Robert A. Flutie

Stalking Horse - You’ve heard the term before, and who would have ever imagined that we would be using the term in the context of the WGA strike and what is currently occurring in the entertainment business.

Simply so that we are all on the same page, the term Stalking Horse is defined as “someone or something whose role is to become the focal point for, or the initiator of, a debate or challenge. In reality, however, their leadership role may be an illusion, and the stalking horse is really working to promote a challenge or debate that will benefit a third party whose identity remains a secret.”

Given what we know, and have discussed, about the Advertising community and Advertising model (relative to the Broadcast world), the question that begs to be asked is “who benefits most by maintaining the status quo?”

Jay Leno, David Letterman and other high profile talk show hosts like them, have become a Stalking Horse, I believe, and have been played into the position of being a focal point so that efforts being made to achieve certain business advantages by one of the sides are not easily or readily revealed or discovered.

Yes, the battle between the WGA and the AMPTP is about compensation. Both sides have squared off on issues that are important to them. But I submit to you that there is also the probability that one, or maybe both, sides have also engaged in a behind the scenes covert campaign that ultimately will yield an outcome that is outside of the key issues of the strike.

Today’s headline in Daily Variety and plastered across the CNBC and other news outlets is the news about how Studio’s are ending many “first look” deals to trim costs. Yes this is a byproduct of the strike, but it can also can be the result of different plan.

Generally speaking, I am not a conspiracy theory person. That is not to imply that conspiracy’s do not exist. But as I look at the landscape of the entertainment industry and watch the days roll into weeks, and the weeks roll into months, I begin to wonder what forces are at work that are PREVENTING progress towards resolution.

Both the WGA and AMPTP have leadership and negotiating committees that are made of executives that negotiate billions of dollars of deals on any given year. They each represent the individual and collective interests of thousands of people. Some of these deals have tremendous intricacies and complexities and can make the most astute legal mind beg for mercy. Yet with all of the Ivy League and Thoroughbred gray matter involved we can’t seem to find a way to reach compromise and sound business ideas?

A recent news report suggests that the total sum of lost economic opportunity is now 3 times greater than the richest WGA - AMPTP deal. If this is true, then it would take the entertainment (and it’s supporting) industry half a decade (maybe longer) to recover from this strike.

In a climate where the health of our national economy is beginning to show signs of a runny nose and cough, the idea of a continued and protracted strike makes little sense. Unless of course, ” …this may be an illusion, and the stalking horse is really working to promote a challenge or debate that will benefit a third party whose identity remains a secret.”

* FLUTIE *

I am the President of Flutie Entertainment, a Talent Brand Management Company. Flutie Enertainment was founded in 1996 in New York City, New York and our offices in Los Angeles opened in 2001. Over the course of the decade plus years that we have been in business, we have established and been involved in the production of feature movies (The Event, Directed by Thom Fitzgerald), and TV programs (Hollywood Hold ‘Em, for E! Television).

My background in business began in 1986 after I graduated Mercer University. I was living in New York and became employed as an analyst for the Dime Savings Bank of New York. It was an exciting and rewarding time for me as I learned the inner workings of the banking community. I was recruited by Citicorp in the early 90’s and began the core part of my banking career in the asset backed division of Citicorp.

One of the turning points of my professional career began in 1990 when my brother Michael and my mother Victoria began a high end, high fashion women’s modeling agency - COMPANY MANAGEMENT. I had developed a desire to pursue a more creative path and made the decision to enter into NYU’s Film School. I also began to contribute my time and energy into helping at the agency. At first I thought that I would manage and split my time between helping out the business and administrative side of the agency while pursuing my degree NYU. In a short period of time I became involved in many aspects of the agency, including advertising and marketing. I found this work to be highly rewarding and satisfying. In a short period of time, I began to pursue the artistic, yet creative, side of the agency.

Over the next several years we began to expand and grow the agency. The business was healthy and we began to forge relationships and partnerships across the world. Strength in the foreign markets lead us to a strong network of professional affiliations that presented new opportunities. The natural and most logical steps of progress was to create a presence in these new territories. Over a period of four years, we had offices in NYC, Paris and Los Angeles. The Los Angeles office gave way to a new era as Hollywood and Madison Avenue began to merge interests. Supermodels where being replaced by celebrities on the covers of major fashion magazines like VOGUE, BAZAAR, ELLE, and ALLURE and the Hollywood elite producers and studio’s used that exposure to promote their TV and Feature Film projects. By that point, however, fashion models and their tremendous recognition and popularity (Cindy Crawford, Naomi Cambell, Jaime King, Linda Evangelista, Rachel Stewart, etc), began to draw the interest of Hollywood and therein became the definitive crystallization of models crossing over to the small and big screen. It was also the birth of what is now FLUTIE ENTERTAINMENT.

Most notable among our fashion clients is Jaime King. Jaime was discovered in Omaha Nebraska by Michael Flutie who was invited to be a participant on a review board for The Nancy Bounds School (http://www.thecityofomaha.com/nancy-bounds-studios/index.html). Her work in a short film called ” Four Faces of God, ” produced by then Los Angeles Laker Rick Fox, created instant recognition to the hip, cool and edgy vibe that Jaime possessed. Add to this mix the front page New York Times Magazine portrayal, entitled ” JAMES IS A GIRL ” of Jaime’s personality and the life that she left in Omaha Nebraska at the age of 13 and you had instant success. In a very short time, Jaime was cast in the world blockbuster hit “Pearl Harbor” (produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Michael Bay), “Happy Campers” (produced by Denise Denovi and directed by Daniel Waters), “Bullet Proof Monk” (produced by Chuck Roven and directed by Paul Hunter) “Sin City” (produced by Bob and Harvey Weinstein and directed by Robert Rodriquez), many more. Jaime’s greatest”Talent Branding” success was through a Revlon Cosmetics campaign ( http://www.revlon.com/ ). By being a key part of the Revlon campaign, Jaime’s brand awareness skyrocketed.

Although our introduction and foray into TV and FILM came by way of an introduction through the modeling world, the overwhelming support and positive response from the Hollywood community quickly gave way to FLUTIE ENTERTAINMENT becoming a premier first class management firm. Our  Management Team (Paul M. Brown, Amy Slomovits, Brady McKay and Ben Bitoni) work hand in hand with our clients, which includes the highly talented and gifted Laura Prepon (That 70’s Show and October Road), Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Sin City, I’m Reed Fish), Kaitlin Olsen (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Curb Your Enthusiasm), Sunny Mabrey (Snakes on a Plane, xXx: State of the Union), Jose Pablo Cantillo (Standoff, Crank, ER, Law & Order SVU, Disturbia), Aaron Himelstein ( The Informers, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, Fast Food Nation, Joan of Arcadia, House M.D., Austin Powers: Goldmember), Tommy Dewey (The Mountain, Grey’s Anatomy, I’m Reed Fish), Noel Fisher (The Riches, After Sex, Standoff, Huff, Two and Half Men), Greg Pitts (The Office, Sons & Daughters, Bickford Shmecler’s Cool Ideas, Grey’s Anatomy), Ray Wise (Reaper, Good Night Good Luck, “24″ ), Hayes MacArther ( Lower Learning, How I Met Your Mother, The Game Plan, Home Erectus) and many other highly respected and gifted clients.

As our business headed towards new and fun directions, there began to occur a shift in the media and advertising space. It has become increasingly challenging for advertisers to create and capture an effective ad campaign. Viewers speed through their recorded programs skipping the commercials. Now we watch “short form” content on the internet (YouTube, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace), or catch up on their favorite NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, or CW programs by turning on their laptop or desktop. I’ve enjoyed my favorite comedy (30 Rock with Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin), while sitting in my bed with my Bose Noise canceling headphones!*This has led to the growing and exciting stage of FLUTIE ENTERTAINMENT in the “Talent Brand Management” business. We now manage the professional careers of Ellie Krieger (Food Network), Carter Oosterhouse (HGTV), Mary Alice Stephenson (Vh1), Rainbeau Mars (MTV) and others. Our firm creates a media strategy to identify and launch our clients so that they can develop into a consumer brand. This strategy includes Broadcast, Broadband and Print platforms.

As we continue to forge into the new frontier of this convergence of media, we have set a goal to bring all of the resources that we’ve established in the 12 plus years of FLUTIE ENTERTAINMENT’S history to redefine the advertising, marketing and consumer landscape.

* FLUTIE *

Five years ago the words “Talent” “Brand” and “Management” were not widely circulated in the entertainment community, let alone used in conjunction with, or as a string together. The change that was beginning to take place in broadcast media advertising began to take place thanks, in large part, to advances in technology and the increasing popularity of TIVO like devices.

The turning point in how advertisers began to approach media opportunities really began to proliferate when a little show called “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” http://www.bravotv.com/Queer_Eye/ aired on BRAVO http://www.bravotv.com/. When America met the “Fab Five” there began a love that began to introduce and shape new ideas on how to marry commercial opportunities with corporate partners in a manner that crystalized the defining moment of what is now known as “Talent Brand Management.”

When our firm introduced Thom Filicia www.thomfilicia.com and Pier 1 http://www.pier1.com/ through the ad agency Cambell-Ewald http://www.campbell-ewald.com/ the intention and purpose of bringing the Thom Filicia brand to Pier 1 was to create and elevate Filicia’s Brand Exposure and to define his Brand Identity. It was a monumental moment in the ” Lifestyle / Expert ” branding space because it took the marketing, advertising and public relations machine that Pier 1 had in place and extended it to the Filicia Brand.

Although many might dispute the time and date of the birthing of “Talent Brand Management ,” one does not have to look far to see that this process and concept had been marinating for many years as the brainchild of Michael Flutie www.michaelflutie.com. Michael had spent the better part of the past decade working with major consumer brands in fashion, beauty and fragrances and had forged the creative essence of turning celebrities and high profile individuals into identifiable Brands. And so the work began…

As time began to progress we began to see a very distinct and progressive mind set from the likes of advertisers and marketers. Conventional TV ads were not proving to be cost effective, relative to the cost required to generate new business, and a new breed of Chief Marketing Officers were beginning to emerge at companies like Designer Shoe Warehouse https://www.dswshoes.com/home.jsp , L’Oreal; http://www.loreal.com/dispatch.aspx, American Eagle www.ae.com, and Kraft www.kraft.com. The new thinking by these CMO’s was to connect with the pulse of the consumer by creating organic advertisements that were an extension of an expert that spoke to their brands key demographic.

At Flutie Entertainment ( www.flutieent.com ) our philosophy and approach began to become fine tuned. Building on ten plus years of experience, relationships and a vast network in the advertising, marketing and public relations community Flutie Entertainment took an industry lead as the Talent Brand Management firm in the entertainment industry. The most recent progression in this space is the merging of commercial mainstream partnerships into the Broadcast, Print and Broadband Media. This allows for a platform to be built for the Lifestyle and Expert persona to launch the identity and message of the brand. Currently our firm works with many high profile Lifestyle / Expert Brands.

The following is an example of the how Flutie aggregated various opportunities to support the growth of the brand and to lead the brand into consumer product opportunities.

Carter Oosterhouse  (www.carteroosterhouse.com)  host of Carter Can ( http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/shows_hccan)  is the spokespersonand face of Nautica’s top selling mens fragrence, VOYAGE ( http://www.nauticafragrance.com/products/voyage.aspx ).

Ellie Krieger www.elliekrieger.com host of Food Network’s “Healthy Appetite with Ellie Krieger www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_ek/text/0,2763,FOOD_25716_44765,00.html, author of Taunton Press’s new publication “Foods You Crave” www.amazon.com/Food-You-Crave-Luscious-Recipes/dp/1600850219  consultant and expert advisor to Nutritioniste http://www.garniernutritioniste.com/en/ and online content provider to Waterfront Media’s http://www.waterfrontmedia.com/index.aspx new interactive healthy living site, www.healthylivingwithellie.com.

Rainbeau Mars www.rainbeaumars.com Global Ambassador to Adidas www.adidas.com and Yoga Expert.

Sabrina Soto www.sabrinasoto.com host of HGTV’s “Get It Sold” http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/shows_hsold/

Mary Alice Stephenson host of Vh1’s www.vh1.com hit show “America’s Most Smartest Model http://www.vh1.com/shows/dyn/americas_most_smartest_model/series.jhtml  and spokesperson for both Intel  http://www.intel.com/  and The Make a Wish Foundation http://www.wish.org/ 

Kyan Douglas, personal grooming expert - http://www.bravotv.com/Queer_Eye/bios

The common ground on all of the above named experts is, as I stated at the start of my blog, the Expert’s ability to increase their value in the market place through strategic and complimentary relationships with major consumer brands. A process that is an innovation of the the Flutie organization one one that we have has  accomplished through the marriage of Madison Avenue to Hollywood!

* FLUTIE *

Welcome to the Robert A. Flutie Blog! I am happy that you have taken a moment to come to be a part of an exchange of ideas. I’ll be sharing a little about me and what I do in this blog, so look for the “About Me” title! I look forward to hearing from you.