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2013 End of Year Post- Looking Back and Moving Forward

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A new business can sometimes be compared to one’s “baby”, and building it to watching a child grow. Where in 2012 our company was still an infant, 2013 saw our business blossom into a full fledged “toddler”. The toddler stage in one’s life is when the person we’re going to be begins to show itself. The toddler starts to talk, walk, run and explore, and that’s exactly what Green Product Placement did during our second full year in business. Looking back in comparison to our first year- whereas in 2012 we began making studio connections and getting known in Hollywood with branded placement execs higher up the production food chain than our “below the line” contacts, in 2013 these connections really burst forth. This year we made it on the email list for most of the major studios who were looking for placement in their productions, in addition to several independent production resources consultants. At the end of 2012, we had placed in over 23 productions, our count to date is over 65! That means in 2013 we placed in almost twice as many shows as we did our first year. We continue to get written about by the press,  including a wonderful feature in February by the venerable Mother Nature Network gpp golden dumpster

Beth and Lisa tell the GPP story at the 2013 NYC Production Eco Expo

Beth and Lisa tell the GPP story at the 2013 NYC Production Eco Expo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beth continues to speak on the subject of the importance of sustainable brands and behavior in mainstream media and sustainability behind the camera, including internationally, and Beth and Lisa both continue to present and serve on panels with our peers, even being recognized with a coveted Golden Dumpster Award by our friends and colleagues Film Biz Recycling  (aka FBR). Check out this interview with Beth at the #Duurcomm “Meer Door Minder conference in October:

And this fabulous video from the second Annual Production Eco-Expo as organized by FBR at the School of Visual Arts in NYC.

A full gallery of pictures from this event can be found here on our Facebook page,   and also some additional pictures on FBR’s page. Two of the shows we both placed products in and worked on as set dressers won Emmys! (House of Cards for Netflix and Veep for HBO.) Beth and Lisa wrapped up work on Season 2 House of Cards in November. We see the value of placing our good brands all the time. We chatted with Robin Wright, star of House of Cards, when she fell in love with our Full Circle Home “Wherever Water” bottle.  She loved it so much, she kept one of her props to take with her to use in London, where she’ll be working on Steven Frears’ new film! Speaking of London, as we endeavor to expand to include clients and placements in UK productions, we have some wonderful ideas percolating for our visit in spring of 2014! Stay tuned! We saw how wonderful it is to help “connect the sustainable production dots” when we met the Green Film Making Competition people in Amsterdam in October and then joined Pia from there in New York as presenters at the Eco Expo.

 

We still have our New York office at Green Spaces, NY. But we settled easily into our local office in Hampden, Baltimore, which Forbes lists as one of the 20 hippest neighborhoods in America. Although our holiday office party overlooking the Christmas parade got snowed out and cancelled, that did not stop Beth and Lisa from enjoying a bit of holiday cheer on “The Miracle on 34th Street”. We also paid a visit to the headquarters of our clients, Chesapeake Bay Roasting Company- which gets its power from wind, and where all of the coffee is organic, fair trade and delicious!

Lisa and Beth with the marketing team at CBRC

Lisa and Beth with the marketing team at CBRC

 

Best Holiday wishes from Beth and Lisa!

Best Holiday wishes from Beth and Lisa!

Right now, once again, we’re doing many of the end of year things most companies do this time of year, including again sending out a holiday e-card  and winding down at the end of busy year to spend time with beloved family and friends. This time of year also allows us to look back once again at all we have accomplished and look hopefully again at the coming year. We look forward to continuing to place our good brands in front of the camera, to welcome new good brands into our “family”, to promote sustainable practices in the entertainment production industry, to connect with more and more wonderful people doing positive things in the sustainable marketing sector, and watching as our “toddler” grows into a “preschooler”. We both sincerely wish you all a happy, healthy holiday and a joyous, prosperous new year! All our best,

Beth and Lisa

End of the Year Post- GPP’s 2012

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  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