Today we’d like to introduce you to David Roemer.
Hi David, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
When I started Campus Movie Fest with a few friends more than twenty years ago, I had no intention of running the biggest student film festival in the world – or a global creative studio. For many years, we just focused on running Campus Movie Fest and empowering masses of students to tell their stories through short films all for free. We partnered with some extraordinary brands that sponsored the events and made it all possible. We quickly saw all the incredible creativity, skill, and passion from the student storytellers. Through the festival, we were discovering some of the top emerging talent – full of different passions, expertise, backgrounds, and geographic locations. We quickly started building an alumni network of sorts, with talents ranging from writing to directing to animation to music composition and more. And before we knew it, we had thousands of diverse storytellers located all across the globe who were hungry for opportunities to work with leading brands and nonprofits. They were resourceful and efficient (meaning they didn’t need the traditional high budgets). At the same time, we realized it wasn’t enough to connect a Fortune 500 brand and an individual storyteller somewhere around the world and hope for the best. So we scaled our internal team to ensure we were providing the highest level of quality and consistency. That’s how Ideas United came to be. Over time, we’ve found a pretty magical balance of the power of our community of talented creators and our exceptional full-time team members to tell stories like no one else.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It’s never a smooth road, not for anyone, but the struggles are how we develop character and grit. Golf – which I’ve enjoyed for most of my life – is a good analogy. All accomplished players realize that golf is a game of misses – it is not a game of perfect. The best players know how to make the most of their misses. After we hit a bad shot, we do our best to shrug it off and concentrate fully on the next shot, the next decision. I’ve had to learn (and am still learning) how to make decisions without all the information I might want, whether that’s following my gut, or realizing a lot of decisions can be corrected if needed, or empowering my colleagues to make the decisions where they’re closest to the information.
Obviously, the pandemic has upended many businesses, industries, and lives. For Ideas United, it was a shock early on when we were working on the NCAA Final Four, the PGA Championship, television series with crews of more than 100, and other projects that all were canceled or postponed virtually overnight. We couldn’t be more proud of how our team rallied together, supported each other, and quickly set our sights on the opportunities in front of us. For example, within a few weeks, we created a virtual commencement for Emory University, which then led to hundreds of other virtual events we created for our partners. We’ve since taken all we learned from the past couple of years to offer a variety of virtual/digital, hybrid, and experiential storytelling for dozens of leading brands, universities, and nonprofits. Of course, that’s been truly a team effort from all of our leadership, colleagues, and community of creators worldwide.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m co-founder and CEO of Ideas United, a creative studio and production company based in Atlanta, GA with collaborators around the world. I’m most proud of our team and our proven capacity to change the way stories are told. Over the years we’ve developed an innovative model for creative storytelling that turns the traditional media structure on its head, empowering creators from the bottom up rather than imposing formulas on them from the top down. Empowering diverse individuals from all walks of life to tell their own stories is what I live for, and I’m incredibly proud of my team at Ideas United, and our global network of creatives in the iU Community, for making that possible.
We specialize in a few key areas. First, we partner with premier brands to help them tell their stories differently. Over the years, that’s ranged from helping Starbucks capture content in their cafes in 28 countries in one day to delivering marketing solutions for Disney, PGA, Warner Bros. Discovery, Amazon, and local companies including Equifax, Global Payments, and more. Second, we partner with leading universities and nonprofits to help them make a positive impact. That work has included helping tell the Smithsonian’s stories as it raised $1.88 billion (the largest capital campaign of any cultural institution at the time), similar to our capital campaign work for Emory University and now Georgia Tech, in addition to overall storytelling and content creation for St. Jude, Everytown for Gun Safety, and the Arnold & Winnie Palmer Foundation, among many others. And third, we couldn’t be more excited around the convergence of brands, universities, and nonprofits along with original content, such as episodic series/docuseries and feature films. We’ve worked with platforms ranging from Amazon Prime Video and PlayStation to Warner Bros. Discovery to help unleash fresh concepts for long-form content. All in all, it’s been an incredible honor working with such exceptional storytellers – especially those who haven’t traditionally been welcomed into the industry – and phenomenal organizations to make a difference.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
Trying to learn more every day and trying to improve the lives of others. By focusing on those elements, the path seems a lot more clear. Adding in empathy, integrity, and gratitude are always great reminders to myself of what matters most, and doing my best to express all of that to others along the way. Fortunately, at Ideas United, we have an exceptional opportunity to tell some amazing stories that can change the world for the better; in addition, I love contributing to numerous nonprofits around the region and beyond to share their missions. Over time, I’ve also tried to live my authentic life with pride and not take any day for granted. There’s immense challenges in the world these days, so there’s no time to waste as we try to leave it better for the next generation.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ideasunited.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ideasunited/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ideasunited/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ideasunited
Image Credits
Images are courtesy of Ideas United
