#eric bader

[iheardin]

FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT: Interview with Ken Adachi co-writer and director of Dead Dad

It’s not often that a Kickstarter campaign created by film school buddies results in not only its immediate goals but a highly successful film to boot. But this is exactly the story for Dead Dad writers Ken Adachi and Kyle Arrington.  Restless to make a film, Adachi and Arrington pulled their resources and friends together to tell the the heart wrenching and sometimes heart warming story of three different siblings coming together for their fathers’ funeral. (See Trailer)

On a budget of $10,000 the film was shot on weekends.  Premiering at the Florida Film Festival the film immediately found distribution. Dead Dad continued its journey through the festival circuit winning a number of awards including Best Narrative Feature at the Tallgrass Film Festival.

Dead Dad is all at once an elegant film; with all the subtleties of fine acting and nuanced directing of a raw film; with all the naturalism that grief entails. Its craftsmanship is testament to the cast and filmmakers whose wisdom is beyond their years.

You can watch Dead Dad on iTunes and VOD. https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/dead-dad/id796810408?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

To find out more about the film, you can read our in depth interview (below) with Dead Dad‘s co-writer and director Ken Adachi.

CAST:

Kyle Arrington as Russell Sawtelle

Jenni Melear as Jane Sawtelle

Lucas K Peterson as Alex Sawtelle

Director(s): Ken J. Adachi

Producer(s): Kelly Calligan and Ben Hethcoat

DP: Eric Bader

Composer(s): Nadeem Majdalany

Writer(s): Ken J. Adachi and Kyle Arrington

Editor(s): Eric Ekman

JD: What was your inspiration behind the film? In what ways did you draw on personal experiences to talk about grief?

KA: I had just finished my Master’s degree, moved out to Los Angeles along with my classmates and was eager to get a feature film off the ground. All the screenplays I had been working on would’ve taken another year to complete and a six-figure budget to produce so I decided to start fresh. I approached a good friend, Kyle Arrington, to co-write a film that would shoot the following spring. I specified that it would be a no-budget film with a large emphasis on improvisation to meet the production’s needs. I didn’t have to do much convincing, as he was also eager to get a feature film produced.

It didn’t take long before he tossed me a line about siblings dealing with their father’s death and I latched onto the idea because I knew it would be manageable for a shoestring budget production. We met every week for a few months and discussed our experiences with grief, but for the most part we shared stories about our siblings, childhood friends and extended family members to develop the characters and the family dynamic. We made a conscious decision to keep our specific experiences with death out of the script so we could separate ourselves from the narrative and develop a story that could be dramatic and also light-hearted.

JD: Can you tell me about the unique writing process between you and Kyle?

KA: It was really simple actually, because we were already good friends. Once we had gathered notes about the story we alternated passes writing the outline and then the script. Once production began we took on our separate roles as director and actor, but continued to do rewrites between takes and at night.

JD: How did you decide to cast Kyle as Russell? What was the casting process for the other actors?

KA: I approached Kyle as a co-writer knowing that I wanted him to also act in the film. We were making the film for next to nothing and I knew we needed actors who understood the situation and would go the extra mile to help out the production. It also helped that he is a very talented actor. Like Kyle, I approached Ben Hethcoat to be a producer and an actor because of his versatility and positive energy. We gathered most of the cast through our various networks. Jenni Melear, who plays Jane, is a good friend of Kyle’s, so they had a built in chemistry that we knew would help with their interaction as siblings. Brett Erlich is also a friend of Kyle’s, and Fred Stoller is an acquaintance of our other producer, Kelly Calligan.

We held one day of auditions and were lucky enough to find Allyn Rachel, who plays Russ’s girlfriend, and Lucas Peterson, the third, adopted sibling. Unlike my previous experiences of spending months and multiple casting calls to find the right talent, everything came together for this project very quickly and smoothly. It helped that we wrote the script knowing that we would rewrite the characters based on the talents that were available to us.

JD: So you used Kickstarter… what was that like and did it live up to what you needed to be?

KA: I was going to make the film for next to nothing, but my producers convinced me we could use more money and of course they were right. Our goal wasn’t that high, only $5,000, and we raised almost double. We shot a teaser exclusively for Kickstarter to show our prospective donors the tone and style of the film, and I think that really helped with our pitch. It was also a great practice run for the cast and crew, and it prepared us mentally for the hectic shoot that was looming ahead of us.

JD: Can you talk about your unique shooting schedule?

KA: Because we were a micro budget film we couldn’t pay our cast or crew. It was only logical to shoot over nights and weekends, basically whenever people were not working (most of us had full time jobs). We started shooting over a long weekend, Memorial Day, to get our bearings, and then on three more consecutive weekends with a couple nights in between. Once we assembled a rough cut we did a test screening and then did a couple more days of pickups to wrap things up. I believe we shot for a total of about 12 days.

JD. Can you talk about your decisions and choices for cinematography?  Technical specs are great, but can you talk about the deliberacy if any behind the shallow focus?

KA: My visual reference was the works by Yoshimoto Nara. I really wanted pastels and a muted color palette to create a youthful, dreamlike world to complement the fact that the siblings are revisiting their childhood throughout the story. Due to budgetary restraints we were limited in how much we could actually control the palette, but it was in the back of our minds with every decision made.

Eric Bader, the cinematographer, and I pre-visualized the majority of the film, but once we entered production I gave him creative freedom to float with the characters especially during their individual journeys. I kept reiterating to him to embrace the mistakes and always keep the camera rolling. While editing the film we kept the accidental moments and rarely cut around the imperfections of a take. This small bit of rawness really added to the realism we were trying to achieve.

Shallow focus and various filters were used to take the edge off the sharpness and achieve a cinematic look with the 5D Mark 2. We kept pushing the shallowness of the DOF to emphasize the loneliness the siblings were experiencing throughout the story.

JD: Editing – I noticed several scenes in which the dialogue would overlap with the event that was about to take place. For example they would talk about going to the mini golf park and then you would see them in the car, but then it would cut back to them at dinner. It gives a certain fluidity to the film.  What helped you and your editor decide to make these choices?

KA: I knew while writing that I wanted the individual journeys of the siblings that happen after the funeral to happen in a music driven montage with a lot of crosscutting, almost like a music video. This approach quickly became the style for the rest of the film. I believe the first scene we cut with this style was the scene in which the siblings hang out together the night of the funeral. My editor, Eric Ekman, showed me an assembly of that scene and because of all the improvisation and extra pages that were shot, the scene ran way too long. We reshaped it with crosscutting and condensed the scene to its essential beats. Once we established the editing style with that scene Eric was able to apply it to the rest of the film.

JD: You have talked about in other articles that the siblings are dysfunctional and the audience has to pick who they want to side with. Who do you side with?

KA: One of the core messages of the film is that there is no right or wrong way to grieve, and I truly believe that. I’d be contradicting the point I’m trying to make if I side with one of the characters. All three siblings are flawed in their actions, and I believe that’s what makes them real and relatable. In short, I side with all three of the siblings.

JD: So you made this film on a shoe string budget… and now the film can be seen on Video on Demand.  What was the distribution process like from point A to point B?

KA: We had our world premiere at the Florida Film Festival and immediately got interest from distributors. FilmBuff, our distributor, had approached us then but we wanted to experience the full gamut of the festival season before thinking about distribution. We ended up screening at over twenty festivals around the world and won a few awards, all of which would become a key element of promoting our film on VOD.

Once we landed with FilmBuff and got a release date, we started to work on our trailer (edited by Jake Odenberg). I had withheld cutting a full trailer until distribution, because I knew it could reignite interest. The film had been circulating through festivals since the spring of 2012 with a teaser, but this new trailer has been crucial for getting the word out about our release.

JD:. Now that you have made this film, what are your next steps in your career?

KA: I’m focusing primarily on writing and the goal is to direct a feature every two to three years. I don’t really have any major plans, but to keep creating and to continue growing as a filmmaker.

JD:  What do you want people to walk away feeling from the film?

KA: I mentioned this in an earlier answer, that one of the core messages of the film is there is no right or wrong way to grieve. I hope our viewers can come to understand that idea through our film. Besides that my goal was to take a dark topic and turn it into an entertaining story filled with drama and humor. I hope our viewers were able to experience a full range of emotions while watching Dead Dad.

  More about DEAD DAD at

DEAD DAD ON ITUNES: http://bit.ly/1b2d2Dw

DEAD DAD WEBSITE: http://www.deaddadmovie.com/

DEAD DAD ON FILMBUFF: http://www.filmbuff.com/films/dead-dad

DEAD DAD ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/deaddadmovie

DEAD DAD ON TWITTER: @DeadDadMovie

By Jaye Sarah Davidson

http://iheardin.com/2014/02/14/filmmaker-spotlight-interview-ken-adachi-co-writer-director-dead-dad/

[iheardin]

FILMMAKER SPOTLIGHT: Interview with Ken Adachi co-writer and director of Dead Dad

It’s not often that a Kickstarter campaign created by film school buddies results in not only its immediate goals but a highly successful film to boot. But this is exactly the story for Dead Dad writers Ken Adachi and Kyle Arrington.  Restless to make a film, Adachi and Arrington pulled their resources and friends together to tell the the heart wrenching and sometimes heart warming story of three different siblings coming together for their fathers’ funeral. (See Trailer)

On a budget of $10,000 the film was shot on weekends.  Premiering at the Florida Film Festival the film immediately found distribution. Dead Dad continued its journey through the festival circuit winning a number of awards including Best Narrative Feature at the Tallgrass Film Festival.

Dead Dad is all at once an elegant film; with all the subtleties of fine acting and nuanced directing of a raw film; with all the naturalism that grief entails. Its craftsmanship is testament to the cast and filmmakers whose wisdom is beyond their years.

You can watch Dead Dad on iTunes and VOD. https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/dead-dad/id796810408?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

To find out more about the film, you can read our in depth interview (below) with Dead Dad‘s co-writer and director Ken Adachi.

CAST:

Kyle Arrington as Russell Sawtelle

Jenni Melear as Jane Sawtelle

Lucas K Peterson as Alex Sawtelle

Director(s): Ken J. Adachi

Producer(s): Kelly Calligan and Ben Hethcoat

DP: Eric Bader

Composer(s): Nadeem Majdalany

Writer(s): Ken J. Adachi and Kyle Arrington

Editor(s): Eric Ekman

JD: What was your inspiration behind the film? In what ways did you draw on personal experiences to talk about grief?

KA: I had just finished my Master’s degree, moved out to Los Angeles along with my classmates and was eager to get a feature film off the ground. All the screenplays I had been working on would’ve taken another year to complete and a six-figure budget to produce so I decided to start fresh. I approached a good friend, Kyle Arrington, to co-write a film that would shoot the following spring. I specified that it would be a no-budget film with a large emphasis on improvisation to meet the production’s needs. I didn’t have to do much convincing, as he was also eager to get a feature film produced.

It didn’t take long before he tossed me a line about siblings dealing with their father’s death and I latched onto the idea because I knew it would be manageable for a shoestring budget production. We met every week for a few months and discussed our experiences with grief, but for the most part we shared stories about our siblings, childhood friends and extended family members to develop the characters and the family dynamic. We made a conscious decision to keep our specific experiences with death out of the script so we could separate ourselves from the narrative and develop a story that could be dramatic and also light-hearted.

JD: Can you tell me about the unique writing process between you and Kyle?

KA: It was really simple actually, because we were already good friends. Once we had gathered notes about the story we alternated passes writing the outline and then the script. Once production began we took on our separate roles as director and actor, but continued to do rewrites between takes and at night.

JD: How did you decide to cast Kyle as Russell? What was the casting process for the other actors?

KA: I approached Kyle as a co-writer knowing that I wanted him to also act in the film. We were making the film for next to nothing and I knew we needed actors who understood the situation and would go the extra mile to help out the production. It also helped that he is a very talented actor. Like Kyle, I approached Ben Hethcoat to be a producer and an actor because of his versatility and positive energy. We gathered most of the cast through our various networks. Jenni Melear, who plays Jane, is a good friend of Kyle’s, so they had a built in chemistry that we knew would help with their interaction as siblings. Brett Erlich is also a friend of Kyle’s, and Fred Stoller is an acquaintance of our other producer, Kelly Calligan.

We held one day of auditions and were lucky enough to find Allyn Rachel, who plays Russ’s girlfriend, and Lucas Peterson, the third, adopted sibling. Unlike my previous experiences of spending months and multiple casting calls to find the right talent, everything came together for this project very quickly and smoothly. It helped that we wrote the script knowing that we would rewrite the characters based on the talents that were available to us.

JD: So you used Kickstarter… what was that like and did it live up to what you needed to be?

KA: I was going to make the film for next to nothing, but my producers convinced me we could use more money and of course they were right. Our goal wasn’t that high, only $5,000, and we raised almost double. We shot a teaser exclusively for Kickstarter to show our prospective donors the tone and style of the film, and I think that really helped with our pitch. It was also a great practice run for the cast and crew, and it prepared us mentally for the hectic shoot that was looming ahead of us.

JD: Can you talk about your unique shooting schedule?

KA: Because we were a micro budget film we couldn’t pay our cast or crew. It was only logical to shoot over nights and weekends, basically whenever people were not working (most of us had full time jobs). We started shooting over a long weekend, Memorial Day, to get our bearings, and then on three more consecutive weekends with a couple nights in between. Once we assembled a rough cut we did a test screening and then did a couple more days of pickups to wrap things up. I believe we shot for a total of about 12 days.

JD. Can you talk about your decisions and choices for cinematography?  Technical specs are great, but can you talk about the deliberacy if any behind the shallow focus?

KA: My visual reference was the works by Yoshimoto Nara. I really wanted pastels and a muted color palette to create a youthful, dreamlike world to complement the fact that the siblings are revisiting their childhood throughout the story. Due to budgetary restraints we were limited in how much we could actually control the palette, but it was in the back of our minds with every decision made.

Eric Bader, the cinematographer, and I pre-visualized the majority of the film, but once we entered production I gave him creative freedom to float with the characters especially during their individual journeys. I kept reiterating to him to embrace the mistakes and always keep the camera rolling. While editing the film we kept the accidental moments and rarely cut around the imperfections of a take. This small bit of rawness really added to the realism we were trying to achieve.

Shallow focus and various filters were used to take the edge off the sharpness and achieve a cinematic look with the 5D Mark 2. We kept pushing the shallowness of the DOF to emphasize the loneliness the siblings were experiencing throughout the story.

JD: Editing – I noticed several scenes in which the dialogue would overlap with the event that was about to take place. For example they would talk about going to the mini golf park and then you would see them in the car, but then it would cut back to them at dinner. It gives a certain fluidity to the film.  What helped you and your editor decide to make these choices?

KA: I knew while writing that I wanted the individual journeys of the siblings that happen after the funeral to happen in a music driven montage with a lot of crosscutting, almost like a music video. This approach quickly became the style for the rest of the film. I believe the first scene we cut with this style was the scene in which the siblings hang out together the night of the funeral. My editor, Eric Ekman, showed me an assembly of that scene and because of all the improvisation and extra pages that were shot, the scene ran way too long. We reshaped it with crosscutting and condensed the scene to its essential beats. Once we established the editing style with that scene Eric was able to apply it to the rest of the film.

JD: You have talked about in other articles that the siblings are dysfunctional and the audience has to pick who they want to side with. Who do you side with?

KA: One of the core messages of the film is that there is no right or wrong way to grieve, and I truly believe that. I’d be contradicting the point I’m trying to make if I side with one of the characters. All three siblings are flawed in their actions, and I believe that’s what makes them real and relatable. In short, I side with all three of the siblings.

JD: So you made this film on a shoe string budget… and now the film can be seen on Video on Demand.  What was the distribution process like from point A to point B?

KA: We had our world premiere at the Florida Film Festival and immediately got interest from distributors. FilmBuff, our distributor, had approached us then but we wanted to experience the full gamut of the festival season before thinking about distribution. We ended up screening at over twenty festivals around the world and won a few awards, all of which would become a key element of promoting our film on VOD.

Once we landed with FilmBuff and got a release date, we started to work on our trailer (edited by Jake Odenberg). I had withheld cutting a full trailer until distribution, because I knew it could reignite interest. The film had been circulating through festivals since the spring of 2012 with a teaser, but this new trailer has been crucial for getting the word out about our release.

JD:. Now that you have made this film, what are your next steps in your career?

KA: I’m focusing primarily on writing and the goal is to direct a feature every two to three years. I don’t really have any major plans, but to keep creating and to continue growing as a filmmaker.

JD:  What do you want people to walk away feeling from the film?

KA: I mentioned this in an earlier answer, that one of the core messages of the film is there is no right or wrong way to grieve. I hope our viewers can come to understand that idea through our film. Besides that my goal was to take a dark topic and turn it into an entertaining story filled with drama and humor. I hope our viewers were able to experience a full range of emotions while watching Dead Dad.

  More about DEAD DAD at

DEAD DAD ON ITUNES: http://bit.ly/1b2d2Dw

DEAD DAD WEBSITE: http://www.deaddadmovie.com/

DEAD DAD ON FILMBUFF: http://www.filmbuff.com/films/dead-dad

DEAD DAD ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/deaddadmovie

DEAD DAD ON TWITTER: @DeadDadMovie

By Jaye Sarah Davidson

http://iheardin.com/2014/02/14/filmmaker-spotlight-ken-adachi-co-writer-director-dead-dad/

[mattkapko]

Mobile Trailblazer: Eric Bader, Mobilize

Mobile is the fastest growing, and most widely adopted media channel of all time. But it hasn't always been perceived that way by agency suits, brand experts, and mass-media marketers. Just as brands were getting into a groove with digital, cellphones went from talk and text to pinch, snap, flick, and zoom. If the Internet revolutionized communications and media, mobile is fulfilling that promise by putting these tools and features into the hands of billions.

Today, mobile is so much more than a device or technology that makes this experience possible. It is a concept, a growing framework of always-connected things. Mobile increasingly drives changes in user experience and interfaces across the digital realm. While the industry at large pays lip service to the opportunities that mobile brings to the game, the channel remains woefully neglected and underserved.

Before the rise of smartphones, mobile marketing and advertising was way out on the fringes. That also holds true for the men and women who embraced mobile early. These trailblazers didn't just cop out and check the box on mobile under their emerging or experimental budgets; they pushed toward mobility while most held back.

Here at ClickZ, we wonder where these Mobile Trailblazers are today. Was it worth the struggle? After going against the grain for so many years, are they finally beginning to see the world they always imagined? These are their stories about all things mobile.

Eric Bader isn't afraid to say what's on his mind, even if it's something like, "Banners suck. They always have sucked and they always will suck." His successful career in digital media and mobility shows little deference to myopic thinking. Even though in many ways he is still fixated on the same questions and challenges that sparked his journey into the land of brands and consumers more than two decades ago. The chief executive and founder of Mobilize says mobile is best when it is direct. For him, mobile has never been a be-all-end-all channel for marketing. Bader views mobile as a complementary tool that, when used effectively, can close the gap between interest and action - the pitch and the sale.

ClickZ: Walk me through your career in media, marketing, and advertising. What have you learned about consumers and brands along the way? When did mobile first spark your interest and how have you fostered that into a deep area of expertise?

Eric Bader: There's a theme that runs through my career. My whole career has really been about the relationship between brands and consumers. I like that, I'm fascinated with that. I just think that that puzzle between brands and consumers is a fascinating puzzle and there's a bazillion ways to solve it. It's like any fun, compelling, addictive puzzle. There's so many ways to do it, so many combinations.

For me, all the places that I've worked, from ad agencies to startups, every one of those has been an opportunity for me to figure out, along with brand clients, what new channels can do to improve those relationships and frankly help them sell more. I was at a web shop…but then I went to Ogilvy because the problems were bigger, the money under management was bigger, the brands had bigger problems. It was kind of stepping up to the big leagues. Then I went to a startup because I wanted to learn how to operate a business. Every step is really about that relationship and every stop has been the role of new media for me.

There are a million people who understand traditional media. There's phenomenal television, and print and out-of-home people out there who are incredible practitioners and strategists. It wasn't just, let me find a way to differentiate myself, but I just kept seeing clients stumbling over new media. And by the way, the same questions that major clients were asking in the early '90s persist today.

I got exposed to mobile back when I was at Ogilvy in the early 2000s. My colleagues in Japan were doing some really clever programs for CPG clients and honestly it's stuff that would still be excellent if it were done today. Mobile was already a viable and relevant channel for brands in Japan because devices, bandwidth, and consumer usage were way ahead of the West at the time. I was hooked, and I just knew it was a matter of time before we could use mobile to do things that weren't previously possible in any other channel.

I had the benefit of a few years to think about and experiment with the way that mobile could make a difference for brands. There was a gap there between what was possible in Scandinavia and Japan, where they just had better connectivity and better devices, and back here we were still using the Motorola RAZR flip phone and nobody could get mobile Internet. I was inspired by great stuff that I saw in the early days and then when the American markets caught up, I was like, "Finally, it's time. Now we have broadband, we have 3G services." And in 2007, boom, finally we got the iPhone and now a huge number of people have smartphones. That made a really big difference.

I incorporated mobile wherever it was important in the years after that first exposure, and then in 2007, John Haidl, my partner, and I launched Brand In Hand to help clients navigate mobile planning and buying and business development. We just thought it was a really underserved area; clients had serious questions about it and they were holding back. They were holding back money, they were holding back the green light on programs that were being proposed to them because they just didn't know how to navigate it. They didn't know who the publishers were, they didn't know who the vendors were, they didn't get the technology, they couldn't differentiate between "Is this a good one, is this a bad one?" Unless you help them navigate, it takes a long time for brands to get it.

ClickZ: What does mobile mean to you? Where does it (or where should it) sit in the general framework of media and brand marketing?

Bader: For me and for brand marketers, mobile devices are really just vessels. I believe that mobile is about consumers who are mobile. It's not about phones. I want people to have the device that they love to use, and I want them to have a very powerful device, and I want them to have multiple devices, and I want them to use them a lot, but I don't care what they have. What I care about is that consumers are mobile and that really matters to brands because it's not just, "Oh, man we've got to catch up with them, we're falling back." Consumers are now reachable, and they're now interested and they're now active in places where they didn't used to be. That's the purely optimistic view.

There is a pessimistic view, which is like, "Holy crap, here's 15 more things that we as brand managers and media managers have to chase and spend our money on. This is awful." But I see it as pure opportunity. Mobile is an excellent complement to mass media's reach and storytelling. I don't think it's a replacement for it. You still need mass media, you still need the reach, and you still need the storytelling that happens in other channels. Mobile is this great complement to it because it can be effective at managing a customer's interest after that initial awareness, and then carrying it all the way through to a transaction.

What I care about is that lag time between when you or I see a television commercial and when we go take action on it. If we have a tablet in our lap on the sofa, and we have a mobile device in our hand because we're already doing something else, and the second we see an ad that matters to you, or you're in the market for something, or it piques your interest, or you see that iTunes commercial and you go, "Damn, what's that song?" and you hit Shazam. "I love that song, I'm downloading it." A transaction just happened. It used to be the lag was you saw something you liked and then you sort of made a mental note that said "OK, next time I go to the store or next time I'm near an auto dealership I'll remember to stop in," and 90 percent of the time you forget. I want to close that gap. What I don't believe is that mobile is the answer to driving your interest in the first place, but it's a great way to manage that interest once it's piqued.

The two most important things to me are in contexts and at locations that no other brand can reach. Lots of people say context and location, that's kind of a popular combo, but here's why. Let's take, on the way to the store, at the gym, commuting, or running through the airport. Those are all perfect contexts and they're real. Those are all perfect contexts and locations for mobile. Historically those have been frustrating and nearly impossible for marketers to master. If you talk to a CPG marketer selling personal care, trying to reach people at the gym is impossible. There's no media at the gym. The thing we know from research is that most people are using their device for music while they're working out. They're not necessarily checking the screen, but the thing that we absolutely know is, the first thing that people check when they're done with their workout is social networks - they're checking Twitter, they're checking websites to get information, they're checking the weather. And, boom, you've got a context all of a sudden where people are worrying about themselves, they're concerned now what their hair looks like, what their skin looks like. Just to use the other example, if you're running through an airport you're not worrying about your hair, but you might be worrying about a rental car…that's perfect for mobile.

ClickZ: What are the trends in mobile that you find most fascinating today, and what are the biggest challenges holding it back as a marketing and advertising channel?

Bader: I'm most fascinated with in-car mobility. I think there's enormous opportunity for content, shopping, transactions, social sharing, on-demand, local marketing. The opportunity's just going to get greater and greater as these functions all become embedded in the on-board computer and then it's enabled by cellular or Wi-Fi service in the car. We're seeing some of it today. It's coming on slowly and the reason is there are multiple platforms. From a brand and a buying standpoint, each element has to be separately negotiated. It's just so difficult. That was our reason five, six, seven years ago: "Why isn't mobile bigger?" Because you've got to cut nine deals and you have to have creative and messaging that's optimized for all these platforms. Frankly, there's going to be a day when Android or iOS is going to become ubiquitous across the car models as the platform.

ClickZ: How can mobile match the interests of consumers and brands without degrading the experience?

Bader: I think many of the things that consumers love about having and using mobile devices and services are the things that are generated or underwritten by brands. For an example, nearly every check-in on Foursquare involves a business or a commercial venue. A huge amount of mobile entertainment is in that intersection between brands and consumers. And entire experiences such as holiday shopping and car buying, those are the things that consumers love to do the most on mobile. We're seeing people participating with the Super Bowl advertising. The truth of what people really do is they shop their ass off, they tweet about commercials.

Whenever we check in on Foursquare, what are we doing? We're advertising a restaurant or a concert. That's totally commercial and that's what I mean by being underwritten by brands. But that raises the standards for brands, and that means they can't be cynical or careless. Brands don't have that many opportunities to either satisfy or piss off consumers. You still need to entertain, you still have to offer satisfying opportunities, you have to save people time, and you have to connect like-minded people.

One thing that never changes is the need for brands to do great things. Not just routine, not just by-the-numbers programs. At some point after enough meaningless and uncreative and interruptive messages, consumers are going to vote with their thumbs and their wallets. And they'll click even less than they do now, and bail out before completing transactions. Brands can't be complacent and say, "Well, mobile's awesome because it's all commercial and we belong there." Are you kidding me? You've got to blow people away. You've got to earn it. The state of mobile is not totally recognizing that there's an amazing opportunity to entertain people, to tell stories that people want to hear, and be incredibly relevant to people when they're in the market for something. And those happen to be some areas that are just really underdeveloped.

ClickZ: Why is mobile such a prevalent consumer channel, yet still largely elusive for brands? How are the dynamics different from digital media, and what should brands be thinking about as the industry grapples with how to leverage such an evolving and fast-changing opportunity in mobile?

Bader: It's more than one thing happening at once. One thing is that ads are not very natural to mobile websites and applications. They're not natural to this stuff and, by the way, we're learning that ads aren't natural to Facebook either. They're really not. Good for them that they're making some progress on improving that. Now, what is natural? Google is really natural. But running ads, cramming in ads is just unnatural to the mobile experience. You see them, they're bolted on, and most of the time they don't serve a benefit to the user in exchange for her attention or interest. There's a lack of clear planning, and at the moment, there's no real role for mobile. We hear this a lot. Brands want to see mobile on a media plan, or they want to reuse a campaign from another channel in order to save money, but mobile's just not planned or executed to take advantage of what mobile offers. Most brands are still not using it the right way. They haven't incorporated it in the role in which it's actually going to deliver for them.

There's this misunderstanding that mobile is a subset of online media. For my money, online when used well delivers effective reach; you can do immersive storytelling and you can do attention-worthy experiences, especially when it complements messages in another channel that the consumer is exposed to. But mobile doesn't also do those same things and certainly doesn't do it at scale.

Mobile can be the most effective way of reaching the consumer in contexts and locations that are hard to reach with other media, or other channels. It can be effective at things like generating a lead, converting a lead, driving sample and trial, generating names into a database, making local brands and services relevant. So the way I look at it is, if you take productive budgets away from digital to feed mobile programs, it dilutes both because there's never enough money to adequately fund everything. Therefore, funding for mobile in my experience needs to come from other sources. I like taking underperforming dollars from other direct-response channels and also local-market efforts like newspapers.

I often look for the underperforming dollars…in email marketing, banners, search, direct mail - stuffing people's mailboxes with dead trees. There is a lot of money that is still being used in those channels that is not performing. The redemption rates, the conversions, and everything are tailing way off. But brands still spend hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars after the points of diminishing return. They do it anyway because there's no alternative. I see mobile as an alternative. Now, that's a very direct-response statement. There is some role for brand building, and for exposure and for brand metrics in mobile, but to me mobile is incredibly hard working when it comes to direct.

ClickZ: What is your vision for mobile marketing? How should brands be thinking about it, and what special skills or talent are required to succeed in this space?

Bader: I can see richer ad units coming. Ones where you can tell better stories, there's more functionality into whatever these ad units are going to look like and behave like. I think what that's going to do is inspire more interesting, creative, and attractive ideas for marketers because the palette is going to be richer. It's just going to be a better platform. I think branded applications are going to actually increase, but they're also going to be challenged by startup brands that aren't burdened with legacy business like brick-and-mortar that they need to nurture. I think more and more of the apps we're going to use, you're going to care about the brand. It's going to be a brand relationship that matters. From the consumers' standpoint, we consumers are going to have a very seamless mobile experience. It's going to be a lot less of the tapping and constantly opening different apps, trying to make unrelated apps work with each other.

ClickZ: Finally, we would like to close each of these features in our series with a simple question - what makes you a mobile trailblazer?

Bader: I didn't stop at display ads and apps. I knew immediately that brands needed to do some really productive other stuff like acquiring customers and managing relationships, distributing samples and trials, putting names in databases, and selling more products via mobile. My partners at Brand In Hand and elsewhere, and I, we delivered on very productive uses of mobile beyond just brand exposure media and I'm really proud of that. When I have to describe why Brand In Hand, for instance, was important to me in my career, my greatest pride was we helped marketers accomplish eight different business objectives, only one of which were paid media. I guess if that qualifies as being a trailblazer. I think the difference is there are a lot of people working on the problem of display advertising and brand advertising and apps in mobile. If I blazed any kind of a trail, it was the one that did help marketers have an opportunity to do some of those other super productive things. Again, that's why I like working with brands and consumers. That's at the top of the list for brands. Brands don't say, "Help me find another way to put the same ad up on yet another place." In the end, they've got to sell stuff and that's primary.