Tilzy Reviews The Temp Life

Mind-Numbing Office Work Turned Funny and Promotional with The Temp Life (Permalink)

If you’ve ever worked as a temp, than you know. It’s the lowest of the lows of all jobs ever. Substitute teachers at least get to participate in fun games. Substitute office workers learn the superficial functions of phone systems and coffee makers while trying not to screw anything up.

But on the original scripted web series, The Temp Life, the main cast of characters provides a promotional spin to the temporary world, offering comedic flare on what many would call a dismal existence.

The Temp Life is created and produced by CJP Communications for Spherion, a leading U.S. recruiting and staffing company. Not only do the producers grease the funny bone, they also offer viewers a world of career possibilities for those who are willing to travel from job to job in search of full-time employment (not a bad idea in today’s economy).

The action takes places at the newly-formed company, Commodity Staffing, where the agency has earned quite the reputation of attracting the absolutely worst temp jobs possible.

Among the cast, long-time lead, Laura (Laura Kowalcyk) continues to shine and do her best not to smack the bored souls who loiter around the office searching for office supplies. And like a good temp or a first-rate American Olympic gymnast, Laura sticks her grin, regardless of the situation.

Caitlin’s hyper, over-achieving and somewhat bi-sexual tendencies contribute to the flow of the show, while Mark (Mark Jude) and Paul bring up the tail end with tid-bits of trite despair.

Since it first debuted in November 2006, the series has enlisted an accommodating cast with one hilarious staple: Mr. Nick “Trouble” Chiapetta (Wilson Cleveland), who not only stars in the show but is a lead account exec for CJP. Cleveland steals each scene with his comedic talents and particular droll in the dream sequences with guardian angel, Tom Cruise, who usually offers couch-side, forthcoming advice in a very Mission Impossible kinda way.

At the beginning of the series, Nick is the proud owner of Pedtastic, peddling shoe lace aglets but following a “multi-hundred dollar” acquisition of Commodity Staffing, Nick assures his “Chief Content Ninja,” Paul (Paul Konz) that the change is only “temporary.” As the web series progresses, the plot thickens within the cityscape and The Temp Life has developed from bestowing temps with tips to a budding prominent web-a-soap series. I.e. Season 2’s cliffhanger finale, where Caitlin (Caitlin Mitchell) and Paul turned up in Thailand by mistake, and Nick learns what “trouble” really is.

The third season of The Temp Life just launched this month. The premiere sees Laura and Mark describing their new gigs, noting “on paper” that they’re consulting as a telecom specialist for a global chemical company (read: receptionist for an exterminator) and an Efficiency Manager (read: puts stickers on time clocks). At the stroke of five, the temps wrap up the day and turn in their time sheets, only to discover the oblivious CEO of Commodity Staffing, Mr. Nick “Trouble” Chiapetta catatonic on the job. Unbeknownst to the temps, Trouble and Tom Cruise are conjuring up a rehab plan.

Tune in for future episodes at TheTempLife.TV, when we get to watch Nick lap up advice from dreamy Tom Cruise who lectures Trouble about prescription drugs.

Temp Life on Save the Assistants

sta's Shoutout on Temp Life (Link)

If you haven’t checked out the Web series Temp Life, I totally recommend it. The clever, sometimes heartbreaking show deals with the ins and outs of terrible temp jobs. Permatemps Mark and Laura get sent on various assignments by their ‘boss,’ Nick (played by the show’s creator, Wilson Cleveland). In this episode, the first of the show’s third season, Laura suggests that Mark might want to post his workplace horror story on a certain website you may have heard of. Check it out:

Today Show: Be a YouTube Star on Vacation

I’m not sure anyone fully understands what video means to travel — let alone the Internet. As Wilson Cleveland, a vice president at CJP, points out, “Video is the best medium for bringing an experience or storyline to life.”  (Link)

PR Week Profile of CJP Digital

Cleveland Helps CJP's Clients See Digital Benefits (Link)

Wilson Cleveland works for CJP Communications, a firm known for clients such as Edward Jones and GE Financial Corporate Services, but he has found a way to parlay his entertainment PR background into his work there.

“I was told from day one [at CJP] that whatever interests you, as long as it adds value to the company and for clients, you can do,” says Cleveland, VP of the digital practice. He adds that CJP's client list also includes a number of companies in the tech, consumer, professional service, and other sectors.

“I didn't create the digital practice only to [help] financial companies,” he explains. “This is the digital skill set that any company with a communications plan [will] be needing.”

Cleveland launched CJP's digital practice in 2006, when he says Web 2.0 “started gaining some momentum.” Among the work it has done since its inception are behind-the-scenes video, or “digimentaries,” to use the term CJP coined, that are promoting the best-selling authorized biography The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.

The digimentaries launched September 29, the same day the book did. The three-minute segments, available on YouTube, Facebook, iTunes, and other online channels, have received 150,000-plus views.

“The videos deliver on the initial strategy to give audiences the visual look at how the book was written and [author] Alice Schroeder's personality,” says Cleveland. “We thought she was going to be overshadowed by Buffett. [But] people are also asking about her.”

Cleveland got his start in college, promoting a TV show at Boston University. He worked in entertainment PR after college, did communications work at Goldman Sachs, and then returned to the agency side to work with dot-com clients.

“The work at Goldman positioned me as someone who could do entertainment and tech [work] with financial aspects to it,” he says.

When the digital practice launched, it wasn't immediately evident that financial-service clients would see the merits of adding digital elements to their PR program. But they've come around, notes Cleveland.

“Back in 2006, a company like Ed-ward Jones may not [have been] asking us about digital media, but when they [did], we wanted to be ready,” says Cleveland. In April, he went to St. Louis to do a new media seminar for the company. “I have known for many years that this is something that's going to matter.”

A few years ago, CJP sought to differentiate itself by focusing on the entire marketing mix. The digimentaries are one example of how it has brought new PR methods to clients.

“We've been able to open clients' minds to new ways of communicating with new audiences,” says Jennifer Prosek, partner at CJP. “Financial service firms, like every company, need to engage their audience... in unique ways. Digital has offered a new vehicle to companies that weren't thinking of those vehicles before.”

While many might associate video with the absurd fodder that often fills the world's in-boxes, Cleveland says video has an important place in PR and for all of CJP's clients.

“It's important not to associate the... content with its distribution platform,” he says. “I think video, when used by PR as a communications tool, has to have a purpose.”

2001-present
CJP Communications, SVP of digital practice

2000-2001
Clifford PR, AE

1998-2000
Goldman Sachs, comms coordinator

Temp Life Named Brandweek Bright Idea

Bright Idea No. 2: Web Serial Branding (Link)

What's Gone Before: Viral videos just hawked brands
What's the Innovation: Serial videos people watch like soap-opera episodes
Who's Doing It: Spherion

Chances are, most every professional has worked a temp job at one time or another and, chances are, it sucked. Patronizing co-workers, imperious mid-level managers, the endless refrain "make the temp do it"—all are staples of modern white-collar day gigging. So why on earth would an interim-staffing firm want to actually spotlight stuff like this?

In the case of Spherion, it was actually worse than that. The staffing firm hired agency CJP Communications to create a five-episode miniseries for YouTube that portrayed in graphic, eyeball-rolling, detail just about every 9-to-5 nightmare endured by temporary workers. The drama series (which just wrapped its fifth episode in April) is called The Temp Life. Absurd? Sure, and that's why people watched.

Viral video's nothing new, of course, but Spherion opted for a viral video serial that worked much like a TV drama series. The interlocking episodes, said Spherion corporate marketing director Kip Havel, "allowed us to dive deeper. We explored more scenarios, developed a following. People got to know the characters."

Drawn from the ranks of CJP's own employees, series stars included the superlatively bitchy "Paul," who insults a temp by assuming she can't use a photocopier, and "Nick," the midlife-crisis manager whose delusional visions including making his company "the global leader in synthetic cord and casing solutions for the global footwear market." If you had to put up with these people, you'd probably shoot yourself.

Which is exactly the reverse psychology behind the series. By acknowledging that temping is often a rotten gig, Spherion planted the seed with viewers that it could steer them clear of hellish gigs. "We all know that there are plenty of bad temp assignments out there," Havel said. "So the messaging is that we know, we get it, and Spherion is going to offer better experiences."

Thus far, The Temp Life has drawn 60,000 viewers, and while Spherion doesn't have a hard metric to measure returns, Havel said, "It's apparent this is resonating with viewers." What'll be the ultimate fate of this marketing experiment? Tune in next week...

Webisodes Promote New Buffett Book

Omaha 'Webisodes' to promote Buffett book

"Action," Evan Ferrante says softly as he zooms his lens out to show Alice Schroeder, wired with a microphone in the Paxton Chop House, a golden statue of a bull in the background symbolizing steaks, not stock markets.

Ferrante, an independent filmmaker and today a one-man movie crew, steadies his hand-held camera with his elbows on the white tablecloth as Schroeder relates a story told to her by Warren Buffett about his early days in Omaha, in which the former Paxton Hotel played a part.

No details yet, please, Schroeder requests, charmingly. She wants her readers to savor these Buffett tales in her coming biography of the Omaha investor, which goes on sale Sept. 29.

For a few days she is revisiting places where, over the past five years, she tracked down Buffett's story — his childhood homes in Omaha, his junior high in Washington, D.C., the offices of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and the museum reconstruction of his uncle's Dundee grocery store.

"Omaha is so much a part of what he is," says Wilson Cleveland, who thought up the "digimentary" project to promote Schroeder and her 976-page book, titled "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life."


Warren Buffett biographer Alice Schroeder visited Omaha to film a "digimentary" to help Buffett fans visualize the places she mentions in her book that comes out later this month. The project will be on YouTube and other sites. Ferrante and Cleveland will post eight to 10 "webisodes" on networking Web sites such as YouTube and Schroeder's Facebook page, as well as Omaha.com. Cubitt, Jacobs & Prosek Communications, the New York PR firm where Cleveland works, represents Schroeder.

The three-minute videos will come out over the first several weeks of the book's sale. For Schroeder, a former insurance analyst who worked nearly five years on the book, narrating videos is a change of pace from her fact-gathering Omaha visits.

There's a hairdresser who grooms her a bit before the camera switches on.

She tells a Buffett story that evokes a time when everything was simpler and financial events were less earthshaking than today.

Buffett, now 78, was a youngster then, and Paxton's corner at 14th and Farnam Streets was different — no Gene Leahy Mall, no downtown library, no state office building. The Paxton today hosts condominium owners, not hotel guests.

As the scene ends, Schroeder relaxes and says the videos will help people understand Buffett.

"This is the best way of explaining Warren Buffett's Omaha," she says.

People who read the book will be able to see the places where he grew up, began his business career and still works. When the book tells of Buffett's unhappiness living in Washington when his father was elected to Congress, readers can call up a visit to the Buffetts' house in Washington's Spring Valley neighborhood.

Schroeder's assistants show up as the Chop House segment wraps up. Ferrante gets scene-setting video in the kitchen, then takes down his lights and packs up his gear. The group heads for the Douglas County Historical Society, where Schroeder had spent hours poring over old clippings and photos.

She'll be back in Omaha later, for an Oct. 12 book signing, the start of a nationwide tour. Bantam Dell Publishing Group reportedly has printed a million copies.

Buffett has read the book, Schroeder says, smiling but giving no clue as to what he thought of it.

CJP to Launch Buffett Web Series

CJP to launch Buffett series (link)

NEW YORK: Author Alice Schroeder recently enlisted CJP Communications to launch an online, promotional documentary series to coincide with the release of the first authorized biography of Warren Buffett.

Schroeder authored The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, about the Berkshire Hathaway CEO. The videos give a behind-the-scenes look at the places she and Buffett met to work on the book, which was five years in the making.

“The ‘digimentary' takes readers on a visual journey through Warren's life, highlighting interesting stories,” wrote Schroeder, in an e-mail. “We hope that some potential readers will find the story online, be intrigued enough to buy the book, and will contribute to word of mouth.”

CJP began working with her and book publisher Bantam in July on the PR effort. The firm is conducting outreach to financial and business media, executing the digital components of the PR push, and counseling on messaging.

“Video is the best way to capture [Schroeder's] enthusiasm, knowledge, and passion,” said Wilson Cleveland, VP of digital at CJP and the digimentary's executive producer. “It's supposed to be every bit about Alice as it is about Warren.”

The first segment of the digimentary premiered on the book's release date, September 29. Eight to 10 three-minute segments will premiere Mondays and Tuesdays through November 18. All will be available on YouTube, Blip.tv, iTunes, and Facebook.

Beet.TV: Author Videos Build Buzz

October 8, 2008

Alice Schroeder's biography "The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life," released September 29, became an immediate bestseller. PR firm CJP Communications recently launched the first two segments of an eight-part online documentary series it produced, "Shaping 'The Snowball': Alice Schroeder on the Oracle of Omaha", to give a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the book and put their client, Schroeder, in the spotlight.

Producing online videos about authors seem to be emerging as a trend; Internet video solutions provider TurnHere has produced a number of such videos for Simon & Schuster. You can see them here.

The series about Schroeder, which runs on YouTube, Facebook, iTunes and Blip, has received 15,000 views so far. CJP Digital SVP Wilson Cleveland, who was its executive producer, said he considers this a successful number considering the niche audience. I interviewed Cleveland at the CJP offices in the Empire State Building yesterday.

It's not the company's first foray into web video: It produced a comedy series called "The Temp Life," inspired by The Office and featuring some of its own staff members, for temporary staffing agency Spherion.

CJP first began producing branded content three years ago--ahead of many advertising agencies and content producers. It's interesting to see a PR company succeeding in a space that has been principally the domain of advertisers.

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