I'm gonna see how long it takes 1) to get on google's page one with tonybertone.com and 2) how long it takes to get a meeting with Tony, PUMA's global brand director. Will keep you posted. Tony! Call me. 617 823 9286. Text from vid posts:
Dear Tony: We request a meeting to discuss PUMA and social media outreach, aka the new PR. We've got your attention, and we can do the same for PUMA's fans. Make your existing programs more effective without changing how you operate. Talk to you soon-- Owen. Here are vids on YouTube, Yahoo, MySpace, Metacafe, Google, DailyMotion and Veoh.

Update: It took exactly one hour to get my Viddler video onto google's #2 front page slot for a "Tony Bertone" search. The video was viewed once. By me. Amazing. See screenshot below.



UPDATE 7/14/08: Here's a screenshot this morning of a "tony bertone" search. You'll notice that tonybertone.com is now the #1 slot, in fact I pretty much own the page. Nice. Now all I need is the meeting.

Posted by Owen on 11 Jul 2008 | Permalink | Comments

Part playing with Veeker, part introducing Schlitzuation.com. Love Schlitz? Check it out.

Posted by Owen on 18 Jan 2008 | Permalink | Comments

Gonzo Imperial Porter comes off the bottling line from Josh Mishell on Vimeo. Looks pretty good don't it? But it looks better on the Vimeo site... especially if you toggle fullscreen. Hey Vimeo! Why don't your embeds look as good as the video on your site?

Posted by Owen on 20 Dec 2007 | Permalink | Comments

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Posted by Owen on 22 Aug 2007 | Permalink | Comments

The competition. Check it out.

Posted by Owen on 11 Aug 2007 | Permalink | Comments

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Posted by Owen on 21 Jun 2007 | Permalink | Comments

Jesse and I are heading out to Flying Dog land tomorrow to continue our brewery series. We'll be getting out of Denver for a visit to Gonzo ground zero: Woody Creek Colorado. We'll be getting the Flying Dog story from founders George Stranahan and Richard McIntyre and otherwise trying to capture the essence of what makes Woody Creek and Flying Dog so special. The image above is from George's photoblog; here's his descriptive text:

The Wagoneer

One lady friend left her Wagoneer behind Hunter’s house; perhaps thinking it would be there when she returned, perhaps thinking she would come and take it away some day. The Wagoneer stayed through more than a winter, and one day Hunter called me and barked, “Bring down some dynamite, a lot of it.”

Well, I did that, and we sat in his kitchen drinking whiskey as he described his need to eliminate the Wagoneer from his view and from his memory; there were fist poundings and many loud “Goddammits,” and more whiskey.

After a while it became time to act; there’s some discrimination required when mixing whiskey and dynamite. Hunter hauled up a 25 lb canister of gunpowder from the war room and we went to work. 7 sticks of dynamite were placed head to toe from mid-engine back to the firewall, the gunpowder placed in the drivers seat. My fuse burns roughly 10 seconds per inch, I jammed 18 inches into the blasting cap and crimped it with my teeth.

My rule is “walk, don’t run,” and I made it down to the picnic table with about a minute of fuse left. I don’t look at my watch, the vagaries of fuse chemistry ensure that the explosion will always come as a complete surprise, which it did.

We were barely 100 yards from the blast and the shock wave knocked the wind out of our lungs yet we “Yheehaaaed!” hugged and clapped each other on our backs. When haying that fall I found a fender that had sailed over our heads and a further 300 yards, almost to Woody Creek.

Posted by Owen on 14 Jun 2007 | Permalink | Comments

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Posted by Owen on 17 May 2007 | Permalink | Comments

Flying Dog President Eric Warner appeared on Denver's CBS4 news program to discuss beer alcohol by volume. Is Guinness stronger than Bud Light? Nope.

"The strength in beer comes from how much grain you put in, not the color of the grain," Warner said. "Alcohol actually has, contributes a flavor and a lot of times what you're doing in the brewing process to create more alcohol, you're going to get more flavor out of it as well."

Warner said there seems to be demand for higher alcohol beers right now and his company is responding with some heavyweights.

Posted by Owen on 17 May 2007 | Permalink | Comments

This video is pure experiment. How many hits will it get on YouTube (and how quickly) by having a picture of a woman as the thumbnail image and the word "ass" in the title? So far in one day it's surpassed the video I put up 2 weeks ago...

Description: Flashback to 2/07. Flying Dog Brewery winnebago ride down the mountain into Steamboat Springs, CO. Danada gets out at the top of the pass in a blizzard to take a leak. Rippe gets us lost, walks into the wrong house. Impromptu party in the driveway, beer and cigarettes. But wait! Whose naked ass is that hanging out of the hot tub?

Posted by Owen on 16 May 2007 | Permalink | Comments

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The brewhouse, the bottling line, shipping, and more.

Posted by Owen on 15 Feb 2007 | Permalink | Comments

Flying Dog's Chris Rippe on the drinking game soon to sweep the nation...Forget beer pong, now it's all about Slap or Drink. We were doing the rough edit on this when the Bud Lite Superbowl slaps ad played (see below). Hmmm... Is slapping the new beer meme?

Posted by Owen on 8 Feb 2007 | Permalink | Comments

I made a flag for the Flying Dog mission, and we attempted to fly it at Steamboat. It was too long and got all tangly, plus the conditions were not optimal. Oh well, there's always attempt 2...

We're now back in Boston with nearly 30 hours of Flying Dog Brewery footage. We spent 4 days in Denver shooting the brewery people and processes, and 3 days over superbowl weekend at a lodge in Steamboat Springs, CO where the entire brewery staff retreated for a few days of fun. There's much in the works...stay tuned.

Posted by Owen on 6 Feb 2007 | Permalink | Comments

Posted by Owen on 1 Feb 2007 | Permalink | Comments

Flying Dog Ales marketing biatch Chris Rippe beat President/CEO Eric Warner in a footrace last fall...his prize? President for a day, date TBD until now.

coBRANDiT is spending a week in Colorado documenting the people who make, sell, and drink Flying Dog.

Posted by Owen on 31 Jan 2007 | Permalink | Comments

Flying Dog Brewery, Denver Colorado. Director of Marketing: Neal Stewart, formerly brand manager of Pabst Blue Ribbon and Rainier Beers. (Here's Rob Walker's NYT article on Pabst and Neal, June 2003, here's Rainiervision, which won various awards for integration.) In his new position at Flying Dog, Neal has gotten into video.

Back in 2003 Neal sent fledgling coBRANDiT (known then as obtainium.tv) ten cases of beer in exchange for a handful of PBR neighborhood documentaries; we've been talking about social media video ever since.

But now the time time for talk is over... Neal has hired us to ramp up Flying Dog's video productions, and to help strategize uses of web video. We're flying to Denver on Monday to hang out at the brewery, in the bars, and at a lodge in Steamboat (over Superbowl weekend) with the Flying Dog crew, camera rolling at all times. Our task? To document the characters who produce the beer and exemplify the gonzo essence of Flying Dog, and then to make interesting use of the footage.

This time we get cash, as well as beer. Flying Dog, we salute you!

Posted by Owen on 25 Jan 2007 | Permalink | Comments

UPDATE: This video took about 36 hours to reach it's intended audience...Mark Hellendrung, Narragansett's CEO. He called me to say he loved the vid (except for the "worst beer" part) and to chat about social media video. We plan to meet up soon.

Shot and edited obtainium style. Testing Blip.tv.

Posted by Owen on 17 Oct 2006 | Permalink | Comments

Documentation of local flavor: this is the packie (package liquor store) we procure our alcoholic goods in, Boston accent and all. But who's the mystery man? Whitey Bulger?

Posted by Owen on 29 Aug 2006 | Permalink | Comments

Jesse runs the nice camera, camera 2 is the cheapo Canon zx60 we carry around for backup and when we're goofing off and want something that fits in a pocket. This piece is a collection of clips from two missions we went on in 2003: exploring an abandoned factory in Somerville MA and checking out the environs in Eastham MA near Jesse's dad's house.

Posted by Owen on 14 Jul 2006 | Permalink | Comments

Here's the deal: Recently we've been doing more consulting on web video and social media than actually PRODUCING web video and social media. Also it's now officially summertime, and we want to be on vacation (or at least sitting on our butts and drinking beer). With these factors in mind we've decided to simplify our approach... we're going thru the archives looking for pieces we've made previous summers, and looking at these pieces with fresh eyes. A so we present: BEARHOG. A look at the construction of a motorized raft from June 2004.

We also plan to shoot some very loose video (in an ethnograpaphic vein) capturing elements of our 2006 summer experiences. Stay tuned.

Posted by Owen on 6 Jul 2006 | Permalink | Comments

The concluding episode in the clown's epic saga.

Posted by Owen on 10 May 2006 | Permalink | Comments