The Barbarian Group Homepage

IWNY x TBG

Lexi Peters — Mon, 14 May 2012 16:33:01 -0400

Hi Everyone,

It’s Internet Week. As always, Barbarians are participating in some excellent sessions. Check below for details and come see us!

Tomorrow, our wonderful Director of Talent, Michele Prota, along with Foursquare’s Andrew Cerda and JIBE’s Joe Essenfeld, will be participating in a 4pm workshop on how to secure a job in the land of Internet companies.

Tues 5/15, 4pm: Hiring 2.0: How to Land a Web Gig

So you want a job at a cool internet gig. How do you make it happen? Come learn from top execs at some of the coolest internet companies in New York, and learn what it takes to break through the crowd to land a sweet gig. From ways to jazz up your resumes to how to conduct a solid interview and more, this workshop has you covered.

Michele will be available to answer questions directly following the session, so stop by and say hi, we’d love to see you!

On Wednesday, Kristin Maverick (TBG Director, Earned Media, will be sitting on a fun panel with Todd Sawicki (Cheezeburger Network) and Rey Peralta, from Mother:

Wed 5/16, 1pm: It Ended up on TV: Memes and their Transition to Advertising

Social networks drive innovation in most fields, but in the age of YouTube and creativity—the Internet is a breeding ground for advertising content that sticks with its demographic. In conjunction with efficient audience and display targeting, the web acts as foundation and test ground for successful campaigns, execution, and results.

Internet Week sessions are hosted at IWNY HQ, 82 Mercer St (btwn Spring and Broome). Full schedule here, and you can purchase passes here.

Hope to see you there!

Pepsi NEXT's Internet Taste Test, The Aftermath

James Murphy — Tue, 01 May 2012 18:03:54 -0400

As we’re sure you can guess – the team has been pretty busy over the past few weeks flying out to LA, working with editors and Funny or Die to complete our latest project: Pepsi NEXT’s Internet Taste Test.

Between three shoots out in LA, endless hours editing and uploading, the team pulled together over 480 videos of our Funny or Die improv actors trying out Pepsi Next for readers like you.

We’re all finally back to normal, caught up on sleep and looking back as to how awesome this really was. We thought it’d be fun to share with you some of the results as well as some pictures and fun facts about the campaign we really loved. Enjoy!!

480: Total videos shot
160: Average number of videos shot over 3 days
4: Sound stages used at one time
237: Wigs and props used to create the characters
3 1/2: Bearded Creative Directors from TBG (We’re counting Benjamin as he was traveling)
20: Improvisors on set each day being hilarious
1500: Approximate number of Pepsi NEXT cans opened on set
1,500,000: Current views of the Rob Riggle Funny or Die video – an impressive statistic as branded content similar to this has never performed this well, earning “Immortal” status.
1: Dark Samurai caught on camera
11: Improv actors filmed without their shirts on
Top media placements who wrote about us: Mashable, ClickZ, Brandchannel, Adweek, Adrants and Huffington Post
Top influencers joined the campaign early on: Greg Clayman from The Daily, Jonah Peretti from BuzzFeed, Funny or Die CEO Dick Glover, Webby Awards President David-Michel Davies and popular entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk
Ranked among the top 10 sassiest brands in social by Mashable

Now on with our favorites:

Social Media Hot Sheet - Week of 4/30

Earned Media — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:07:40 -0400

Politics, social seating, and cloud storage fill the pages of this week's Social Media Hot Sheet, brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Earned Media team. Let us know what you think in the comments.

The Perks of Klout’s New Brand Squads

KLM's Facebook Friendly Skies

Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA)

Google Drive: Triumph or Threat?

Pepsi NEXT Launches the World's First Internet Taste Test

Jay Zasa — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:31:32 -0400

We’re super excited to announce today the launch of a project we’ve been working on with Pepsi’s newest product: Pepsi NEXT, a cola with real cola taste and 60% less sugar.

Everyone should head over to Facebook.com/PepsiNEXT to participate in the world’s first Internet Taste Test proving the product premise, “Drink It To Believe It.” By clicking through you are entered for the chance for noted LA improv actors do their best impression of you trying Pepsi NEXT for the first time, using information from your Facebook profile.

The Barbarian Group, in partnership with our friends over at Funny or Die, produced the real-time campaign that features Rob Riggle, with humorous (and sanctioned) impressions of notable pop culture figures like Internet mogul Gary Vaynerchuk, BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti and a favorite internet meme here at TBG, Scumbag Steve.

The team here is so excited about this launch as it’s an example of how a big digital creative concept, rooted in social media, can launch a new brand to the masses. It’s a highly ambitious idea that, at its core, depends on spontaneous, on-set invention and large-scale video production in near real time.

We’re excited that Pepsi NEXT came on this wild ride with us.

It’s Gonna Be Awesome.