BRAND STRATEGY

Wonder Studios

Wonder Studios is seeking to make inroads into Hollywood. To do it, the AI film studio and creative agency, which is valued at around $50 million, is showing up where Hollywood is likely to be.

Last month, the company activated at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) after showing up around the Tribeca Festival in June. Both efforts are aimed at bolstering its brand reputation, co-founder and CEO Xavier Collins told us, a perhaps prudent effort amid widespread pushback against AI use in film and other creative professions.

The appearances around film festivals also offer an opportunity to build community—and to attract advertisers to the creative agency that Wonder runs alongside its film studio, as the company looks to scale, particularly in the US. Company executives have compared its ambitions to the independent production company and distributor A24.

“A24 nailed brand, and Wonder’s going to nail community,” said Collins, who recently relocated to New York from London to support the company’s US growth ambitions. “We think community is the next evolution up from brand.”

For more on how Wonder Studios is showing up around film festivals, and how the brand is looking to build community among like-minded artists, continue reading here.—JS

      

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SPORTS MARKETING

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Ticket sales and in-arena transactions bring a wealth of fan data to sports teams and leagues, which can use it to understand, target, and grow their audiences.

The World Surf League (WSL), pro surfing’s international governing body, has access to neither. WSL competitions tend to take place at public beaches, where no tickets are required for general admission.

Nevertheless, for the past few years, the organization has undertaken an audience intelligence initiative meant to help WSL execs and marketers understand surfing’s existing audience, divide it into key segments, and tailor communications and content to each. The goal is to unlock new fans ahead of LA28, when surfing will serve as an Olympic sport for only the third time.

“With the growth of participation in surfing, the growth of the types of people surfing, the emergence of wave-pool technology that’s bringing surfing inland, and surfing being in the Olympics, it’s opened up the awareness around surfing and access to it,” Travis Tan, former director of global and North America marketing for the WSL, told Marketing Brew. “That is our next great fanbase to build and to reach.”

For more on how WSL underwent its formal fan database project and the segments it decided on, read more here.—AM

      

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C-SUITE

David Bridges

David Bridges was practically born into the advertising postproduction industry, where he’d eventually start two companies.

Working for his father’s photo retouching business in Manhattan, Bridges was cleaning airbrushes and water bowls as early as 10. By 12, he was a messenger boy. At 16, he had won the trust of New York City art directors to run his father’s accounts.

“They were friendly and it was exciting,” he told us. “And you know, and I’m just some naive kid who’s in the Mad Men-era of advertising.”

That familial immersion into the business world taught Bridges the difference between founding a company and running a successful business.

“The big deal is the execution,” he said. “There are a lot of people with a lot of great ideas that probably could turn into real businesses if they knew how to run a business.”

Those lessons in mind led Bridges to eventually start two companies on the precipice of massive industry changes. A burning curiosity around the possibilities of web and mobile advertising drove him to start thelab in 2002. In 2014, Australian creative production agency the wellcom group acquired his business. In 2021, he took over as Wellcom Worldwide’s global CEO.

For more from Bridges on the lessons he’s learned from founding and running a business, continue reading on Founder Brew.—DL

      

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IN AND OUT

Executive moves across the industry.

• Diageo tapped PepsiCo and AB InBev alum Sebnem Erim as its CMO for North America.
• Dentsu Creative New York hired FCB New York vet Michael Aimette as US chief creative officer.
• OpenArt AI brought on board former Salesforce and Meta marketer Scott Larson.