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Mindgrab Media helps create online presence for beauty clients, designs learning programs
By Paula Schleis
Beacon Journal business writer
Published on Saturday, Jul 05, 2008
Mindgrab Media is less than 2 years old, but already the company's client list is a who's who of the beauty industry.
Clairol, Aquage, Rusk and FHI Heat are all using videos or Web sites designed and programmed by the Akron start-up.
The company is winding up a new online presence for David Babaii for WildAid, featuring actress Kate Hudson.
And a May phone call by a Paris agency sent Mindgrab to Italy to shoot footage for an infomercial for Tatchme, a new skin care product line being promoted by Mariel Hemingway.
The interactive design agency, based in the Akron Global Business Accelerator, isn't trying to focus on beauty clients. It has also designed online learning programs for schools, is working on its fourth Web site for the Smithsonian Institution, and is finishing up an award program
video for American Greetings.
But in a field where reputation is everything, Mindgrab Creative Director David Walker said it helps that several staffers have stints at companies like Matrix, Biolage, Logics and Wella on their resumes.
''We are probably the only interactive agency in Northeast Ohio who can move comfortably from venues like Fashion Week in New York City to the Midwest Beauty Show in Chicago,'' Walker said.
The technology that gave birth to companies like Mindgrab is the same that enables a company in the industrial Midwest to compete for cosmopolitan clients on the coasts and abroad.
With the rapid growth of fast broadband Internet connections, ''You don't even have to be on location. You can create art and e-mail the whole file and work back and forth,'' Walker said. It's not unheard of to receive a project and be working on it for three or four months before physically meeting the client who ordered it, he said.
And when travel is necessary, shrinking digital cameras and skinny laptops that connect individuals to a wireless world make it easy to pack up and go, Walker said.
Still, people are always surprised to hear the company is based in Akron — and particularly pleased to learn there are advantages to that.
Because the cost of living is so much less here, Mindgrab can charge half of what competitors in Los Angeles or Atlanta charge, Walker said.
Mindgrab was formed in December of 2006 in the kitchen of Marcus May, the company's president.
At the time, May (from Bath Township) and Walker (a Medina County native) had both lost their jobs when their division of Varsity Group Inc., an education solutions company, was closed.
Today, Mindgrab works with about 40 companies and agencies, about half of them out of state. The company just added its 13th employee, and expects this year's sales to double from 2007.
In addition to working with beauty clients, the staff designs interactive training videos. As educators trade expensive brick-and-mortar institutions for inexpensive and convenient Web-based classrooms, Mindgrab's market will continue to grow, Walker said.
'''Even corporate America is saying we can train our sales force and teach our customers this way,'' he said. ''Business has really jumped on the bandwagon.''
Walker said Akron's business incubator has been a great home to the fledgling company. The exposed red brick walls in the former tire factory add to the charm of Mindgrab's ninth-floor offices.
And when the company wanted to create its own studio to avoid having to rent space for local video shoots, the incubator found them room for a 2,000-square-foot production studio.
''The incubator has really been instrumental in helping us get going,'' Walker said.
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com.
Mindgrab Media is less than 2 years old, but already the company's client list is a who's who of the beauty industry.
Get the full article here.
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