I wasn’t totally prepared for what I was about to walk into…..mission control at the Playboy Studios with hundreds of TV screens on display! But I kept my cool and kept listening to how TV production works. Those were the early days when I’d just met Dan Smith, then VP Production for Playboy. What I love about Dan is that he’s a risk-taker, open-minded, non-judgmental, and always willing to listen and provide feedback on ideas.
We’ve since collaborated on numerous projects for the Wharton Club of Southern California, where he created a highly-successful Media & Entertainment networking group, and now runs Marketing Mondays. He now helps clients with branding and digital conversion rates through his company, ALT-CMO.
Dan loves to learn and leveraged his experiences at Playboy to truly learn global commerce distribution and digital marketing. This experience has served him well in a direct-to-consumer venture to sell JIMMYCASE, a phone case wallet using just-in-time manufacturing in California that’s distributed worldwide. He tinkered in his garage for 6 months perfecting JIMMYCASE’s design and now is finalizing an innovative yet simple pour-over coffee offering.
About Dan Smith
Dan Smith started his career in the mailroom at a talent agency. From there, he worked for famed Academy-, Emmy- and Golden Globe Award-winning Edgar Scherick. It was during a meeting with Ed and famed Samuel Goldwyn where Dan got his big chance to become VP Development and Production at American Gladiators.
He then moved on to Fox Family Channel which sold to Disney/ABC. Dan transitioned from family programming to adult programming at Playboy, where he rose the ranks to General Manager, Home Entertainment. As the adult programming market was starting to wane, Dan took the opportunity to hone his skills while running the home entertainment business, learning global manufacturing, distribution, and digital marketing.
Dan has parlayed his digital marketing expertise into a very scrappy and successful phone accessories business called JIMMYCASE, is about to launch a coffee-related product and is also CEO of ALT-CMO, a marketing consultancy focused on digital marketing and branding.
