From 2016 - 2019 I was the VP of Branding, On-Air Promotions, and Creative Services for AXS TV a joint venture between Mark Cuban and AEG (previous to their sale to Anthem Media). Wearing the additional hat of creative director, I was charged with unifying the network’s branding, clarifying their on-air voice and tone, and streamlining their messaging.
AXS TV posed a branding challenge with a diverse schedule that included music-related programming, Dan Rather interviews, a live comedy show, MMA fighting, New Japan Pro Wrestling, and WOW: Women Of Wrestling (oh, and also, we ran movies). As part of the executive strategy team, I worked with programming to set on-air and cross-platform promotion priories and with marketing to develop nightly prime-time franchise packaging.
I supervised a terrific and hard-working in-house team of producers, editors and designers located in Los Angeles, Denver, and Dallas to create all network branding, promo campaigns, interstitials, and presentations. I brought in Karen Tran as our Art Director in LA and was fortunate to have Sam Claypool as Director of Production in Denver. Along with CMO Dena Kaplan, we developed a branding vernacular that embodied the maverick spirit of our brand in a way that was simple enough to remain consistent yet versatile enough to accommodate the disparate variety in our programming.
2019 Network Image
This spot shows the breadth of programming aired on AXS TV showcasing the network’s stars, original series, concerts, documentaries, fights and wrestling, all pulled together through the exceptional editing skills of Kristin Boss.
Producer/ Editor: Kristin BossArt Director: Karen TranDesigner: Shane McKinneyRock and Roll Road Trip With Sammy Hagar - Season Two Launch
This string out is from the long-lead tease campaign for the second season of the successful AXS TV original series, “Rock and Roll Road Trip With Sammy Hagar”. After finding out that the Red Rocker doesn’t take himself too seriously to have fun, I wrote and directed these spots on the fly, taking advantage of a brief window at Sammy’s home studio The spot was finished in post by the terrific team in Denver.
Prod: Todd Trudgeon
Editor: Justin Jackson
Designer: Shane McKinney
“Rock and Roll Road Trip With Sammy Hagar”
After a few seasons working with Sammy Hagar, he came to expect (and maybe even look forward to) whatever silly idea I might have for him when launch time rolled around. Because everyone called him “Uncle Sammy”, I commissioned a custom Red Rocker-style “Uncle Sam” costume for a series of teases and season premiere promos. As always, Sammy was a good sport. After I directed him for a series of launch spot elements, we photographed Sammy in the classic “ I Want You” pose. Art Director, Karen Tran, through a mix of honest-to-goodness hand illustration and photoshop, created this beautiful key art. To me, some of the best design is also the most elegant; where the viewer “gets it” immediately, and this is one of my favorite examples. This design was then rippled out for giveaway posters, press releases, and resized and repurposed for paid digital media buys.
Art Director/ Designer: Karen Tran
The Big Interview With Dan Rather - Ringo Starr
The venerable newsman, Dan Rather’s long-running show on AXS TV hit it’s 100th episode during my time at the network. We rebooted the look of the show, and working with CMO Dena Kaplan we came up with a robust and strategic off-air campaign (that coordinated with our on-air priorities) to bring year-over year growth even into its seventh season.
Preditor: Jeff ShapiroArt Director: Karen TranDesigner: Todd Mueller
The Big Interview With Dan Rather - 100th Episode Key Art
Commissioned for our Director of Corporate Communications, Cindy Ronzoni, this key art celebrated the 100th episode of the durable AXS TV original. Art Director Karen Tran and I came up with the idea of the photomosaic from all of the episodes (which Karen brilliantly executed) .
Art Director: Karen Tran
The X Factor UK
AXS TV was the exclusive US broadcaster of Simon Cowell’s hit show, “The X Factor UK”, which saw consistent year-over-year ratings growth. This was one of many high-profile, event-style programs that we promoted on and off the network as part of a cross channel/ cross platform campaign.
Prod: Todd Trudgeon
Editor: Justin Jackson
Designer: Shane McKinney
Prime-Time Brand Strategy
With distinct and diverse programming throughout the schedule, we made the decision to brand different nights of the week according to their content in order to reinforce habitual viewing and attract like audiences.
Sunday Night Rocks, the first experiment with this philosophy, was the wrapping for premieres of new concerts, musical documentaries and original rock and roll related series. This gave us a straight-forward and simple message that could be reinforced throughout the week and aim viewers looking for this programming to a reliable destination.
We saw an opportunity on Monday nights, where we ran movies borrowed from our sister station HDNET Movies. Appealing to the nostalgia of our predominantly baby boomer audience, we based our look on an updated version of old-school network movie night packages from the 70’s and 80’s - using our font package, modern graphics and logo lock ups to reflect our brand of course. Once again, we had clear, simple messaging and the audience learned where to show up.
Knowing that an audience tends to prefer like-programming, we programed Tuesday nights with the AXS TV original series, “The Big Interview with Dan Rather” along with acquired programming like “Classic Albums,” and “The Day the Rock Star Died” and called the evening “True Story Tuesdays”. We prioritized promos during Sunday Night Rocks to give the audience a motivation to return later in the week.
Friday Night Fights
Along with music related-programming, AXS TV had a robust night of MMA fights every Friday night, live from venues all over the country. One of the challenges was: How to unify the network brand to accommodate secondary programming with its own loyal following? The answer: Freddie Mercury .
Preditor: Brent Hendrix
Art Director: Karen Tran
Designer: Todd Mueller
Talent Shoots
One of my responsibilities at AXS TV was directing talent for promo and interstitial shoots using our small in-house studio facility.
AXS TV Concerts With Mark Cuban
One year, network founder Mark Cuban agreed to host a live summer concert series. Because we didn’t know if his schedule would permit live introductions at each concert, we dressed our studio like a back stage area and shot a month’s worth of wraps with Mr. Cuban.
Real Money
“Real Money” was a reality docu-series following the late rock star Eddie Money and his family’s life on the road. In Eddie’s words, they were “kind of like the Partridge Family, only dysfunctional”. For our launch campaign we dressed the studio like a living room and somehow managed to wrangle the entire family for a day of promo elements, interviews and liners which were then able to use for the series launch and sustain campaigns on air, off-air and on our social digital platforms.
This Month On AXS TV
Much of our programming at AXS TV had odd running times that resulted in long breaks. To maintain viewer engagement, we produced short form interstitials including the five-minute interstitial “This Month on AXS TV” with the talented and affable staff host Katie Daryl. This was an inexpensive shoot that was edited into a fast paced showcase of everything new that month on the network giving us fresh material that could be used on-air and on our social and digital platforms. These pieces qualified for ratings, and the numbers let us know that we served the goal of maintaining audience retention.