UCLA Anderson School of Management Launches Entertainment and Media Management Institute

    LOS ANGELES, Aug. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- UCLA Anderson School of Management
 has launched a new Entertainment and Media Management Institute, expanding and
 enhancing its long-standing Entertainment Media Program.  The new Institute
 will bring together industry professionals, MBA students and faculty
 researchers to exchange and embrace new ideas for managing and thriving in the
 face of transforming entertainment and media business models.
     Although the Entertainment and Media Management Institute is new, UCLA
 Anderson has had a focused entertainment-oriented program for some 27 years,
 as evidenced by its more than 800 alumni who work for entertainment and media
 organizations -- with scores of them in key decision-making positions.  With
 the growth of the entertainment industry and the impact of technology,
 globalization and deregulation on both content and distribution, UCLA Anderson
 will serve as a key center of influence in this important global arena.
     "Every sector in these industries is undergoing change at an ever-
 accelerating pace and in such complex and intricate ways," said Gigi Johnson,
 executive director of the Entertainment and Media Management Institute and a
 1988 MBA alumna of UCLA Anderson.  "Our mission is to bring together
 interested constituencies to find ways to best manage and make decisions in
 the face of greater uncertainty."
     Dr. Dominique Hanssens, a marketing expert who holds the Bud Knapp Chair
 in Management at UCLA Anderson, will serve as faculty director of the new
 Institute.  Prof. Hanssens is a leading international authority on marketing
 strategy and the effectiveness of marketing efforts.  He is currently
 researching marketing spending effectiveness in entertainment companies,
 including expenditures associated with marketing films.
     "We needed a larger footprint for our various researchers to work in and
 to encompass our interactions with the entertainment business communities,"
 said Prof. Hanssens.  "We now can expand our research in a number of key areas
 related to entertainment and media, and in doing so, will help firms develop
 new and transformational ways of doing business."
     Located in the heart of southern California's vibrant economy, UCLA
 Anderson is at the hub of an entertainment and media laboratory that provides
 much opportunity for its faculty, students and alumni to help set the stage
 for what's to come in the industry.
     "We were growing so fast that we needed a larger entity to encompass all
 of our activities," added Johnson, who has served as a lecturer on the
 school's faculty since 1999.
 
     Below are some projects, programs and activities that the new
 Entertainment and Media Management Institute will pursue:
 
     *  Launch a new two-year research project, "Media 2010," to identify and
        understand the many possible "futures" of the media and entertainment
        businesses.  More importantly, for these different futures, the project
        will examine the drivers -- or the "levers" that sectors and companies
        might push -- to influence those futures.
     *  Develop two new programs with UCLA Executive Education: Global
        Entertainment Management Program, a five-day intensive course slated
        for August 2005 for international media managers; and Branded
        Entertainment Marketing, a three-day course on cutting edge marketing
        techniques for entertainment and media executives.
     *  Create a new Industry Fellows Program at UCLA Anderson, enabling
        current or emeriti CEOs and division presidents to share their industry
        experiences, lead seminars at the school, mentor students and work with
        faculty on research projects.
     *  Build upon UCLA Anderson's suite of graduate-level entertainment-
        related courses, as well as expand its diverse extracurricular programs
     *  Increase the number and diversity of industry-focused events with
        students, faculty and industry executives, and partner with various
        industry groups to support entertainment-related conferences and
        forums.
     *  Increase the size and number of research grants that seed faculty and
        doctoral student projects in many realms of management science in
        relation to entertainment and media.
     *  Leverage relationships and efforts with more than 800 UCLA Anderson
        alumni executives and professionals who work in entertainment and
        media.
     *  Increase the opportunities for the scores of UCLA Anderson MBA students
        involved in entertainment and the student-run Entertainment Management
        Association, including management field study projects and a broad
        array of internships and jobs.
     *  Expand the new Summer Institute for undergraduate students interested
        in exploring and understanding the changing film, television and other
        media industries.  First offered in July 2004, the Summer Institute is
        four-week intensive introductory program addressing management
        challenges in the entertainment and media industries.
 
     According to Johnson, one of the first major industry events that the
 institute will support is the Billboard 2004 Digital Entertainment Conference
 & Awards, which will be held at UCLA on Nov. 4 and 5, 2004
 (http://www.digitalentertainmentawards.com/).  The institute will also support
 the ITA in its Re-inventing Television Summit, which will be held on Sept. 29
 and 30, 2004, on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, Calif.
 (http://www.itvalliance.org/RTS81904.htm).
 
     Bio Brief of Executive Director Gigi Johnson
     Prior to assuming her current post, Gigi Johnson served as director of
 UCLA Anderson's Entertainment Management Program.  She joined the school in
 1999 as director of its renowned Applied Management Research (AMR) Program,
 where worked with more than 300 organizations on strategic consulting
 engagements involving some 1,000 MBA students.  As a UCLA Anderson lecturer,
 Johnson advises AMR projects for MBA students and occasionally team-teaches
 entertainment courses in the institute.  In addition to her role in managing
 and developing the institute, Ms. Johnson works with a wide variety of
 entertainment and media companies as a "business connector" on new technology
 ventures and business opportunities.
     Prior to her arrival at UCLA Anderson, Johnson was managing
 director/senior client manager at Bank of America, where she spent most of a
 decade as a corporate banker in their entertainment/media practice in Los
 Angeles and New York.
     Johnson has an MBA from UCLA Anderson and a bachelor's degree in cinema-
 television production from USC, where she specialized in documentary
 filmmaking and film marketing.  She has recently joined The Cable Center's
 Magness Institute Advisory Council.
 
     Faculty and Doctoral Student Research in Entertainment and Media
     UCLA Anderson School of Management faculty and Ph.D. students are involved
 a number of pertinent research areas and projects associated with
 entertainment and media.  From competitive release theories for forecasting
 box office to supply chain management in the entertainment industry to
 environmental sustainability issues in film and television companies, UCLA
 Anderson researchers are at the forefront of important business and management
 issues that will affect and shape the industry.  Below is a sampling of
 projects that UCLA Anderson researchers are pursuing (listed alphabetically):
 
      Andrew Ainslie
      Assistant Professor of Marketing
      UCLA Anderson School of Management
      Phone: (310) 206-8585
      E-mail: andrew.ainslie@anderson.ucla.edu
      Researches competitive release theory of forecasting box office, focusing
      on distribution choices.
      Prof. Ainslie has a working paper, "Competition in the Movie Industry,"
      which can be found at the following link:
      http://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty/andrew.ainslie/papers/movies.pdf
 
      Jean-Francois Coget
      Ph.D. candidate in Human Resources and Organizational Behavior
      UCLA Anderson School of Management (graduating and hired at HEC a leading
      European business school based in Paris)
      Phone: (310) 650-8414
      E-mail: jcoget@anderson.ucla.edu
      Currently studying the role of stress and emotions in the determination
      of leadership behavior, specifically investigating the non-rational
      psychological factors that influence how movie directors lead their crew
      and cast when shooting a movie.
 
      Scott Carr
      Assistant Professor of Decisions, Operations and Technology Management
      UCLA Anderson School of Management
      Phone: (310) 825-1862
      E-mail: scott.carr@anderson.ucla.edu
      Researches simulation of the impacts of consumer decisions on Internet
      piracy.
 
      Charles J. Corbett
      Associate Dean, MBA Program
      Associate Professor of Decisions, Operations and Technology Management
      UCLA Anderson School of Management
      Phone: (310) 825-1651
      E-mail: charles.corbett@anderson.ucla.edu
      Engaged in a multi-year study of entertainment industry environmental
      sustainability issues, including mapping and enhancing the ecological
      impact of film and television within California. Prof. Corbett is working
      with the UCLA Institute of the Environment and his research is supported
      by a grant from the California Integrated Waste Management Board.
 
      Dominique Hanssens
      Bud Knapp Chair in Management
      Professor of Marketing
      UCLA Anderson School of Management
      Phone: (310) 825-4497
      E-mail: dominique.hanssens@anderson.ucla.edu
      A world-renowned expert in quantitative marketing, Prof. Hanssens
      researches marketing spending effectiveness in entertainment companies,
      including expenditures on marketing films and DVDs.
 
      Uday Karmarkar
      Times Mirror Chair in Management
      Professor of Decisions, Operations and Technology Management
      UCLA Anderson School of Management
      Phone: (310) 825-6500
      E-mail: uday.karmarkar@anderson.ucla.edu
 
      Studies the impact of recent technological developments on
      information/value chains in entertainment.  Prof. Karmarkar is currently
      developing a framework for the feasibility analysis and prediction of the
      types of new business models that could conceivably arise in the
      entertainment and media sector.
 
      Barbara Somlo
      Ph.D. Candidate in Decisions, Operations, and Technology Management
      UCLA Anderson School of Management
      Phone: (310) 825-7936
      E-mail: barbara.somlo@anderson.ucla.edu
      For her dissertation project, Ms. Somlo is researching supply chain in
      the entertainment industry, including theater and film selection by
      distributors to optimize profits.  She developed a procedure to calculate
      the box office sales at the theater level as a function of movie
      attributes and theater characteristics.  She tested this procedure on
      real box office data and showed that it has the potential to greatly
      improve on existing industry practice.
 
      Sanjay Sood, Ph.D.
      Assistant Professor of Marketing
      UCLA Anderson School of Management
      Phone: (310) 825-1250
      E-mail: sood@ucla.edu
      Investigating consumer rationality of information processing in film
      sequels as hedonic product brand extensions.  Prof. Sood recently taught
      a film marketing course in the new Summer Institute.
 
      Olav Sorenson
      Associate Professor of Policy
      UCLA Anderson School of Management
      Phone: (310) 825-7348
      E-mail: olav.sorenson@anderson.ucla.edu
      Studies social networks in film performance, box office competition and
      strategic issues of Video on Demand.  Prof. Sorenson recently expanded
      his research in this area by adding ethnic data components.
 
      Shi Zhang
      Assistant Professor of Marketing
      UCLA Anderson School of Management
      Phone: (310) 794-6475
      E-mail: shi.zhang@anderson.ucla.edu
      Researches global entertainment marketing and motion picture branding,
      especially in Asia.
 
     About UCLA Anderson School of Management
     UCLA Anderson School of Management is perennially ranked among the top-
 tier business schools in the world.  Award-winning faculty renowned for their
 research and teaching, highly selective admissions, successful alumni and
 world-class facilities combine to provide an extraordinary learning
 environment.  Established in 1935, UCLA Anderson provides management education
 to more than 1,500 students enrolled in full-time, part-time and executive MBA
 programs, doctoral programs and executive education and management development
 programs.
     UCLA Anderson's faculty includes outstanding educators and researchers who
 share their scholarship and expertise in such fundamental areas as finance,
 marketing, accounting, business economics, decision sciences, operations and
 technology management, human resources and organizational behavior,
 information systems, strategy and policy.
     Recognizing that the school offers unparalleled expertise in management
 education, the world's business community turns to UCLA Anderson School of
 Management as a center of influence for the ideas, innovations, strategies and
 talent that will shape the future.
 
 

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