RealNetworks Looks to Television Industry for Branding Ideas

RealNetworks (www.realnetworks.com) has announced that it has hired Jim Cahill and Jim Atkinson to help create branding and promotions for RealNetworks' Major League Baseball webcast distribution deal, its GoldPass subscription programming service and the premiere of MusicNet, the recently established joint venture between RealNetworks, AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann and EMI.

"The2Jims" have apparently gained a reputation for success through their successful promotion of different network television stations. The producers own and operate Heat Seeking Multimedia, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based branding agency, whose clients include UPN, Fox Sports Net and Tribune Media Services/ Zap2it.

The2Jims created NBC's successful NBC 2000 project and then moved on to FOX Broadcasting in 1996. The two led creative image direction at FBC in seasons 97-99 and helped craft promotional launch campaigns for FOX hits "Ally McBeal'' and "That 70's Show'' among others. The duo supervised image campaigns for the network's prime time talent, in addition to consulting various brand-marketing efforts of FOX Sports Net, FX and FOX Family channel during their tenure there.

It was at FOX that the team worked closely with Larry Jacobson, then president of the News Corp's FOX Television Network, and now president and COO of RealNetworks.

Mr. Jacobson brought the producers to Seattle in April to work on creative concepts for the webcast launch of Major League Baseball on Real.com. Real was apparently impressed with the upside-down billboard campaign that Heat Seeking Multimedia launched, which led to Friday's announcement.