressive laws, including tightening a ban on publicly denouncing breaches of territorial integrity effectively criminalizing any critique of the annexation of Crimea.

Kazakhstan introduced a law allowing pre-censorship in times of social unrest in order to arm itself for protests such as in Ukraine.

RSF frequently stages demonstrations highlighting journalists' plight

Read the original:
Reporters Without Borders: New threats against freedom of the press

When former lovers get into heated court battles there are usually three sides to the story; his, hers and then the truth which tends to lie somewhere in the middle. When it comes to Kurt Busch and his Patricia Driscoll the jury is still out on what exactly that truth may be. Driscoll has accused Busch of being abusive, depressed and having an alcohol problem. Busch has accused Driscoll of being bitter over the breakup and using her skills as a trained assassin to make nothing into something.

When it comes to Driscoll being a trained assassin things took an interesting turn this week thanks to some emails that were received by kickinthetires.net. In the emails Driscoll is communicating with SHR and Tony Stewarts public relations teams in the aftermath of the Kevin Ward Jr. tragedy. As you can see below Driscoll is expressing her interesting in helping the SHR camp manipulate the media, she also makes reference to having connections and having done this sort of thing before.

Below are some excerpts from her emails.

I am writing you because what little know about me you may not know that I have a background in Psychological Operations, (Driscoll wrote, in an email dated Aug. 12, 2014). Part of my training and skill set is to break down large issues and be able to convince large and small groups of people to do what you want. Ive worked in countries all over the world waging not only physical wars but mental wars, and Ive helped get a lot of Congressman save their jobs when they did some stupid and not so legal things.

Between NYC & DC the people I know and work with have saved the reputations of a lot of high profile people from DUIs, sex scandals, DUI that lead to an accident where someone was killed, corruption, drugs, prostitution, etc., (Driscolls email continues). This isnt the time for just in house PR, this is the time for a good 10-15 different heads with different backgrounds putting together a war strategy. This monster is out of control and you only have a short time to steer this ship back around.

Go on the offensive like your life depends on it. Nothing gets better until you fight back. You must campaign for your life. Leverage all of your assets, its time to cash in all of your chips.

If Tony goes to Michigan then the King (Richard Petty) needs to be seen stopping by his trailer by the media, (Driscolls email continues). The media needs to be reminded of the 8 year old boy he accidentally killed while drag racing in 1965. The King has been kept alive financially by NASCAR and a lot of the owners. He should be pressured to be the face of this to help everyone out. All he has to do is talk about how devastating this even has been to him and that it haunts him to this day get emotional and walk off. We need the sympathy factor here for what Tony is going through. If we could get Petty out there before the funeral Thursday that would be best.

start drowning the media before the (Ward) funeral because a crying mom will be the front page of every paper and TV show if we wait and do nothing.

Obviously she did not come out in these emails and say that she was a trained assassin but clearly she is something. Its not everyday that a girlfriend of a driver has this sort of reaction to a tragedy like the one that Stewart was involved in. I suppose you could also say that she was concerned and just trying to be helpful.

What do you think? Be sure to comment below and let us know!

Continued here:
Busch girlfriend's media manipulation advice to Stewart

Wake Up Call (Documentary)
Brown Recluse Media Presents: The Sandbox Where a collection of interesting ideas, concepts, and projects from around the internet are presented to be discussed, and eventually fester in a...

By: Brown Recluse Media

Read the original:
Wake Up Call (Documentary) - Video