Posts

End of the Year Post- GPP’s 2012

/in /by

  As the year draws to a close, we see that either the Mayans were wrong, or somehow the modern interpretation was a bit off, but since you’re reading this, we’re going to assume that we’re all still here.

Looking back on this year, 2012, Green Product Placement’s first full year of business, we’re pretty   proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish. Before we start looking back to the beginning of the year to now, we’re going to bring you up to date on what we’ve been up to since we last posted in the GPP blog.

We did our drawing for the free tickets to the Film Biz Recycling “Lights, Camera, Auction” event.  Congrats to the winner, Ben!

Just before the event, Hurricane Sandy blew onto the east coast, flooding coastal towns, lower Manhattan, parts of Brooklyn like Red Hook and the Far Rockaways, and left many without power, including Beth of GPP. Days before their annual fundraising event, our friends at Film Biz Recycling became first responders, redistributing needed supplies donated by citizens and productions. Beth and Lisa did their own collection of donated goods from various departments on Netflix’s “House of Cards” (season 1 was just wrapping at the time) and from Lisa’s neighborhood of Mayfield, in Baltimore.

We managed to cram 2 hampers full of supplies in Beth’s Prius and drove it all up to Brooklyn, for FBR to redistribute, where needed. Check out this video we made of our trip up “the turnpike”:

Then, the next evening it was off to the big party! Check out Lisa and Beth looking tres glamorous in these photos (courtesy FBR ) and video (courtesy FBR and Canal Creatures) :

 

After that, it was back to Baltimore, where we wrapped up work on Season 1 of Netflix’s “House of Cards” and started work (and placements!) on Season 2 of HBO’s “Veep”. We also got some additional placement opportunities for a specific episode of “Blue Bloods”, “Walk of Shame”, a new comedy feature for Lakeshore Entertainment, starring Elizabeth Banks, along with placements for a specific episode of the very popular tv show, “Parenthood”.

We also are happy to announce that in addition to our office in New York at Green Spaces, we also now have a local office to work from in Baltimore. We’re in the vibrant and hip neighborhood of Hampden, full of restaurants, shops and small businesses. In fact, we’ve been told that the small businesses are close to 80% women owned! Add GPP to that list. :-)

To kick off our new office, we held a holiday open house the day of the Mayor’s Christmas parade, which marches right down “The Avenue” (aka 36th Street.) 36th Street featured prominently in John Waters’ cult classic “Pecker”.

View pictures from our open house here: Open House Holiday Office-Warming Party

 

The best thing, well one of the best things from that day was seeing a dog, in a fez, riding a magic carpet go-cart. In our minds, there’s not much cooler than that!

So, then, one more trip up to NYC to visit a few more production offices- new ones to bring sample swag bags to, and ones we’ve working with already, to spread a bit of Holiday Cheer, and now we’re wrapping up all of the end of year things any company needs to do, including sending out our Holiday E-Card.  

 

With that, we look back on all we’ve been able to accomplish this past year- from placing our brands in over 23 studio and independent films and network television programs, to meeting with and becoming connected with studio branded entertainment execs, to meeting so many new, cool, production people, getting some fabulous international press, speaking at FBR’s first annual production Eco-Expo, at Portland, Oregon’s Better Living Home Show, at Green Spaces, meeting uber cool green celebs Ed Begley, Jr. and Darryl Hannah, and bringing all of our wonderful brands into the Green Product Placement family.

We can’t wait for all of the placements to come in 2013, and to bring even more wonderful natural, green, sustainable, socially enterprising, and local entrepreneurial companies into our Green Product Placement family of brands and in front of the camera, building “good” brand awareness, where they belong!

Best wishes to all for a Happy, Joyous Holiday Season and for a Healthy, Prosperous New Year!

All our best,

Beth and Lisa
Green Product Placement

 

Green Product Placement Moving Right Along!

/in /by

The GPP “mobile” makes a brief stop in Gaffney, SC on its way to the production hub of the south, Atlanta.

Since we’ve last posted on this blog, we’ve been very busy!

We spent the latter part of the spring and so far this summer working as set dressers (as a start up, we’re keeping one foot in the production freelancers camp and the rest of us in Green Product Placement world- this keeps us connected to those that would place our products and get the word out about us AND helps us with our own personal expenses.) As our friend the leadman told us- “We’re the company that will not only place your products, we’ll literally place your products!”.  ;-)

In addition to the production work, we’ve also been growing our business, with an eager and happy heart. We’ve begun to have productions contact us on their own, including TNT’s “Leverage”,  Indies “The Go Getters” and “Goodbye World” (the latter starring uber green and hot Adrian Grenier who starred in “Entourage” and with a producer friend, started green lifetsyle site SHFT.com), a co-production for the BBC and HBO starring Oscar winner Hilary Swank and Oscar nominee Brenda Blethyn, “Mary and Martha”, and a new film for 20th Century Fox starring Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, together for the first time since “Wedding Crashers” crashed box ofice records.

It was placement in the latter that prompted a visit to new production capitol of the south, Atlanta. Lisa and Beth rented a Prius, packed it full of sample product gift bags and hit the road!

 

GPP sample product gift bags bound for the ATL!

 

We drove 1700 miles down to Atlanta, all around Atlanta visiting production offices, and back on $125 worth of gas!

( By the way, Beth of GPP needed a new used car, and upon her return, purchased a used Prius.)

Just before our GPP road trip, Beth gave her talk “Making Green Normal: Green Product Marketing in Mainstream Entertainment Media” at our lovely New York City co-working space, Green Spaces New York.

Our wonderful intern, Stephanie, put together this great video showing more excerpts from Beth’s talk (other excerpts available on the GPP blog post preceeding this one, here ).

 

Back in May, GPP was very honored to attend and be on the panel for Film Biz Recycling’s  Production Eco-Expo.

Check out this fabulous video, produced by fellow panel members, Canal Creatures, that highlights the event:

Film Biz Recycling Eco Expo 2012 from Canal Creatures on Vimeo.

 

Beth and Lisa of GPP and the panel of Film Biz Recycling’s production Eco-Expo. (photo courtesy Film Biz Recycling)

Film Biz Recycling is a non-profit Brookyn, NY based organization that diverts media waste from commercials, tv shows, movies and live events to appropriate charities. The best of the best ends up for sale or rent at their prop shop. We were joined by representatives from other sustainable production companies and organizations like Eco-Set Consulting,  Rock and Wrap it Up , Canal Creatures,  Sip N Go, Sunbeam Rentals, LeNoble Lumber, Soda Stream, Earth Angel Catering, Vokashi, and Susty Party Supplies. The event was sponsored by Lenoble Lumber and  Brooklyn Brewery and Green Product Placement was able to provide 2 raffle prize gift baskets filled with great GPP products AND plenty of Pirate Booty for all the guests, courtesy our clients, Pirate Brands.

GPP’s awesome raffle prize sample gift baskets

We’ve added some additional great press links, including an interview with Beth on Idea Mensch.com. Be sure to keep checking out our new press coverage on our Press Page, and all of our goings on found on our Facebook Page.

We’re gearing up for the late summer/early autumn production push (many films and as well episodic television series begin pre-production and then shooting around this time), and are excited about placing our brands in many, many more great shows!

GPP in NYC

/0 Comments/in /by

Beth and Lisa of Green Product Placement made our first steps toward setting up shop in New York City this past week.

We met with various production contacts, one of whom was the inspiration for starting GPP. (hint: read Beth’s bio in the “About Us” section of this website). We checked out Green Spaces, a wonderful co working space in Manhattan that acts as an incubator for entrepreneurial green companies. We even connected with a new client and a new potential client who operate out of the space!

We attended a lovely cocktail party there, where we ran into our new friend Alix, from Green America’s Green Festivals. Marissa, one of the visionary eco-preneurs who started Green Spaces was lovely, friendly and warm and we can’t wait to get to know her better!

We met with current and future clients and perused “made locally, buy local” shop by brooklyn. Brooklyn is a major hub in the “made locally, buy local” movement and we salute owner Maia’s efforts to showcase some of these fine local brands. We also paid a visit to the Film Biz Prop Shop run by the innovative and pioneering not-for-profit Film Biz Recycling.org, which recycles “waste” from film, tv and print shoots- typically items that aren’t “waste” after all, but would have been headed for a dumpster and landfill anyway. This way, these building materials and flats and furniture and props and set dressing can be reused on multiple shoots, saving money, time, resources and the environment. Green Product Placement tips our hats to the wonderful people at Film Biz!

It was an action packed few days…. and we did all this whilst orchestrating some pilot placements in a major network television program that will be debuting soon! (stay tuned- more on this later….)

Green Product Placement is off and running- please check back on our blog and Facebook page to keep track on our progress!