We’re just going to say it: We have a brilliant entertainment marketing team here at Bridgenxt (formerly DEFINITION 6). And we want you to meet a few of the team members who make up this award-winning crew. So, we talked five amazing Bridgenext’ers into sitting down with us to answer a handful of our hard-hitting questions.
On the mic:
Jasmine Ginyard—Line Producer
Crystal Hall—SVP, Creative Director
Noah Lerner—VP, Creative Director
Nick Lucin—SVP, Executive Producer
Rich Rosario—Creative Director
Bridgenext is all about data and creative; art and science, if you will. Do you consider yourself left- or right-brained?
Crystal: I like to think I deploy both left- and right-brain thinking when approaching a project. The heart of what we do is to find better, more effective ways to communicate something to a particular someone. To do that well, we have to dig into all that right-brain stuff like research and strategy. Only then do we unleash the magic of the left brain to play in that sandbox. Guardrails and limits are the sparks of creativity.
Noah: I’ve always considered myself to be more of a right-brained type of chap. I’m more interested in looking at the view from 30,000 feet and thinking about the clouds than I am about getting granular with my checkbook and balancing a budget. But the older I get, the more I procrastinate and attempt to do left-brained things instead of taking a lot of time coming up with ideas.
Rich: I’ve always felt like I use both sides of my brain equally, but in different ways. My impulses are right-brained, my compulsions are left-brained. I enjoy creative work more than anything. I love coming up with clever and unique ideas while brainstorming in a group environment. However, when I see a messy project, a lack of process, or things that don’t align when they should—my compulsion is to fix it! That’s when the left brain kicks in. Thankfully, in this industry, flip-flopping is encouraged!
Humblebrag—we’ll allow it! What Bridgenext project are you most proud of?
Rich: We recently produced, designed and launched the look for two new channels: GAC Family and GAC Living. We created everything from logo design and brand colors to on-air packaging, websites and network promos. This kind of project would normally take six months to a year, if not longer. We were able to pull it all off in under three months. It was a massive undertaking that was quite the feat to pull off.
Jasmine: We’ve been able to produce multiple promotional photography and video shoots for various TLC shows throughout the pandemic. As one can imagine, the pandemic introduced new issues to the production process, like mandatory testing, spatial awareness—even the way food was distributed on set—but we remained agile and organized, and have been able to grow our relationship with our TLC client thanks to the success of each project.
Crystal: There have been so many great projects over the last six months, but I am partial to a current project that has allowed us to develop a key art campaign that includes out-of-home tactics such as billboards.
Tell us about a campaign or project you just can’t get out of your head.
Crystal: I just saw a spot celebrating Netflix’s “Prop Drop” and think that it’s completely brilliant! It is the most perfect blend of building product awareness and building fandom that I can remember ever seeing from an entertainment company.
Rich: I absolutely love, and can’t stop watching, Progressive’s “Dr. Rick, Parenta-Life Coach” campaign. Every time the ads pop up, I drop what I’m doing and watch, even if I’ve seen them before. They’re so clever yet so simple. There’s nothing more relatable than parental issues and the way most of us subsequently become more like our parents as we age. It’s genius and laugh-out-loud funny.
What’s the best (but definitely not basic) career advice you ever received?
Nick: “You’ll never make it.” That one line is enough to turn most people away from even attempting to accomplish their goals or realize their dreams. Personally, I viewed that line as a challenge—for myself—to accomplish all I set out to do in my life. Sure, I have failed at things, and will probably fail at more things moving forward. However, through my failures I found opportunities to learn and grow so that I could eventually succeed. The reality is, you’ll never make it if you don’t try.
Noah: About 20 years ago, I was involved in a tough campaign and was getting tons of revisions. I remember crafting a long email to a couple of the executives at HBO explaining why I was cutting a piece a particular way and not the way that they would like it to be edited. I sent this email to everyone involved in the project. My boss at the time, Nina Warren (a total legend), called me about 45 seconds after I hit “send” and said, “Listen kid, you actually made a couple of good points here. But don’t ever send an email like this again. Next time, pick up the phone and call me, and we’ll talk about it.” This is all to say, I try never to send anything even remotely negative in email form. If need be, I’ll call someone and just rant on the phone. So. Much. Healthier.
Jasmine: Treat everyone you work with with the same level of respect, from the interns to the C-suite. I learned that while interning at a local radio station during college and throughout my career have seen multiple examples of why that rings true. Career paths aren’t a straight line, and you never know who will end up where and when.
Time to break out the . What’s next in entertainment marketing?
Crystal: Consumers are in the driver’s seat, and in the next few years they will experience a new golden age of creativity. Marketers will be relying on great creative—rather than an algorithm—to capture their audience’s attention. Let’s go!
Noah: I have no idea, to be totally honest. I remember one of my buddies told me 15 years ago to “get into digital” since he knew I was in film/TV. I still don’t quite understand what he meant. But I guess that meant I should have invented streaming or something like that. I missed that boat. I’ll say that all advertising is going to be a bit more transparent in the future, as humans are getting a little tired of being sold things, I think. But I’ve gotta go because I just saw a cool pair of sunglasses pop up in my Facebook feed, and they are only on sale for four more minutes!
Bridgenext is an award-winning customer experience agency that has combined strategy, craft, and storytelling for more than 20 years. Based in Atlanta and New York City, with a satellite office in San Francisco, Bridgenext brings a big agency perspective in a small agency package. The agency is behind award-winning campaigns for leading companies including CBS Sports, Nickelodeon, Barnes & Noble College, and Syfy.
