Not long ago, teasers and trailers were only used to promote upcoming films and TV shows. But today they’re used to hawk everything from video games to computers to T-shirts.
That shift has meant a booming business for Hollywood entertainment marketing firm Trailer Park, which, like other local entertainment-focused agencies, has seen its list of clients swell to include more than just movie studios.
The company jumped to No. 2 on this year’s list of the largest ad agencies in Los Angeles County after swelling its ranks by more than 130 employees over the past year. (See page 20.) The Hollywood Boulevard firm now employs 560, up 33 percent from a year ago, making it the fastest-growing agency on the list.
Rick Eiserman, chief executive of Trailer Park, said business has been rolling in over the past several years as more types of companies gravitate toward advertising that looks more like entertainment.
“Consumer brands stepped into the world of content in a major way,” Eiserman said. “Rather than focusing so much of their dollars on advertising, they needed to create content that consumers would actually seek out and be attracted to, and that transformed our business pretty significantly.”
Trailer Park got its start making – as the name implies – trailers that promote soon-to-be-released feature films, but Eiserman said the company now produces, markets and distributes all kinds of content for a wide array of clients, from carmaker Audi to computer-chip maker Advanced Micro Devices and publisher Chronicle Books.
Though it’s the largest, Trailer Park isn’t the only local agency cashing in on consumer brands’ interest in more entertainment-oriented advertising.
Dan Pappalardo, founder and chief executive of ad agency Troika in Los Angeles, said his agency has also seen a jump in the number of nonentertainment brands looking to do more than just create TV ads. Now, instead of trying to push out a message to consumers, advertisers want to lure customers in with exclusive videos and other content that they seek out themselves, such as on YouTube.
“Traditionally, we service entertainment media companies,” Pappalardo said. “Now, we service brands who want to be like entertainment media companies. So, we work with Red Bull and Amazon, which are in a different business but they’re competing with entertainment media brands.”
First look
Trailer Park was co-founded by Benedict Coulter and Tim Nett in 1994 as a movie trailer-editing company. The company still makes trailers for movies and TV shows, but now its roster of clients also includes electronics maker Toshiba Corp. and athletic apparel company Under Armour Inc. Consumer brands account for about 40 percent of its clients, with entertainment companies making up the other 60 percent, Eiserman said.
Trailer Park works on as many as 600 different projects at a time, with budgets that can range from $100,000 to $7 million, he said.
With so many projects in the works, the agency continues to add employees. In the two weeks since reporting its staff size to the Business Journal, it hired 15 additional people and now has 575 employees.
Trailer Park operates out of the former TV Guide headquarters in Hollywood, located across the street from the iconic TLC Chinese Theatre. Two months ago, it leased an additional floor to make room for its growing staff and now occupies six of the building’s 12 stories.
The firm’s staff is so large because it does everything in-house. About half its employees are devoted to production, an oddity among ad agencies, most of which will take on some production work but partner with a studio.
As more ad agencies tout their ability to produce content, Eiserman said Trailer Park’s in-house skills give it a competitive advantage.
The company’s history in the movie business has also helped it bring in clients who have created their own content but don’t know how to use it to market themselves.
For example, client Intel Corp. is a founding partner of educational nonprofit Girl Rising, which created a film – also called “Girl Rising” – about nine girls from developing countries who each overcame obstacles to get an education. Intel wanted help in marketing the film and turned to Trailer Park to launch the film online and create additional educational content that tied in with the film.
That’s similar to the work Trailer Park did for Warner Bros.’ “Hobbit” film trilogy in partnership with Hollywood production company Pellerin Multimedia Inc. The company did everything from making the first theatrical teaser to producing documentary specials around the films.
Hand-holding
Kevin Aratari, head of business development at Troika, said the rise of consumers going online has led to the melding of traditional advertising and technology. Consumers are no longer impressed by traditional ads, so brands and even entertainment companies are trying to get savvier.
“Viewers have the choice to not pay attention to something,” Aratari said. “So, marketers are having to find ways to engage them with a whole different model.”
Big companies such as Intel are leading that charge, but even smaller companies are starting to move in that direction. Last year, L.A. clothing brand Wren created its own viral hit with a three-and-a-half-minute video allegedly showing 10 pairs of strangers kissing for the first time.
The short online video had about 42 million views on YouTube and an additional 1.5 million views on Vimeo the week it was posted. The film wasn’t an advertisement as such, but it was a subtle promotion of the brand’s latest collection: The subjects were all modeling Wren clothing and the video starts with the simple message “Wren presents.”
Coming up with that kind of viral hit, especially on a recurring basis, is a big challenge, Aratari said, but one brands have to embrace in a new age of entertainment marketing.
“To produce a 30-second spot once every six months is a whole different ballgame than continually pumping out content that is authentic and relates to the consumer,” he said. “You really have to know who you are and have a well-defined brand.”
As an example, Pappalardo pointed to energy drink maker Red Bull, which has invested millions in creating its own magazine, sponsoring athletes and collaborating on films.
As more brands look to create content that is shared through social media and watched millions of times, Eiserman thinks his firm is in a unique position to pick up that business. Entertainment as advertising might be new to some brands, but not to Trailer Park.
“We grew up in the entertainment business,” he said. “That’s the business we’ve always been in. We’re not trying to re-engineer to meet the needs of the marketplace. We’re in that rare place as a company where it feels like the market is coming to us.”
