CINCINNATI, Sept.8, 2008—Michael Welch, a 13-year veteran in media strategy, planning and buying, has been promoted to vice president, client strategy at Empower MediaMarketing. Welch, who joined the agency in 2003, had risen from account supervisor to director, client strategy, prior to this promotion.

In his new position, Welch adds management responsibilities in the areas of client strategy and agency growth to his oversight of Empower’s Bush Brothers & Company and U.S. Bank accounts.  

“Michael has excelled in building truly integrated media campaigns for our clients,” said Denise Halpin, senior vice president, client strategy. “Media integration is a sweet spot here at Empower, and Michael’s leadership in that area has earned him a leadership role in the company.”    

Welch’s work on the Bush Brothers account includes managing all aspects of the client’s integrated national television, national magazine and digital media plans. For U.S. Bank, Welch is responsible for P&L and managing a team of media specialists and client strategists.   

Before joining Empower, Welch spent five years at DDB/OMD in Chicago. From 2000-2003, he was an associate director of strategy, working on the agency’s Dell Home Systems Division account. In this role, he managed the client’s direct response campaign and supervised a team of media planners. From 1998-2000, he was a strategy supervisor for the agency’s Qwest Communications account. 

Welch also worked as a media planner for two years at J. Walter Thompson in Chicago and for one year at Sive/Young & Rubicam in Cincinnati. 

He began his career as a sales assistant at the Cincinnati Enquirer after earning a bachelor’s degree from the University of Evansville in Indiana.

About Empower MediaMarketing

Empower MediaMarketing (www.empowermm.com) is an advertising company that specializes in reaching its clients’ customers through any and all media channels.  Empower services include media planning and buying, a full-service digital practice, media-marketing strategy and consulting, and a consumer research department that offers customer-insight analysis, ROI analysis and various proprietary tools.  With these resources, Empower delivers media strategies that create deep and long-lasting relationships between clients and their consumers. Clients include Ashley Furniture, Biltmore, Bush Brothers & Co., Cincinnati Bell, Clopay Building Products, Godiva Chocolatier, Humana, Long John Silver’s, Michaels Arts & Crafts Stores, 1-800-CONTACTS, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Stanley Steemer and U.S. Bank.

# # #

CONTACT

Mark Braff

Braff Communications LLC

201-612-0707      

mbraff@braffcommunications.com

CINCINNATI, August 19, 2008—Empower MediaMarketing announced today it has been selected to handle all media strategy, planning and buying duties for Godiva Chocolatier, the world leader in chocolate indulgences.

Media duties for the New York–based company previously were assigned to Media Edge. Godiva’s media budget was not disclosed.

“We chose Empower because they demonstrated the tools, the passion and the expertise to build deep and long-lasting relationships with Godiva’s consumers,” said Michelle Chin, business director, marketing and innovation for Godiva.  “When we met the people at Empower, we knew they were the team to take our business to the next level.”

“The Godiva brand is synonymous with quality, and we are proud to be selected as their media partner,” said Brian McHale, president, Empower MediaMarketing.

About Godiva

With production facilities in Belgium and the U.S., Godiva Chocolatier is recognized around the world as the leader in fine chocolates. From its famous truffles and shell-molded chocolate pieces to its European-style biscuits, gourmet coffees, and hot cocoa, Godiva Chocolatier has been dedicated to excellence and innovation in the Belgian tradition for over 80 years. To order, call 1-800-9GODIVA, or visit www.GODIVA.com.

About Empower MediaMarketing

Empower MediaMarketing (www.empowermm.com) is an advertising company that specializes in reaching its clients’ customers through any and all media channels.  Empower services include media planning and buying, a full-service digital practice, media-marketing strategy and consulting, and a consumer research department that offers customer-insight analysis, ROI analysis and various proprietary tools.  With these resources, Empower delivers media strategies that create deep and long-lasting relationships between clients and their consumers. Clients include Ashley Furniture, Biltmore, Bush Brothers & Co., Check ‘n Go, Cincinnati Bell, Clopay Building Products, Godiva Chocolatier, Humana, Long John Silver’s, Michaels Arts & Crafts Stores, 1-800-CONTACTS, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Stanley Steemer and U.S. Bank.

# # #

CONTACT

Mark Braff
Braff Communications LLC
201-612-0707
mbraff@braffcommunications.com

CINCINNATI, June 24, 2008—Melissa Booth has joined Empower MediaMarketing’s expanding client services team as client strategy coordinator. Booth joins Empower from Northlich, where she was a new business coordinator.

Reporting to Emily Hall, Empower client strategy director, Booth will assist Empower client services teams with billing, traffic, competitive analysis and support services.

“Melissa Booth is highly organized, and a strategic thinker who will bring new perspectives to our client services teams,” Hall said. “We are delighted to welcome her to Empower.”

About Empower MediaMarketing

Empower MediaMarketing (www.empowermm.com) is an advertising company that specializes in reaching its clients’ customers through any and all media channels.  Empower services include media planning and buying, a full-service digital practice, media-marketing strategy and consulting, and a consumer research department that offers customer-insight analysis, ROI analysis and various proprietary tools.  With these resources, Empower delivers media strategies that create deep and long-lasting relationships between clients and their consumers, with the breadth and depth of a large agency but the responsiveness large agencies can seldom deliver.  Clients include Ashley Furniture, Biltmore, Bush Brothers & Co., Check ‘n Go, Cincinnati Bell, Clopay Building Products, Humana, Long John Silver’s, Michaels Arts & Crafts Stores, 1-800-CONTACTS, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Stanley Steemer and U.S. Bank.

 # # #

CONTACT

 Mark Braff / Braff Communications LLC / 201-612-0707

Friday, June 20, 2008
Cincinnati’s new photo-sharing Web site to have different focus Photrade.com allows users to sell pictures or advertising
Business Courier of Cincinnati - by Laura Baverman Staff Reporter

A homegrown Web company is out to capture the market of online photo sharers by allowing them to make money from their shots.

Launching this month, Photrade.com gives users three options for their photos. They can sell photos at any price with a stock license, share them in free albums or support them with advertisements that can generate revenue per views and clicks.

Photrade co-founder Andrew Paradies has been programming since age 6 and taking pictures since 12. He pursued a career in venture capital out of college so he could learn the financial ropes of a start-up business and gain contacts from investment firms around the country. The idea for Photrade came in 2005 after an introduction to co-founder Dan Preston through a mutual friend.

“We realized sharing photos is very easy. Wouldn’t it be great if making money off of photos was just as easy?” said Paradies, who left Fort Washington Investment Advisors last fall to pursue Photrade full time.

Preston is no longer with the company.

‘Exciting and sleepless time’
Despite the 180 or so photo sites that exist on the Internet, and the popularity of Flickr, Photobucket and SmugMug, he saw a niche in providing a unique set of protection and licensing products and a model that allows anyone to make money from their photos through ads or stock licenses. Photrade earns a percentage of photos sold and ad revenue generated.

“Just like eBay made millions of small companies through the Internet, we’re doing that for amateur and semi-professional photographers,” said Paradies, who has brought on a full staff of programmers, marketers and customer service reps since receiving funding from Mount Adams-based Empower MediaMarketing and Cleveland’s Flashline Partners in January. He now employs 10 in an office at the Hamilton County Business Center. He calls it an “exciting and sleepless time” since the beta version of the site launched June 10.

“We’re doing things no one’s ever done before. You don’t know how it’s going to turn out,” he said.

But photographers and advertisers are taking notice. Media buying firm Empower chose to invest in the company so it could be at the cutting edge of a potential new advertising vehicle for its clients.

“The Internet went from advertising around contextual content to video - they missed advertising around photos,” said Jim Price, the firm’s vice president of media innovation. “People go right to the photography in the middle of the page, not to the banner ads surrounding the page. This is an interesting concept, and no one out there is doing it.”

San Francisco-area photographer Lane Hartwell is more focused on the tools Photrade provides to professionals, like watermarking and methods of tracking and preventing copyright infringement.

“The idea is that every photo has a value to the owner and to somebody else,” said Hartwell, who recently saw one of her stolen photos in a music video. “It’s about education. You need to have a certain amount of language around photographs because they are so easy to steal.”

Over the next month, Photrade will release a suite of additional protection items. The site will allow photographers to choose from a series of templates to create their own sites. It will provide basic photo editing tools and additional options for sharing photos. A feature that would allow users to aggregate photos from other sites could be added, as long as Photrade is able to verify that those photos are not stolen ones.

And it will offer picture-in-picture advertising, technology for which a patent is pending, with the ability for users to earn money based on the number of views to a photo and clicks to a link beneath it.

Getting advertiser buy-in
The challenge for the company will be convincing advertisers that this model provides better click rates than traditional Google Adsense or banner advertising, said J.B. Kropp, a serial Web entrepreneur and senior vice president of product strategy at ShareThis.

“It’s a matter of introducing the right ad to the right person at the right time. If they can couple that with good images, it could be an interesting model,” he said.

For now, Paradies is drumming up interest in the site, which has grown to 3,000 users in the first week. To help the launch, he’s created a Spirit of Cincinnati photo contest. The winners’ work will be showcased at Photrade launch events June 27 and 28 at 1417 Main St. in Over-the-Rhine.

New Click
• Photrade.com will allow photographers to sell their photos or support them with advertising.
• A Spirit of Cincinnati photo contest will help launch the site.
• The winners’ work will be showcased at Photrade launch events.

lbaverman@bizjournals.com | (513) 337-9431
All contents of this site © American City Business Journals Inc. All rights reserved.

CINCINNATI, June 17, 2008—Kirby Thornton has joined Empower MediaMarketing as a director in the agency’s Knowledge, Information and Invention research division.  Thornton is an 18-year media research and marketing veteran who most recently was director of market assessment for the Cincinnati Enquirer. In his new position at Empower, he reports to Julie Pahutski, senior vice president, research.  

“Kirby has a tremendous background in the collection and analysis of consumer research data,” Pahutski said. “He also understands how to translate research findings into actionable marketing strategies and plans, which is what our research division is all about.” 

At the Enquirer, Thornton’s responsibilities included database marketing, system implementation and integration, primary and secondary market research and oversight of the company’s business-to-business marketing efforts. 

Before joining the Enquirer in 2003, Thornton was market research/direct market manager for The Plain Dealer Publishing Company for five years. He also spent eight years at the Dallas Morning News, in positions including circulation direct marketing manager, database projects coordinator and research assistant/analyst.  

Thornton earned an MBA from Texas Christian University’s MJ Neeley School of Business, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Texas. 

About Empower MediaMarketing

Empower MediaMarketing (www.empowermm.com) is an advertising company that specializes in reaching its clients’ customers through any and all media channels.  Empower services include media planning and buying, a full-service digital practice, media-marketing strategy and consulting, and a consumer research department that offers customer-insight analysis, ROI analysis and various proprietary tools.  With these resources, Empower delivers media strategies that create deep and long-lasting relationships between clients and their consumers, with the breadth and depth of a large agency but the responsiveness large agencies can seldom deliver.  Clients include Ashley Furniture, Biltmore, Bush Brothers & Co., Check ‘n Go, Cincinnati Bell, Clopay Building Products, Humana, Long John Silver’s, Michaels Arts & Crafts Stores, 1-800-CONTACTS, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Stanley Steemer and U.S. Bank.

# # #

CONTACT

 Mark Braff

Braff Communications LLC

201-612-0707

CINCINNATI, May 19, 2008—Empower MediaMarketing announced today that Dan Mayer has joined the agency as research strategist and Bryan Melendez has been added as client strategist/media strategist. 

Mayer, who reports to Julie Pahutski, senior vice president, joins Empower from BASES, where he had been a senior research analyst since 2006. 

“Our clients look to us to for winning media recommendations, and we start by understanding their consumers,” Pahutski said. “Dan’s keen analytical mind, and his ability to look ‘beyond the numbers’ at what makes consumers tick, make him a natural for the Empower team.” 

Melendez most recently was a lead consultant for Strategic Radio Solutions’ Hispanic division, where he was involved in developing programming strategies and formats. He also worked as a program director for Univision, and as vice president of programming and national director of research at Spanish Broadcasting System. At Empower, he reports to Lynn Cortelezzi, vice president, local broadcast strategy.  

“More and more clients are looking for ways to reach the rapidly growing Hispanic market,” Cortelezzi said.  “Bryan is a seasoned pro,” and his expertise in Hispanic media will prove particularly valuable.” 

About Empower MediaMarketing

Empower MediaMarketing (www.empowermm.com) offers innovative, integrated media-marketing strategies that connect consumers with clients’ brands.  Services include media planning and buying, a full-service digital practice, media-marketing strategy and consulting,   and a consumer research department whose offers include customer-insight analysis, ROI analysis and proprietary tools.   Clients include Ashley Furniture, Biltmore, Bush Brothers & Co., Check ‘n Go, Cincinnati Bell, Clopay Building Products, Humana, Long John Silver’s, Michaels Arts & Crafts Stores, 1-800-CONTACTS, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Stanley Steemer and U.S. Bank. 

# # # 

CONTACT

Mark Braff

 Braff Communications LLC

201-612-0707

mbraff@braffcommunications.com

CINCINNATI, May 12, 2008—Jessica George has joined Empower MediaMarketing as director, word-of-mouth marketing, a new position reporting to Jim Price, vice president, media innovation. George will be responsible for developing and implementing social and viral media campaigns for clients.   

“Word-of-mouth marketing is a powerful way to amplify and extend campaigns we are executing for our clients,” Price said.  “More and more, it’s becoming an integral part of the media strategies we recommend to clients, and bringing Jessica on board puts us in an even stronger position to give Empower clients this edge.”    

George joins Empower from Northlich in Cincinnati, where she was an account supervisor specializing in developing fully integrated marketing and media campaigns for clients. She joined Northlich in 2000 as an account assistant and steadily advanced at the agency: to assistant account manager (2001), account manager (2002), senior account manager (2003) and account supervisor (2005). 

At Northlich, George served as the account lead for the agency’s largest account, the Ohio Tobacco Prevention Foundation. She spearheaded integrated communications, social/cause-related marketing, youth marketing, public relations and grassroots campaigns for the foundation. 

George joined Northlich after earning a bachelor’s degree in advertising management from Ohio University. 

About Empower MediaMarketing

Empower MediaMarketing (www.empowermm.com) offers innovative, integrated media-marketing strategies that connect consumers with clients’ brands.  Services include media planning and buying, a full-service digital practice, media-marketing strategy and consulting,   and a consumer research department whose offers include customer-insight analysis, ROI analysis and proprietary tools.   Clients include Ashley Furniture, Bush Brothers & Co., Check ‘n Go, Cincinnati Bell, Clopay Building Products, Humana, Long John Silver’s, Michaels Arts & Crafts Stores, 1-800-CONTACTS, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Stanley Steemer and U.S. Bank.

# # #

CONTACT

Mark Braff

Braff Communications LLC

201-612-0707

CINCINNATI, April 22, 2008—Empower MediaMarketing announced today that it has created a new proprietary tool to measure and analyze consumer-generated media on behalf of the agency’s clients. Called Empower ChatterWatch^SM, the tool monitors influential blogs and relevant discussion forums to uncover valuable consumer insights that Empower uses to develop creative ways to reach its clients’ customers.  

Empower ChatterWatch was developed through the collaboration of Empower’s research and digital teams under the direction of Julie Pahutski, senior vice president.   

Pahutski said, “There are more than 100 million blogs in the U.S. with approximately 50,000 new ones created daily—rich resources we’ve been working with our clients to leverage since the early days of consumer-generated media.” 

To create Empower ChatterWatch, Pahutski said Empower’s digital team leveraged its experience in online word-of-mouth, search, display advertising and online strategic initiatives, while Empower’s research team applied its expertise in both online and offline consumer market research. 

“Empower ChatterWatch represents an evolutionary step that turns our knowledge and insights on consumer-generated media into a proprietary tool that delivers even more strategic advantage to our clients,” Pahutski said. “The mining of consumer insights through their own words provides advantages over traditional survey research since we are not dealing with response rates and respondent resistance.” 

In fact, Pahutski added, when ChatterWatch is used in combination with classic market research techniques, “we see a much clearer picture of consumer sentiment, which in turn leads to enhanced communication planning for our clients.”

About Empower MediaMarketing

Empower MediaMarketing (www.empowermm.com) offers innovative, integrated media-marketing strategies that connect consumers with clients’ brands.  Services include media planning and buying, a full-service digital practice, media-marketing strategy and consulting, and a consumer research department whose offers include customer-insight analysis, ROI analysis and proprietary tools. Clients include Ashley Furniture, Bush Brothers & Co., Check ‘n Go, Cincinnati Bell, Clopay Building Products, Humana, Long John Silver’s, Michaels Arts & Crafts Stores, 1-800-CONTACTS, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Stanley Steemer and U.S. Bank.

# # #

CONTACT

Mark Braff

Braff Communications LLC

201-612-0707

mbarff@braffcommunications.com

Empower MediaMarketing employees Jim Price, Andy Wiggers, Mitch Dunn and Sneha Khanvilkar

Tap Project aims to get thousands a clean drink

AMBER SAMBLANET | CIN WEEKLY

When we get thirsty, we can easily fill a glass with water from the tap. We don’t have to worry that a small taste of cold, refreshing water on our parched tongues will lead to illness, or possibly even death. We never think of water as a luxury, but for hundreds of thousands of children around the world without access to clean water for drinking and sanitation, safe drinking water is all too hard to come by.

The Tap Project has found a way to make a difference and change that fact.

And it’s only a glass of water and a buck away.

BIG PROBLEM

The statistics are startling. According to UNICEF, more than 1 billion people are without access to clean water or adequate sanitation, and 20 percent of them are children. Lack of safe and clean water is the second largest worldwide killer of children under the age of 5.

While UNICEF has already helped more than 1.2 billion people gain access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation facilities since 1990, the organization wants to do more. With the help of cities such as Cincinnati and campaigns like the Tap Project, UNICEF hopes to contribute to the Millennium Development Goal for water and sanitation, which aims to cut in half the number of people still without access to safe water and basic sanitation by the year 2015. And now you can help.

TAP YOUR RESOURCES

UNICEF has implemented the Tap Project, a campaign to help support its water programs for children in more than 90 countries around the world. Through the project, restaurants charge $1 for a glass of usually free tap water and that money goes toward UNICEF’s programs. It’s as easy as shelling out a single George Washington to give children a fighting chance at survival in developing countries.

With each dollar donated, UNICEF can provide 40 liters of safe drinking water to children. That is enough water to serve one child for 40 days or to serve 40 children for one day. The fundraising campaign launched last year in New York City, with 300 restaurants getting involved to raise $100,000 in a single day. This year, 14 cities, including Cincinnati, are leading the project that now will last for an entire week to help raise awareness and money.

“(Empower MediaMarketing) actually proactively reached out to UNICEF,” says Mitch Dunn, vice president of client strategy for Empower, about how Cincinnati became a participating city. “We offered Empower’s services to bring the Tap Project to Cincinnati.”

WATER WORKS

After about three months of planning and organizing, the campaign began Sunday, March 16, and it culminates on World Water Day on Saturday, March 22. During the week, you can head out to any of the more than 60 restaurants involved and order your life-saving glass of tap water.

Tavern Restaurant Group’s deSha’s in Montgomery, The Polo Grille in Deerfield Township and Nicholson’s downtown are a few of the local places where you can support the Tap Project campaign.

“It’s a very worthy cause. It is a very simple, easy way for our guests to make a charitable contribution as well as us as a restaurant to be able to make a charitable contribution in a very easy way,” says Robin Breth, marketing director for Tavern Restaurant Group. “It was a very simple, easy way to pull a charitable contribution into our day-to-day operations.”

Helping UNICEF through the Tap Project couldn’t be easier - for restaurants or for you.

“I thought it was an unbelievably great idea, and it was so simple,” Dunn says.

GENEROSITY OF A CITY

The success of this year’s campaign will help Dunn and others determine goals for the project in upcoming years.

“We’re really going to use this year as a gauge for future years, because we view this as year one in a hopefully very long commitment by the city to participate,” Dunn says of expectations for the Tap Project in Cincinnati.

He and others believe Cincinnati will step up to the challenge just like New York City did in 2007.

“One of the things that Tavern (Restaurant Group) likes to do, especially since we have multiple restaurants within the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky market, is if there’s an opportunity where we have the ability on a multi-location level do something that is charitable or giving back to the community in some way, it always is a wonderful effort and something that we try to find opportunities to do,” Breth says.

And judging from the long list of restaurants involved with the Tap Project, that sentiment is shared by many other Cincinnati dining establishments.

Dunn feels the same way: “(This) is a great restaurant town, and I think Cincinnati is also a very generous town, and you put those two things together and it makes (the city) a perfect fit for something like (Tap Project).”