We feel like we've given birth in 2008! And what a giant baby it is!
As we rolled into the New Year last year, we had around 1,600 creators in our fledgling XLNTads family. Today, we have 7,700+ in the extended XLNTads / Poptent family.
Our first major campaign for a national brand closed out 2007. It was the Nestle's 100 Grand Bar campaign. 2008 had us doing assignments on Slim*Fast, Bud Light, Net 10 (a Tracfone product), New Line Cinema for Harold & Kumar, ProQuo, three campaigns for Brand Affinity Technologies; Natural Light and two Designated Driver campaigns for Anheuser-Busch. Whew!
In addition to client assignments, XLNTads and four talented creators developed webisodes for our Searching for Love series and our Road Trip series. These five part programs are currently being shopped around to leading advertising agencies and brands in the XLNTads network.
To accommodate our growing internal family, we moved into our Global World Headquarters outside of Philadelphia in April, and have been loving our private building, just steps away from the trains to downtown.
Along the way we recognized a need to bring more creative tools and opportunities to our ever growing family of videographers, so we created Poptent. We launched this all new creator site in October, and have been basking in the accolades ever since.
2008 also marked the point where we have exceeded $200,000 in payments to our creators for their work on assignments for our clients. Two of our best creators have already exceeded $10,000 in total payments for their work on XLNTads assignments.
So what's in-store for 2009? More of the same. Much more, in fact.
On the client front, we will soon launch an assignment for Callaway Golf, and Universal Theme Parks is scheduled for January as well. Our friends at Annheuser-Busch have two more programs they'd like us to tackle, and Nestle is ready to roll with at least one, if not more in the first half of the year. Currently, we are looking for commercials to promote Poptent itself.
Our successes have been reported in TechCrunch, Mashable and MediaPost, as well as ongoing coverage in Advertising Age and numerous other trade publications.
And finally, in January of 2009, we plan on launching XLNTads Direct, a "do-it-yourself" version of XLNTAds which will allow small to mid-size brands the opportunity to launch and manage assignments all by themselves at a very attractive price.
It's been one heckuva year, and 2009 is looking like it could be even better, despite the economic troubles we've all been feeling. One thing remains certain, brands and advertisers are going to need creative to deliver their messages, and we can do it better, with a real, authentic feel, moreso than any other solution for the money.
So thanks to all you videographers, part of our growing Poptent family, for all your contributions. Keep the great work coming in; tell all your colleagues and friends about us; use the great tools our tech team has developed to help you collaborate. We promise to keep working to provide you with the best opportunities to build your craft and give your work the commercial exposure it deserves.
Here's to a great 2009 for our whole community!
Thanks for reading,
Neil Perry
http://www.xlntads.com/blog