Life After ‘The Pitch’: A Convo (Barely) with Conversation’s Founder
Well, this was somewhat interesting. If we can go all the way back to a few weeks ago, our scribe Bob Marshall, in one of his weekly, epic The Pitch recaps, recapped the battle between NYC-based shop Conversation and Charlotte, NC-based BooneOakley for PopChips. Well, let’s fast-forward to recent times and tell you that we were pitched the opportunity to see what happened after the fact with this one particular episode.
According to the folks at Conversation, “the ‘Year of Pop’ website actually happened , and while we aren’t pursuing “The Greatest Viral Video Ever” we are still integrating user content in our campaign for [PopChips].” Great, but while we expecting something more matter of fact via a little Q+A on what’s happening from said episode’s star and Conversation founder Frank O’Brien, what we got was this:
So, how has life changed for Conversation after The Pitch?
It’s been nuts. We’ve had to increase our security detail because of all the screaming fans outside our office every day. Now we know how John, Paul, George and Ringo felt (only it’s been even crazier than that). David’s working on a new t-shirt line and Alex has been gone for a while since being out on tour with DJ Pauly D. We’re trying to fit time in for President Obama, as well. We didn’t even know he was a fan of the show (Biden too), but he has been BEGGING to stop by. Maybe we’ll squeeze him in sometime this fall.
The Popchips concept has somewhat shifted away the “Greatest Viral Video Ever” concept. Any particular reason why, and where are we at now?
See, that’s the thing about “The Greatest Viral Video Ever.” See, it’s beyond normal comprehension. All you know is that you really want to eat popchips right now. Or maybe, just maybe, it’ll pop up at the end of the year and you won’t even know that throughout the entire year, every movement, every action, every word that you spoke, was actually part of “The Year of Pop.” You’ll just have to wait and find out.
Do you see yourselves with Popchips on a continual basis moving forward?
I was a fan of popchips before we took on the assignment. So I’m with popchips 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – eating, sleeping, breathing popchips. I actually keep a bag of the Sweet Potato flavor under my arm at night. And because of the visibility that “The Pitch” has brought us, popchips will forever be with us. It’s like Sting said: “Every breath you take, I’ll be watching you.”