From its inception, ISM (and its partner agency, e2amp have been heavily involved in the entertainment industry.

Music – Anderson’s involvement with music began with his role as Chief, Special Events for UNICEF.  In fact, it was his relationship with Bill Siddon’s, Crosby, Stills and Nash’s manager that drove International Strategic Marketing in this direction.  When ISM opened its doors, Siddons came to Anderson saying that the band had spent a fortune on set design for its 1990 “Live it Up” tour and he needed to some of the money back to keep his gig.  When asked when the tour started, Siddons said May 31st.  It was the first week of May.  Twelve days later, JVC agreed to sponsor the tour and on June 4th the sponsorship was live with collateral materials, sales contest and consumer incentives in electronics retailers around the country and radio promotions started leading up to dates in tour markets.  This incredibly successful promotions led to the creation of the JVC Rocks program with sponsorships of Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton, Bruce Hornsby and many others and ultimately, resulted in the sponsorship, marketing and promotion of 180 national tours with retail and radio promotions designed to launch new products for companies like JVC, Sony, 1-800-Collect, Makita, music instrument companies, record companies and even beverage and pizza companies.

Home Entertainment – the success in using music to market products naturally transitioned to using home entertainment software as a vehicle to market home entertainment hardware and using the retail and radio experience to launch home entertainment for studios.  ISM, along with its sister advertising agency was often tapped to create the logos, packaging and collateral materials and outdoor billboards for home video and DVD releases of major films for Disney, Lionsgate, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros and Starz.  ISM also played a significant role in the promotion of the launch of direct-to-home satellite services for DirecTV and USSB in the first year with Sony’s DSS receiver and events at retail and NFL tailgate parties.

Production – Anderson had some experience in creating television and home video productions during his days at UNICEF.  This experience was brought to bear when the opportunities arose to manage production opportunities for clients.  As the promotion agency for Sony Electronics, ISM was tasked with working with Global Satellite Networks to create a new weekly radio show to stand alongside the tremendously successful, Rockline.  Sony, Global and Rolling Stone Magazine created “Live from the Pit”, featuring live musical performances from new artists syndicated weekly around the United States.  Anderson became the Executive Producer of a nationally syndicated television special to benefit the Gorbachev Foundation to vaccinate children in the former Soviet Union and the United States, MUSIC for Children featured performances by Billy Joel, David Crosby, Bonnie Raitt, Michael Jackson and many others.  With HDNet, Anderson execute produced music specials for Spring Break in Daytona with Tantric and a second show with a special metal concert featuring Disturbed, Taproot and Chevelle.

Product Promotions – the relationships with studios and electronics companies inevitably led to creating promotion relationships between brands to launch to home entertainment products with the latest movies or music.  Extremely successful retail promotions offered unique home entertainment software to launch Samsung’s dual VHS and DVD player.  ISM created a relationship with YES to do one of the first HD video shoots of a live concert in Amsterdam to be used to promote the JVC Digital VHS player/recorder.  When Sony needed a unique sales tool for its standalone Maximum Television displays at retail, ISM worked with Sony Pictures to have Fran Drescher create a mini-episode of The Nanny, showing how by buying a little and borrowing a little, an incredible home theater experience could be created.  When JVC launched DVD Audio, special products were obtained both from artists (e.g. YES) and from studios.  For the relaunch of Sony MiniDisc, ISM obtained over 20 artists on Sony labels, that had minidisc software available to production promotions and had dozen of artist sign their minidiscs to use as prizes in radio promotions to drive traffic to  the special retail incentives.  Almost quarterly promotions were created with new home video products from New Line Cinema, Artisan Entertainment, Sony, Starz as well as every record label to support sales of home entertainment products for JVC, Sony, GoVideo and Samsung Electronics.