Mellissa Fallon
SVP of Television, Film, and Digital at TMA Entertainment
Q: What’s the most fulfilling part of your job?
The most fulfilling part of my job are the small, every day wins that result in us reinforcing our value to a client. A common misconception is that the most challenging part of a brand /entertainment partnership is the initial deal negotiation. Our perspective is that the real negotiation and creative start immediately following the hand shake.
The word “partnership” is used for lack of a better term when describing a deal between a brand and an entertainment property and while both parties genuinely intend to live up to that word at the onset, the reality lurks in the inherent competing agendas that follow us through the execution. Regardless of how big or small our role in the negotiation is, it’s inches and yards we gain in the execution phase that gets our client that winning touchdown. This is our playing field. This is our Gillette Stadium. (note: everything prior to this mention was constructed with the singular goal of mentioning a Boston Sports arena/team. Go Pats!). Whether it means walking into a previously negotiated deal that needs major retroactive repair work, finessing the communication between the business & creative side or crawling under a stage to run data lines in the middle of the night because a finicky director decided to switch the shoot schedule in the 11th hour, I get to wonder to myself who would do this if we didn’t and why our competitors don’t think clients deserve this level of service. In that, I know lies the secret to our success.That is winning, Charlie Sheen!
