Where it all began
Jamie Tedford
Founder & CEO | Boston, MA
Jamie began his career in an entrepreneurial venture, building Boston-based youth marketing leader Collegiate Advantage until its acquisition by Student Advantage. As a senior manager at the IPO-bound Student Advantage, Jamie became an established and credible expert in the youth market, helping clients such as Coca-Cola, AT&T, and Nike to market effectively to teens and young adults.
He joined top-ten U.S. brand advertising agency, Arnold Worldwide in 2001 where as the
SVP, Marketing and Media Innovation, he developed brand-building, non-traditional marketing
campaigns for clients such as VW, P&G, and Timberland. Recognized as a pioneer in the
growing “WOM” industry, he started the WOM division at Arnold and is a founding board member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. He is a frequent speaker at industry
conferences and his commentary on emerging media trends has recently been featured on ABC’s World News Tonight, and in the NY Times, WSJ and Variety.
Jamie is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire, and resides in Marblehead, MA with his wife Meredith and their three children.
Mike Garsin
Founding Partner & CTO | Rochester, NY
At age 12, in between hockey practice and adventures with friends in the suburbs of Chicago, Mike taught himself programming. He believed that little could top the opportunity to create anything you could dream of by basically telling the computer what to do.
His entrepreneurial and creative mindset took him to the University of Rochester, where he earned a BA in economics and a management certificate specializing in finance and accounting. His economics’ focus combined with his childhood passion led him to become an IT Manager and Business Intelligence Architect at the University. While still in his undergraduate studies he became a founding partner of Island Media Group (NL) and helped secure the capital for IMG’s first acquisition, Overseas Jobs Express (UK) (previously the world’s largest international job publication). As acting CIO, he led the effort to establish a new web identity for the company eventually turning it into a one-stop shop for any activity related to international job search.
In May 2007, when the Facebook API was launched, Mike immediately began working with the platform and quickly saw the opportunities available with social media. With his fresh and fun mentality and extensive experience, Mike co-founded Brand Networks with Jamie.
When he is not busy tweaking out his latest code or keeping his co-workers hyped-up with witty jokes, you will find him spending time with his wife, Jennifer, and their 2 children, Lauren and Ryan.
2007
- Brand Networks is born, the love child of reformed advertising wonk Jamie Tedford and software rockstar Mike Garsin. And so our own version of Cocktails and Dreams began.
- From an attic “office”, Brand Networks creates one of the first brand applications on the Facebook Platform, the PUMA Gift BOT. This Facebook Platform is the real deal, virtual gifts…not so much.
2008
- Houlihan’s HQ Case Study is featured at the WOMMA conference in Miami; Brand Buzz becomes the first scaleable “Solution.” Thanks to one of our first and most favorite clients, we’re still big Houli-fans.
- Monster.com and Brand Networks collaborate to create the Job Search Agent, delivering thousands of jobs to “boxes” on user’s profiles. The collaboration continues today with the Monster’s Social Recruiting Solution in which Brand Networks has helped launch in 12 countries and counting. Hola, BN goes global.
2009
- SocialPIX hits the road to power photo uploads from national events to user profiles and Progressive Insurance’s Faces of Pride Page; establishes SocialPIX as the first social photo-marketing solution for experiential marketers. Over 100 companies, brands and organizations have used SocialPIX to socialize their events since then.
- Brand Networks becomes a full service Social Media Agency of Record for Sperry Top-Sider; creating and managing content for their Facebook and Twitter pages, development of Social Buzz enabled online community; leveraging BN’s suite of application engines, and tapping into our media optimization services.
2010
- BN is named a “Preferred Developer Consultants” by Facebook; one of just 35 companies globally at the time; leading to creation of custom apps for some of the world most “liked” brands including Starbucks, Warner Brothers, and Dos Equis to name a few.
- NY Times spotlights BN’s new Social Screening solution and recognizes the full length pre-screening of American Experience’s Earth Days as a Facebook first. Social TV is all the rage, and we’re in it to win it.
- Brand Networks partners with leading Market Research firm to develop Social Survey, the first and only survey tool exclusively delivering market research to fans in their News Feed on Facebook.
2011
- JetBlue’s launches Go Places powered by BN’s new GO promotions platform for Facebook Places, for the first time aligning Places Check Ins with loyalty rewards in the form of TrueBlue points. Gamificaiton on!
- Brand Network joins the Ads API program and launches our Story Amplifier platform for buying and optimizing Facebook Sponsored Stories. We’re in the media business, for reals.
- American Express taps Brand Networks to develop breakthrough Link, Like, Love and Small Business Saturday applications. Synching AMEX Cards with Facebook Accounts changes the Social CRM game. Leveraging our Story Amplifier to deliver over $1Million in free advertising to thousands of Small Businesses changes everything.
- Beth LaPierre is wooed from her post as the Chief Listening Officer at Kodak to launch Brand Networks Social Intelligence and Analytics practice. Beth is wicked smahht with numbers and makes sweet dashboards.
