AdCast: Episode XIII

I suppose I didn't realize I should have been especially fearful of this month's episode - dreaded number thirteen. But really it wasn't bad at all. Remote show this time, from Tampa Bay Brewing Company (next door to Tampa Digital Studios' new offices in Ybor City). And to further mix things up, Jessica McDonald was out hang-gliding through the Amazon, opening up the coveted co-hostess spot for Ad 2's own Robin Adkins. And what a show it was...

• First, Cris Vatalaro and Mai Tran were on the show to catch us up on Ad 2 happenings. They discussed AdBash (which is coming up November 9, 6-10pm, and should totally rock, Hollywood-style) and the Student Media Tour (November 8, 9am-6pm – also likely to rock). For details on those events and everything else, you can always check out Ad 2's website at www.ad2tampabay.org

• Next up, Mike Compton was on the show with Susan Jacobs to announce this year's Ad 2 Tampa Bay public service client – a great cause called Wheels of Success. Great things to come on that front; Wheels' has an established identity, a sound plan, and a lot of potential for a great public service campaign for us. Anyone that's interested in helping out, toss Mike an email as soon as ya can. VIEW NOW

• Unfortunately the head honcho Larry Thompson couldn't make it out to the show to speak on the Sarasota Design Summit, but that didn't stop us. At the last second, we pulled a major community player, Mr. Peter Kageyama, President of Creative Tampa Bay and partner with Sextant Marketing. We had plenty to learn about the Design Summit, and honestly his talk changed my perspective on the whole thing. SDS is a new approach to the "design" conference, inviting people that aren't designers to find out why it's so important. VIEW NOW

• The next segment was a great learning experience for me, considering I didn't know what the Film Commission was until Lindsey Norris came onto the show to tell us about it. It's not really what I thought at all - these are the people responsible for the luring, caring, and feeding of any and all film production outfits visiting Tampa Bay. VIEW NOW

• It wasn't our first segment on advertising to the Hispanic community, and at the rate the population is growing, it won't be our last. This time we had a very tuned-in guest, live on the air with us. Pedro Perez has been working in the industry for 14 years, and came on to talk about his company Nuevo Advertising and how they reach out to such a diverse audience. VIEW NOW

• The Night of the Iguana. It just sounds fun. Sure enough, the details Melinda Dale revealed to us made it sound even moreso. This is a charity event for the Make-a-Wish Foundation, founded and firmly supported by Tampa's own Green Iguana restaurant, and it's going on November 16 from 7:30-11:30pm. VIEW NOW

• Was it all for the illiteration? The phrase "Hike for Hospice" is actually what they use to describe a pretty cool 5K race that supports Gulfside Regional Hospice, and special events coordinator Jennifer York was on to tell us all about it. VIEW NOW

• We wrapped things up with another edition of tbt* Rising Stars. I'm really glad we're doing this segment; it does what we always wanted to do with "Young Professional of the Month," but uses tbt*'s reach and resources to really pick out the best of the best. Then we get to have them on the show; keep an eye out for this being a really fun segment as this relationship moves on. This time we had Patrick Donlan of EdgeRock Technology Partners; great story there. VIEW NOW

And that's how we did it. Robin did a great job in her first attempt at hosting, especially considering she thought we'd have a teleprompter on the set (sorry Robin we're not all high-tech like that). The venue was quite honestly pretty tough to deal with as we were going along... I mean seriously, since when do so many people go to the bar on a Wednesday... but regardless, it all came out well. The clips look great, Tampa Digital Studios' team did great, and our sponsors are just generally great for the things they do for us (La Casa Dolce, tbt*, and TDS of course).

Let's do it again next month!
Make Good Choices.