Colin Wiebe-
Colin Wiebe spent years touring around the world as a musician with some of the biggest names in Rock and Roll history.
When I wasn’t travelling, I paid the mortgage by working as a Creative Director for two major daily newspapers.
I discovered how my unique advertising skills and my ability to understand audiences from my stage experience could be combined to help companies communicate their story to their customers in a unique way that gives them pre-eminence in the marketplace.
Out of frustration with the old newspaper union hiring process, I founded FastCreative.com in 1997 to outsource work to young digital artists and pioneered the first digital ad department in North America.
The experience I gained from blending offline with online strategies has made me an in-demand marketing consultant, speaker, and musical entertainer. I often use the business of Rock and Roll as a metaphor.
As a consultant I’ve helped a variety of clients clarify their vision, design and sculpt their perfect brand, engage in creating a compelling story and developing the right message-to-market match. I still make records and tour the world playing music and am the Musical Director for The Legends of rock and Roll.
I recently founded a company called Imagination Park Entertainment listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange. CSE:IP I am currently the Executive Chairman and ambassador for the Company.
http://www.imaginationpark.com
We have direct relationships with all the major Hollywood studios and have 12-16 feature film projects in the pipeline. Our team is considered top 3 in the world for Virtual Reality content production.
How I got to where I am is a brief but important history of Colin:
1. When I was 18, I saw an ad for a costume store that was in receivership. I was involved with theatre productions in school, and thought that a costume business might be fun. The Business Development Bank approved a loan and my buddy and I bought the costume store. We made a boatload of money at Halloween and then we got bored. Luckily, the vintage clothing craze was just beginning, and our store had mountains of them. It was a lot of work but we sold it for a handsome profit.
2. In the 1980’s I was part of a band that made records, videos and toured Canada and the US. We played a club in Vancouver where the club manager was also an artist for the daily newspaper. He saw my drawings and asked me to fill in for him at the paper while he went on vacation.
3. I was hired as an illustrator/cartoonist for The Vancouver Sun and The Province (2 major dailies). When they brought the first Macs into the newsroom I was the go-to guy. As a keyboard player, I was comfortable with computers and eventually helped pioneer the pagination (desktop publishing) of the two newspapers. We were the first in North America to do so.
4. I was promoted to Creative Director of Advertising and managed a team of 13 artists and 32 ad builders which supported 72 sales reps. Our advertisers were begging for a design look that our union artists (Linotype/film etc) refused to adopt. My frustration resulted in me setting up Fast Creative Inc. in 1997. I couldn’t hire new artists because of the union so I set up an outsourcing job board. I recruited new artists outside the building that were skilled in digital publishing and shuttled floppy disks back and forth. I essentially created Elance before there was an Elance. Keep in my mind there were no PDFs yet and internet was dial-up bulletin boards until Netscape arrived but I could see the future!
5. In the dot com boom I resigned from the newspaper and began a digital marketing agency and took on clients in a variety of fields (insurance, pro audio, financial planners etc)
6. I was hired as a VP of an online advertising platform similar to FastClick Media. I had an equity position and set up our trade show booth at AdTech Conferences. We had good software and hungry clients! Unbeknownst to any of us, our CEO was secretly developing spyware under the table which took the Company down. Our closet competitor FastClick sold a year later for 96 million dollars we were locked out and left with nothing.
7. I was invited to join Randy Bachman (The Guess Who, Bachman Turner Overdrive) and toured all over the world for 17 years.
8. I was hired to consult with a public company start-up, on the Canadian Stock Exchange in the Vertical Farming niche. Using my internet marketing and social media tactics (webinars etc) moved their stock from a nickel to over a dollar in a short period. Two Hollywood producers wanted a public company vehicle so we vended their assets into a listed Company (RTO), changed the name, rebranded and I became The CEO and President of Imagination Park Entertainment (CSE:IP OTC:IPFFN) http://imaginationpark.com The Company (IP) produces feature films, virtual reality content and I’m working behind the scenes on developing smart contracts using Blockchain technology for disrupting the film industry
9. I own a professional recording studio and record two podcasts, Lets Talk Rock (musical road stories and guests) letstalkrock.ca and The Parenting Toolbox (with a client)
10. I have partnered with a content provider (a young energetic film teacher) to build BC Film Academy, A portal for online filmmaking courses I have started to build my own course called “Your Magnetic PowerStory” which teaches a combo of copywriting and story telling arcs to help entrepreneurs market their business using stories.
front fees and/or stock and then get dumped once they have what they want or run out of money. Everyone wants to “pick-my-brain”.
I also do humanitarian work in places like Haiti. See my music video shot in Haiti https://youtu.be/GT8rnuELraY
So there you have it. A veteran rock musician, seasoned Creative Director, visual artist, public company Director, Hollywood film executive, digital marketer, front-of-the-room speaker, happily married and father of two stunningly beautiful daughters…
Listen another #12minconvo
Credits:
Musical Background: ‘TAKE THE CHANCE’ by Nicolai Heidlas
