RebelMouse: More Social in Growing Brands

RebelMouse is a social digital publishing platform that provides solution for individuals, media companies and brands to create vibrant contents that can build communities and can reach and grow audiences from different niches in the web.

Using an approach, completely different from conventional ones, that emphasizes management of content workflows, RebelMouse is more liberal with the way it delivers contents across websites, social media, ads and apps. RebelMouse tries to amplify the engagement by giving intelligent recommendations, real time trending alerts, and social calls to action. Among the major clients of RebelMouse are Viacom, United, T-Mobile and GE. To see an increasing traffic shares and sign ups with in just days after implementation has been a natural occurrence in these brands. Since its founding in 2012, RebelMouse has empowered more than half a million sites worldwide. RebelMouse did not escape the watchful eye of Fast Company and was listed among the Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Social Media and Advertising in 2014.

These days, Facebook and Twitter are no doubt the standard for social networks. Social tools for brands are quite unpredictable. RebelMouse stands as the platform that would integrate socials and brands. In conventional approaches, brands tell about their story piece by piece and chapter by chapter. With RebelMouse, all these chapters are put together into one complete story.

RebelMouse was founded by former Huffington Post CTO Paul Berry. Berry has described RebelMouse as the “frontpage to your life in the internet.” Essentially, RebelMouse is a platform that takes all contents brands have created on social networks in order to bring them together in one feed. The job and service looks simple. But RebelMouse is more than just simplicity. It is the next big social site for brands.

BBDO NY: Re-defining Work

BBDO NY is a world-renowned advertising agency based in New York City. It began as Batten Company in 1891. Batten Company merged with Barton, Durstine & Osborn (BDO) in 1928 creating BBDO. The Grunn Report cited BBDO as the “Most Awarded Agency Network in the World” six years in a row beginning in 2005. BBDO is also a five-time winner of the “Network of the Year” award at the Cannes Lion.

For more than a century, the motto “The Work The Work The Work” has been the company’s business philosophy. But early this year, BBDO has continued to deliver work as much as it as re-defined what “work” really means. After creating the “Fix in Six” Vine campaign for Lowe - a campaign offering DIY quick fixes in simple videos - Lowe has dominated the social media waves.

For the telecom giant AT&T, BBDO’s “It’s Not Complicated” campaign has proven that leaving improvs to young audiences can result to funny moments. The AT&T campaign also proved that BBDO’s partnership with filmmaker Werner Herzog will yield incredible range. The product was the 'From One Second to the Next', a documentary that revolved around anti-texting-and-driving which exposed the trivial nature of text messages that can cause catastrophic damages.

Deutsch Inc.: Creating New Waves in Advertising

Deutsch Inc. is a New York-based advertising agency. The company was incorporated in 1969 as David Deutsch Associates Inc. When the company’s founder David Deutsch relegated the company to his son Donny in 1989, the company was renamed as Deutsch Inc.

From its headquarters at 111 Eighth Avenue in the vicinity of Chelsea, New York, Deutsch is working with a team of distinguished agencies. Notable advertisements were produced by Deutsch NY including the “Football Cops” for DIRECTV, the Salma hayek-starred “The Breakfast Project” for a milk brand, the PNC Christmas Price Index, and the “Inside/Out” which Deutsch produced for Go Daddy.

The Los Angeles office, on the other hand, has opened in 1995. Deutsch LA created a revolution for car advertisement in 2003 following the success of the musical spots it created for Mitsubishi. The ad featured songs by Dirty Vegas and The Wiseguys. Deutsch LA did another advertisement for Volkswagen in 2009, as the company continued to create waves in car advertising. Deutsch LA’s campaigns for Volkswagen were award winning.

These past years have been very challenging for Deutsch as the agency moves from dormant creativity to a storied agency that has reached new creative strides, especially with the Super Bowl campaigns for Volkswagen. These accomplishments have been rewarded over the past decade. For ten times, Deutsch was named as Agency of the Year by the trade press. Deutsch was also featured in the Ad Age’s list of Best Places to Work for two years in a row. Deutsch is also a recipient of other awards including Cannes Lions, Effies, OneShow Pencils, Addys, Clios, Webbys and Emmy. For the company’s active involvement in community affairs, Deutsch the Inclusion Award for Community Partnerships by IPG, the Multicultural Talent in Advertising award by the AAF Mosaic Award, and the Live Out Loud Corporate Leadership Award.

Best of all, Deutsch is evolving into product development. Deutsch is producing mobile apps, which would eventually upgrade the agency’s position in the industry in the very near future.

Pereira & O’Dell: Using Social Media to Deliver the Unexpected

The social media has become a great tool to deliver an engaging advertisement but only a few ad agencies have learned to push its boundaries to translate the advertisements into revenues. One such ad agency is Pereira & O’Dell. After featuring Toshiba and Intel in the short film entitled, The Beauty Inside and winning three awards at the 2013 Grand Prix in Cannes, Pereira & O’Dell has earned the reputation as the ad agency that creatively integrates brands with storytelling and social participation.

Pereira & O’Dell is always adding another layer of unexpected things, like the one the agency did for Skype. Critics say the long-form ads were tear-jerking. Then Pereira & O’Dell also worked for Airbnb in which the agency created birdhouse-sized models of actual website listings.

Five years through the rise of Pereira & O’Dell to the top of the marketers’ circle, the company is still willing to take the risk of the culture of a startup. The growth trajectory of this San Francisco- based ad agency showed that it can perform alongside the more established ad agencies. In 2012 for instance, Pereira & O’Dell reported more than $20 million in revenues - a figure 40% more than its revenues in 2011.

Philips: Fifty Years of Innovative Research is Worth the Price

Royal Philips, or more commonly known as Philips, is an Amsterdam-based diversified technology company. Its diversity is well demonstrated through its segments: Lighting, Consumer Lifestyle and Healthcare. After the company was founded by Gerard Philips in 1891, Philips is now one of the world’s largest electronics companies. It has more than 122,000 employees in 60 countries.

Philips started in a factory building in Eindhoven. In this small factory, the father-and-son tandem of Frederik and Gerard started producing carbon-filament lamps and other electronic products. Four years into the business operations, Philips was on the brink of bankruptcy. Gerard’s younger brother  Anton was brought into the company. Anton worked as sales representative. But his background in engineering was more useful in making important business decisions. Anton’s arrival expanded the company rapidly and the Philipses could not avoid the founding of the Philips Metal Filament Lamp Factory Inc. in 1907 and the Philips Lightbulb Factories Inc. in 1912. Gerard and Anton laid down the solid foundation of the family’s business and set the course on the company into a multinational electronics company that it is today.

But the company’s biggest break in its 120-year lightbulb manufacture history came recently after more than 50 years of innovative explorations of LEDS. The company is leading the new revolution for a new generation of hyper-efficient LED lamps. After half a century of grueling research and study, Philip’s LED lamps are transforming not only homes but many industries such as healthcare, urban safety and agriculture.

The introduction of LED significantly reduced the consumption of electricity in the US by 50%. This figure translates to $250 billion per year. The scaling LED technology has dropped the retail prices of LED from $40 in 2010 to $10 this year. With a consumption of just 11 watts of power, the LED technology can produce light for at least 20 years.

This technology is not limited to energy efficiency alone. LED’s interactivity coupled with the Philips Hue system allow the users to adjust the colors emitted by the bulbs to meet certain purposes. The technology also allows remote access and control because the technology can be managed through the smartphone anywhere.

In a very effective fashion, Philips used its experience and expertise to produce what could be the most sustainable energy saving technology ever invented.

Nice Systems: Creating Smarter Apps

Nice Systems is an Israel-based customer-service solutions provider. Its services are used by more than 25,000 companies in 150 countries. Nice Systems is moving forward with the launching of Mobile Reach last year. Mobile Reach is a software that operates in the background of retail, banking, and other similar apps.

In its own research, Nice Systems found out that approximately 60% of smartphone transactions fail. Only 64% of these users call for help. The rest simply walk away frustrated. Nice Systems wants to lighten the burden of these frustrated smartphone users by extending help instead of just letting the users browse through their app menus trying to find the answer. Users save as much as 30 minutes of waiting time with Nice Systems apps.

Aside from banking and retail, Nice Systems apps is also used in transportation systems and city centers. These markets capture sensor data that need real time and quick resolution and management of issues. Nice Systems Director of Solutions Marketing Tamar Sharir said the company puts an end to lip service to customer service.

Timbuktu Labs: Creative Learning for Kids

Timbuktu Labs is a developer of educational apps for kids that facilitate creative learning. I allows kids to play games, view images of beautiful places around the world, and even read news. Timbuktu Labs believes that the imagination is a huge tool that would help the children discover the world. Founded in April 2012, Timbuktu Labs is a constituent of the startup accelerator 500 Startups. It has received a number of recognitions since then, including the Best Design award in the LAUNCH Education and Kids in 2012. In the same year, Timbuktu Labs was also nominated in the Best Italian Startup category. Apple has featured the company several times in the US Top 5 Education.

With excellent and seamless integration of storytelling and technology, Timbuktu Labs has created beautiful touchscreen products that are engaging to children, parents and teachers to promote mutual learning and discovery. Because of the growing opportunity that intersect between tablets and education, Timbuktu Labs believes that learning and discovery can be achieved by touching. So Timbuktu Labs created the first news magazine for kids accessible through the iPad.

Timbuktu Labs was founded by two Italian entrepreneurs, Francesca Cavallo and Elena Favilli. They were able to recognize the market and opportunity and explored the possibilities for Timbuktu Labs. From the beginning, their mission was to make Timbuktu Labs the next generation provider of educational publications using technology that would boost imagination in learning and discovery.

If things go well with Timbuktu Labs, Favilli said that they expect the company to produce more than 40 titles in six languages by the end of 2015. The Japanese market was explored in 2012 and is expected to grow in the next two years, and would also include versions for the Chinese. Fifty million people use tablets today, 10 million of which are children. In five years, there are about 50 million children using tablets. Cavallo believes Timbuktu Labs is just right on its track.

Harvest Power: Decisively Serious to Stop Food Wastes and Turning them into Something Very Useful

Every year, $180 billion worth of food is wasted in the US alone. Adding insult to injury is the fact that a huge chunk of that end up in landfills and emit greenhouse gases. This is what Harvest Power is trying to minimize. Harvest Power is turning food waste and garden wastes like dried leaves and trimmings into power. Using composting and anaerobic digestion, these wastes are transformed into fertilizer and renewable energy.

Harvest Power was founded in 2008. Today, it operates 40 power plants all across North America. These plants produce 65,000 megawatt hours of electricity. Harvest Power’s Vancouver digester alone is supplying electricity to 900 homes in the suburbs. On top of that, the plants also yield about 29 million bags of soil and fertilizer which are soil to landscapers and farmers. Last year, Harvest Power generate revenues of $130 million.

As the world faces the challenge of global warming, the trash-to-power model that Harvest Power implements is gaining traction. Because of the magnitude of support the company receives from many believers, Harvest Power is unyielding in reaching its goals of converting wastes in green energy that supplies electricity and biogas that can power vehicles.

Meat From Plants, Meat for the Future

The world deserves a better food and there is a better way to do it. This is what the food company Beyond Meat believes. Beyond Meat translates its simple mission by creating a mass market solution that favors plant protein over animal protein in a rather perfect way. Health would be a problem in the foreseeable future if nothing is done to improve it now. Beyond Meat recognizes the need and has committed to contribute to improved human health while creating a positive impact to climate change, preserving natural resources and respecting the welfare of animals. Beyond Meat believes that it can help create a better world beginning with one delicious and healthy meal at a time.

Beyond Meat founder and CEO Ethan Brown developed appreciation for nature as a boy. His father, who was a farmer and conservationist, instilled in him love for the natural world. Brown pursued a career in the clean energy sector. During this time, he was haunted by a nagging question. Why does the world raise and eat staggering quantities of animals every day when we can substitute them with plants?

Meat is a major source of trace carbohydrates, fats, amino acids, and minerals. With lots of water, meat can make for the resistance, chew and variations that meat eaters long for. But taking these inputs from plants combined with the right technology and the right procedure - heating, cooling and pressure - can produce the same resistance, chew and variations just like meat. Beyond Meat was able to produce meat from plants, which may be the meat for the future.

Along with his friend and business partner Brent Taylor, Brown founded Beyond Meat in 2009. Brown’s privately held company was funded by investors who share his vision and passion for an alternative way to get protein. Beyond Meat’s individual investors include Bill Gates of Microsoft, Biz Stone and Evan Williams of Twitter, and Seth Goldman of Humane Society of the United States. Beyond Meat has backing from investment companies that include Closed Loop Capital, Morgan Creek Capital and Kleiner-Perkins Caufield & Bayers.