Stellar Studio Sessions

In episode #28, host Richie talks with CEO of Stellar Agency, Martin Pedersen, about Digital Transformation during this tumultuous time in the world.

Welcome to the third episode of the Stellar Saturday Conversations, a series where we talk to guests from all different areas of expertise in the world of digital marketing. Our guest for this week is John Paul Rice.

John Paul Rice was born the youngest of four, in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. At 7 years old, John started acting in theater and continued until his senior year of high school. In 1999, while attending Georgia State University for Business, Mr. Rice received an opportunity to work on Jerry Bruckheimer's Remember the Titans as a Titan football player. He loved the experience so much that he turned his focus toward film, working in production on a handful of low budget independent films before moving to Los Angeles a year later.

In 2001, John landed a position at the Los Angeles division of the German distribution company Senator International (which later became Mandate Pictures) led by industry veteran Joseph Drake (The Hunger Games, Don’t Breathe, Juno, The Grudge). Under Joe's mentoring, John developed an interest in producing independent feature films.

In 2008, Mr. Rice formed No Restrictions Entertainment with filmmaker Edgar Michael Bravo to make feature films that tell meaningful stories on topics rarely addressed in today's Hollywood movies. Most recently, the company released their 6th project in 10 years with A Child’s Voice, a supernatural thriller about a runaway teen who answers a child calling out for help and is sent on a journey to find a human trafficking network run by the child's killer.

In episode #27, host Richie talks about why and how you can write emails that will get opens because your subscribers will actually want to read them.

In episode #26, host Richie talks about the past, present, and future of DTC and how to build brands that will win in today's DTC industry.

Hi guys, and welcome to the second episode of the Stellar Saturday Conversations, a series where we talk to guests from all different areas of expertise in the world of digital marketing. I’m super excited to introduce you guys to this week’s guest, John Liu. John got his start in search marketing over a decade ago at Overdrive Interactive, where he managed paid search and SEO for a variety of clients including John Hancock, Harley Davidson, and the the Dow. After Overdrive, John spent a little over 5 years at Blitz, an agency where he was the director of search and analytics, where he oversaw all SEO, Paid Search, Paid Media, and Web analytics for all Blitz clients, including Vizio, Sony Playstation, TOMS, Primrose Schools, and the UCLA Anderson School of Business, among many others. After, John served as the Director of Search and Analytics at Adlucent, and then, John served as the Growth Lead of North America at Riot Games, also known as the company that makes League of Legends, for all you esports people out there. Currently John is the Director of Growth at a young startup. In this conversation, John and I use his expertise in search as a jumping off point for talking about overall marketing strategy and how that fits into a larger business plan. We also talk about where search fits into a larger marketing strategy, and then we go into some really specific, actionable things you can do to improve your search marketing. So without further ado, let’s get into the show and hope you guys enjoy!

For the first episode of the Stellar Saturday Conversations, host Richie and guest Rame talk about the past, present, and future of the direct-to-consumer (DTC) e-commerce business model. Rame is a senior at UC Berkeley studying economics. This past summer, Rame was a project management intern here at Stellar, and helped cofound a direct-to-consumer productivity brand that we have been working on. In Berkeley, Rame is working more on the venture side, as he is part of the AMENA Center, center that helps develop entrepreneurship programs in the Middle East through courses and incubators. In this conversation, Rame and I talk about the current state of DTC brands, and what the DTC brands of the future are going to look like. We cover funding models, DTC strategies, and how multi-billion dollar DTC brands of the future are going to look like. 

In episode #25, host Richie talks about how you can run YouTube pre-roll ad campaigns that convert.

In episode #20, we talk about TikTok campaigns that are really successful and how you can replicate those campaigns.

In episode #24, host Richie talks about how Harry's razors got 100K email sign ups in a week and how you can implement their tactics into your own brand.

In episode #23, host Richie talks about what your brand can learn from popular YouTuber Emma Chamberlain and the Wendy's Twitter account.