Promo Pathway
“SMC’s involvement was probably the greatest gift to the Promo Pathway initiative.... When we learned that PromaxBDA had aligned with SMC, it just all made sense. I knew that there was a real solid program there for people in the arts. From the first meeting I knew it was going to click.” — Jim Vescera, NBC Universal Executive Vice President, On Air Promotions, August 2010
The Promo Pathway Program is the first accredited on-air promotions training program in the United States that prepares creative youth, ages 18-26, from underrepresented communities for the exciting world of television marketing.
The initiative is an anchor program of the PromaxBDA Diversity Council, comprised of marketing executives from Fox Broadcasting, ABC, CBS, NBC, E!, A&E Networks, Turner, Viacom, Warner Bros., and AMC Networks.
The program has earned special notice, including from former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, as a model program to provide 21st century skills to American workers.
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| Promo Pathway Program mentors and mentees gather at SMC’s Academy of Entertainment & Technology in April, 2011 |
“As a television community, we need to build an ecosystem of creativity programs like the PromaxBDA Promo Pathway initiative. It provides average students with the opportunity to pursue careers in the television creative arts.” — Al Gore, 2011 Keynote Address, July 2011
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| Jonathan Mooney, Consultant, South Bay Center for Community Development | Jonathan Block-Verk, President & CEO, PromaxBDA | Frank Dawson, Chair, Communication Department, Santa Monica College | Patricia G. Ramos, Ed.D., Dean, Workforce & Economic Development, Santa Monica College |
Promo Stars
One-of-a-kind program prepares under-represented talent to shine in Hollywood
Take kids from underrepresented communities. Pair them up with two dozen network and film executives. Then find out how many make the cut and land jobs in television promotions. Catch the results this fall at SMC.
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Student Alvaro Escalante with mentor Scott Sarver, Promo Editor, ABC Entertainment Marketing |
That could well be a promo for a new one-of-a-kind program at Santa Monica College that grants students from the Los Angeles area a certificate in writing, producing, and editing promotional spots for television shows and films.
The students—many of them Latino and African American—will then vie for jobs with a first level range of $30,000 to $40,000 and a higher level up to $80,000 a year, college officials said. The program should help address a dearth of behind-the-scenes diverse creative talent in the entertainment industry.
“I’m tremendously excited about this new program,” said Frank Dawson, chair of the SMC Communication Department and a former promotional writer/producer at CBS and NBC. “This is a great opportunity for the college and the students who will have a shot at getting some great jobs in the industry.”
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Gabe Converse, Editor, Studio City; Jessy Sajquim, student; Jennifer Monzon, student, in background |
“I can’t describe the desire on the part of the students to get into the program and the joy and excitement of the executives at the talent they displayed,” said Patricia Ramos, SMC’s dean of workforce development. “We’re going to give them every opportunity to get hired. It’s their job to get it.”
That’s the underlying philosophy of the Promo Pathway program launched in January 2011. Funded for the first two years with $500,000 in state, federal, and private foundation grants, the program is the result of a three-way partnership between the College, the non-profit South Bay Center for Community Development (SBCC), and PromaxBDA, the association of broadcast promotion and marketing professionals.
The program grew out of a desire by PromaxBDA to recruit young people from underrepresented communities of Los Angeles into the field, said Jonathan Block-Verk, president and CEO of the association.
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Jennifer Monzon, student, and Rita Mazmanian, Production Manager, Fox Sports |
“One thing that is abundantly clear in most of the entertainment, advertising and creative industries, is that… there are very few people in our industry that come from diverse backgrounds,” Block-Verk said.
“We developed a very sophisticated initiative to help build a sustainable pipeline of diverse talent into the entertainment marketing industry,” Block-Verk said. “This program will help young people understand there’s a future in creative ability. With this program they can turn their skills into what could be high-paying careers.”
Using SBCC’s Career Pathways Program as its model, PromaxBDA pulled together an advisory board of top professionals in broadcast media and entertainment and studied the feasibility of starting such a program, Block-Verk said. PromaxBDA worked closely with the SBCC to secure funding from The Everychild Foundation, as well as a state grant, and began targeting and recruiting the students, some of them from a companion program at SBCC, serving communities such as Compton, Wilmington, and East Los Angeles, and others from Santa Monica College.
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Student Fernando Castro interning at NBC |
Altogether, the program received 308 applications, and the final group of 25 was chosen based on interviews, creative demos and a portfolio review. Each student received full scholarships to pay for the fees, as well as equipment, transportation, and childcare.
When SBCC and PromaxBDA started looking for a college to provide the training, they found a perfect match in SMC. Dawson had worked in television promotions, and he and Ramos went to work to get the program off the ground in a matter of months. SMC worked closely with PromaxBDA, SBCC and the advisory board to design a curriculum to prepare the students for entry-level positions in promo departments.
“You have all of these great forces working together who have never worked together before,” Ramos said. “This is one of those certificates that doesn’t exist anywhere in the nation. This is the first promo-editor certificate program that anybody knows of.”
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Mentor Sarah Labrache, Director, CBS Advertising & Promotion, Promax BDA Ambassador, with student Olivia Rodriguez |
Network executives saw the novelty of the program and quickly signed on. “This is something brand new,” said Jim Vescera, executive vice president for On Air Promotions at NBC Universal. “That was so much of the appeal for me, because no one had ever tried this, and it makes so much sense.
“Our little edge of the world here, making promos for television, is very specific niche to say the least,” Vescera added. “As a result, most people really don’t know what we do. Most colleges don’t teach it. It’s a skill, and it’s very narrow.”
The program is divided into four terms. The first term features basic math and English workshops presented in the context of the entertainment media industry. The remaining terms cover a wide range of skills, including principles of project management, digital video fundamentals, and promo writing and production. Paid industry internships are key components of the program.
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SMC professor Peter (P.J.) Abode with student Hugo Lomeli |
SBCC provides support services to the students including a full-time coach who attends classes with the students and connects them to resources such as tutoring, part-time jobs, transportation assistance, and childcare. The SBCC also provides “soft skills” training, which includes preparing students for interviews and teaching them to write résumés.
As long as the students apply themselves, they will have jobs waiting for them in the industry at the end of the training, SMC officials said.
“If you look at what’s happening in the country right now in terms of high unemployment and unavailability of jobs, the poorest people are being hit the hardest,” Dawson said. “Here’s a chance to give an opportunity to a group of students who otherwise would have no opportunity to really become qualified to move into these coveted positions.
“That’s why it’s important to the college,” Dawson said. “It just fulfills a lot of what our mission is as a community college.”
More than 300 competed for a chance to learn television promotion
The pool of candidates for the nation’s first certificate program in television promotions had been winnowed down from 308 to 50, and the final contestants were, as one of them put it, “sweating bullets.” After all, it was a chance to participate in Santa Monica College’s pioneering Promo Pathway Program, a foot in the door to a glittering industry that seemed literally a world away.
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Promo Pathway mentor Daniel Bernath, Senior writer/Producer at ABC, and student Jesse Preciado |
“What made it really special was the passion,” said Jim Vescera, executive vice president for On Air Promotions at NBC Universal and one of more than half a dozen industry judges. “They want this so badly, and more of them than I expected are ready for this.” After the students presented promo pitches created in an hour of intense deadline pressure, 25 students were chosen to enter the first and only program of its kind in the nation at SMC.
“We weren’t creating something out of thin air,” says Patricia Ramos, SMC’s dean of workforce development. “Rather we were customizing, re-tweaking a lot of our broadcasting and television technology and editing classes that we already had and making it specific to the promo industry.”
But SMC officials also made the decision to teach all the students basic courses at the same level, regardless of their prior experience. And they kept the group together in classes that applied English and math lessons to the world of television promotion. The students, who were given iPads to use, were placed as interns at major networks and film studios, working between 20 and 24 hours a week during the summer and fall sessions.
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Student La Tanya Henderson in Promo Pathway Final Cut class at SMC |
“I think a lot of skills that I’ve been practicing here have enabled me to strengthen my skills, and I can take these skills anywhere,” said Teresa Rascilla, who was a promo intern at E! Entertainment.
“Overall, the PromaxBDA experience was great,” said Fernando Castro, a promo intern at NBC. “We got to see the inner workings of the marketing world, and you can’t ask for anything more than that.”
In January students will be showing off their new-learned skills when they present five promos and pitch ideas to industry employers looking for fresh talent. “Most will get a job if they’re good enough,” Ramos said. A second crop of students will be recruited for Promo Pathway’s second year, and beyond that college officials hope there will be funding to continue the program as part of SMC’s regular curriculum.
Skills for America’s Future
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| Final Cut class for Promo Pathway Program students at SMC’s Academy of Entertainment & Technology |
Skills for America’s Future, an initiative of the Aspen Institute, is a national, non-partisan partnership of businesses, community colleges and other organizations. Its aim is to connect employers to community colleges and to find ways to expand effective models, so students can be better equipped for today’s jobs.
In October of 2011, Skills for America’s Future credited the Promo Pathway partners, including Santa Monica College, for identifying a business need to diversify the entertainment promotions workforce and create a pool of trained, creative talent, and announced it was entering into a new partnership with the Promo Pathway partners.
Skills for America’s Future was launched in October 2010 by President Barack Obama, and the effort has received commitments from some of the nation’s leading employers
Participating Mentor Organizations
ABC, Disney, NBC, Studio City, Style Network, E! Entertainment, CBS, Lifetime, Fox, White Spark Creative, Warner Bros., OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), D G Entertainment, Playboy, Game Show Network, B2 Studios, Skills for America’s Future
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