House Party
Company: House Party, Irvington, NY
Company Description: House Party is a leading consumer activation and experiential marketing services company that engages thousands of qualified consumer advocates to host in-home parties featuring a brand or product. Managed via a proprietary, customized online community space for each brand event, consumers engage both in home and online to explore and promote brands they love.
Nomination Category: Company/Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Best Overall Company of the Year – Service Businesses – up to 100 Employees
Nomination Title: House Party
Describe for the judges the activities and accomplishments of the nominated company during the eligibility period (up to 500 words):
House Party, a leading consumer activation and experiential marketing company,
nearly tripled its revenue in 2009, while posting strong profitability and
increasing its repeat business rate to well over 60%. The company is on a similar trajectory
for 2010.
House Party specializes in finding qualified brand advocates to host in-home
parties – thousands across the country or world on a single day – with a brand, product or
element of entertainment programming at the center of the party. Each party is
tracked and monitored by a custom-branded micro-site, launched to gather, galvanize and
manage the party community and track the powerful and carefully engineered
outcomes of each House Party event.
In 2009, House Party hosts entertained more than 1.3 million guests, generating
approximately 120 million impressions and more than six million hours of engaging
brand exposure and product trial. House Party clients saw consistent high
double-digit lifts in awareness, favorability, purchase-intent, and advocacy; broad
word-of-mouth reach; and high rates of opt-ins, sign-ups, and redemptions.
House Party’s largest event in 2009, and the one which took it global, was for the
launch of Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system. Microsoft advocates debuted and
demonstrated the new software in tens of thousands of parties across the U.S.
and 11 international locations, including Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, India,
Germany, France, Spain, Mexico, Italy, Hong Kong and Japan. House Party also built
capabilities in China and Brazil.
Additional key 2009 House Party accomplishments include:
• Expanded into new industries, such as pharmaceutical, alcohol and spirits,
and non-profit.
• Deepened penetration of the company’s ‘mainstay’ industries, including
consumer packaged goods, food & beverage, television, theatrical releases, consumer
electronics, toys & games and automotive.
• Conducted first-ever events for a number of blue-chip clients, including
Unilever, General Mills, Domino’s Pizza, Purina, ESPN, Sargento, Werther’s and
Kodak Gallery.
• Increased business with many existing marquee clients, such as Kraft
Foods, P&G, Disney, Ford, Microsoft and Turner Broadcasting Company.
• Strengthened the company’s measurement framework, particularly with
regard to engagement, reach, and brand and conversion metrics, in collaboration
with ChatThreads, a leading word-of-mouth measurement and analytics company.
• Launched AfterParty, a new offering that enables clients to continue the
conversation a House Party begins, turning a one-day event into a long-term,
ongoing relationship delivering powerful and measurable results for months and years to
come.
• Dramatically expanded the company’s consumer community, as well as its
Web site functionality, including a custom-branded program portal to accommodate
the international expansion’s increased global traffic and complex routing
requirements.
In 2010, the company plans to focus on deepening its penetration of existing and
new verticals; developing its global footprint; broadening and enhancing services, and
adding new revenue streams, with a host of strategic partnerships; continuing to
strengthen its measurement and analytics; and further establishing the fusion of in-
home and online as a new marketing channel of unparalleled impact, that should
be part of every major company’s marketing plan.
List the URLs (web addresses) of any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that you would like the judges to see that support your entry. IMPORTANT: List each URL on a separate line, begin each URL with http://, and enclose each URL in square brackets. For example, [http://www.yourcompany.com/pressrelease.html]:
Press clippings and releases listed at this link:
http://corp.houseparty.com/content/news
http://promomagazine.com/awards/ima-awards/windows-7-launch-party/
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=128795
http://www.asicentral.com/asp/open/news/successfulpromotions/cover_story.aspx
http://www.suntimes.com/business/lazare/2226458,CST-NWS-lew03.article
http://www.eventmarketer.com/article/ex-award-winners-announced
http://www2.webmasterradio.fm/ad-tech-conference/2010/consumer-activation
-and-experiential-marketing
http://www.prweekus.com/enthusiastic-brands-welcome-the-return-of-the-house-
party/article/166535
Provide a brief biography of the person or persons who lead the nominated company (up to 100 words):
Kitty Kolding is the CEO of House Party, Inc. Since taking the reins in 2007,
Kolding has led House Party to profitability and dramatic growth, tripling the firm’s
revenue for the past three consecutive years. Under her leadership, House Party has
broadened its word-of-mouth products and services, expanded from the U.S. into 11 other
countries, and penetrated several major industries, all while increasing its
repeat-business rate among clients – blue chips such as Kraft Foods, Disney, Ford, Microsoft, and P&G
– to over 60%.
Kolding has been quoted across major media outlets, such as The New York Times,
The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Fox News, Fast Company, Variety, Advertising
Age, Adweek, Brandweek and Event Marketer Magazine. She has been a featured
speaker at leading industry conferences, such as the WOMMA Summit, Digital
Hollywood, and the American Marketing Association events.
Prior to joining House Party, Kolding was founder and CEO of S3, an outsourced
services firm specializing in strategic sales and partnerships. Prior to that
she held a series of senior executive positions at Jupiter Research (NASDAQ: JUPM, fka JMXI,
fka JPTR), helping grow revenues to over $100 million. Her roles included SVP,
Global Sales & Client Service; SVP, International Business Development; and VP, Global
Strategic Accounts. Her clients at Jupiter were Fortune 500 companies from every
major industry in 13 countries.
Prior to joining Jupiter, Kolding served as VP, Business Development at
GetSmart, an online financial products comparison-shopping service that was later purchased by
Providian. Before that she founded Land Sales Resource (LSR), a commercial real
estate research firm, supplying proprietary data and research to commercial real
estate lenders, brokers, appraisers and corporate executives.
Choose one (even if both apply):
The CEO (or other principal manager) of this company is a woman, and at least 40% of the management team is comprised of women.