Anomaly Recruits Robert Goulet and William Shatner for Howard Stern Contest

(PRWEB) August 19, 2004

Anomaly, a recently founded New York branding and communications company, is behind an audacious move intended to raise awareness and funding for a national music-related charity.

Ernest Lupinacci, one of Anomaly’s founding partners and a former Creative Director on both ESPN and Priceline.com campaigns, heard about a contest on the Howard Stern radio show in which listeners were invited to submit their own cover versions of an original and painfully bad song titled “Restless, Restless,” written by two of the show’s unofficial cast of characters, Vinnie Favale and Tom Gesimondo. The winner of the contest would ultimately receive $5000.00. (See http://www.howardstern.com for details)

Lupinacci knew immediately who had to submit their own uniquely nuanced covers: crooner Robert Goulet and perennial hipster William Shatner. Lupinacci had worked with both on breakthrough TV campaigns, and maintained strong connections with the two.

Says Lupinacci, “I contacted Shatner and Goulet and asked them to help out on short notice. I told them this was a terrific opportunity to have some fun, cause some trouble and help raise money and awareness for a great cause. They pretty much dropped everything and got on board.”

The cause is the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation (http://www.mhopus.org), which was founded in 1996 by the late movie soundtrack composer Michael Kamen, who died last year. It supports music education and its many benefits through the donation and repair of musical instruments to under-served schools, community music programs and individual students nationwide.

Mr. Kamen’s brother, Jon Kamen, is chairman and co-founder of @radical.media, a global production company based in New York. Mr. Lupinacci has worked with the production company numerous times during his advertising career and has a long-standing professional and personal relationship with Kamen. Lupinacci pointed out “Kamen is one-of-a-kind, and having Anomaly do some pro-bono work for his brother Michael’s charity was a no-brainer.”

Lupinacci immediately called Scott Liggett, a big-band composer and arranger who had collaborated with Lupinacci on the Vegas-style tracks for Goulet’s Emmy Award Winning NCAA basketball campaign on ESPN, and Shatner’s infamous Priceline.com campaign. Liggett threw in his support immediately, and the next day sheet music was delivered to both Goulet, who was working in Vegas at the time, and Shatner, who was in Los Angeles.

Both went into the studio to belt out their versions of the song, and the recordings were mixed and submitted to the Stern Show as the deadline for entries loomed. After a two-week summer hiatus, The King of all Media returned to the airwaves and unleashed the unsolicited tracks on The Stern Show audience; the Goulet cover instantly become the one to beat.

The effort captures the pop culture status of Goulet and Shatner—which Mr. Lupinacci had helped build by casting them in his high-profile ad campaigns—and combines it with the phenomenal reach of Stern’s nationwide audience, all for the benefit of Mr. Holland’s Opus. It reflects what Anomaly was set up to do—harness the powers of entertainment and media in service of brands—by being the content, rather than the advertising within the content.

The finals of the “Restless, Restless” contest are scheduled to take place Thursday, August 19th on the Howard Stern Show which airs in New York City on 92.3 KROC. Press inquiries can contact Ernest Lupinacci at 917-273-2432. For more information on Anomaly, contact Carl Johnson at 212-462-1633. For more information on Mr. Holland’s Opus, visit them at ww.mhopus.org.

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