Our strength is in our backgrounds:
Anne Flinn & Collean Laney are the powerhouses behind the agency. They are seasoned professionals in the world of advertising, marketing, and small business development, and have dedicated their careers to the industry.
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Anne is an entrepreneur. She's a self-taught photographer who built a postcard line featuring her photography. She also had a video production company, and filmed and produced an underwater video identifying all of the fish of the Caribbean. She has worked as a Marketing Manager for a division of Energizer, was the Marketing Director for Downtown Athletic Store, and moved into advertising sales for radio and digital advertising.
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Business disruption by the pandemic severely affected her souvenir line and local ad sales, so she pivoted quickly and launched Anne Flinn Advertising, LLC. Anne realized there was a seismic shift in consumer behavior underway and wanted to be ahead of the curve to help businesses with this new world of advertising.
With her background in business development, she has a deep understanding of what it takes to grow a business.
With her background in business development, she has a deep understanding of what it takes to grow a business.
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Collean got her start working on large scale event production at the New York Times. It was also during this era that she worked towards becoming the National Director of Group Sales - US and Canada at Live Nation - the world’s largest live entertainment company. This opportunity took her to Houston where she worked in the Broadway Division focusing on sales and marketing campaigns for over 75 touring Broadway shows.
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After this stint in Texas, she headed back to VA to be close to family as she took over as General Manager of The Jefferson Theater and The Southern. She collaborated on so many live event projects during this time, that she developed a deep passion for serving the Charlottesville community and has been an active part of many local Boards of Directors over the past 12 years. After her venue management gigs, she worked on a series of events across the country for beloved craft beer icon, Oskar Blues - launching their Austin brewery and incredibly successful national festival series, Burning CAN. She’s worked on LOCKN’ Music Festival, produced The Festy Experience, The Virginia Craft Brewers Fest and more - if you’ve had enjoyed a craft beer, while listening to bluegrass in this town in the past 10 years, she was probably standing behind you, checking her email and wondering why changeover was taking so long :)
Collean settled down a bit after all of that activity to join the Leadership Team at Three Notch’d Brewing Company where she helped open 3 new retail locations in VA and increase product distribution while managing all retail events and collaborating inside the Marketing Department. Her recent gig was as General Manager, King Family Vineyards where she dedicated a year reorganizing the corporate structure of their business.
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"Kickin' It On the James" ... an event they created together out of nowhere... kicked it all off...
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"You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go..." - Dr. Suess, Oh the Places You'll Go!
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Oh the places we've been!
As a Communications Major in college (now known as "Media Studies") Anne was an intern with a local TV Station, in Scranton, PA. Here she is on a remote job driving a CBS cameraman down the sidelines during a football game broadcast.
Anne's entrepreneurial endeavors began in the Cayman Islands, where she went to work the week after her graduation. She became known as "Video Annie" and could be found underwater filming more than living "topside"!
Anne was an early pioneer in the now-familiar business of videotaping tourists while scuba diving on their vacations. Excited by diving and curious about the fish, she set out to produce a comprehensive video which identified them. "The Video Fish Book" was born! Anne researched, wrote, and edited the video which identified all of the fish of the Caribbean & Florida. It was even narrated by David Attenborough! This was her first introduction to product development and distribution.
Collean got her start on Broadway, in NYC! Collean’s career really started to take off when she was promoted to “National Director - Group Sales, Live Nation”.
After Broadway, Collean moved into live music/festival production - seen here as the Marketing Director for The Festy Experience. Always pushing for that earned media!
Anne went on to build a Cayman Island postcard line that was distributed in over 25 gift and hotel shops on the island. Her company, AFP Photography, LLC became the largest distributor of postcards on the island. She managed it for 20 years from the US after moving back to raise her family.
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Anne's community involvement centered around youth sports. In addition to coaching nearly 400 girls she was the driving force behind getting Charlottesville Parks & Rec and the Albemarle County Parks Department to grant girls access to the softball fields at McIntire and Darden Towe Parks. The girls were given unsuitable fields while the boys of the town had multiple Little League parks. She rallied families to bring this to the city & county's attention and they responded with changes, which you can still see to this day.
For years, Collean ran the Grassroots Marketing Department for Lockn’ Music festival hosting hundreds of events across the country promoting the largest music festival Virginia has ever seen, with over 25,000 in attendance.
Craft beer has always been a passion of Collean’s. She spent a handful of years working with Oskar Blues to produce beer and music festivals to generate funds for their non-profit organization, Can’d Aid.
Collean spent a half dozen years at Three Notch’d Brewing Company as their Director of Events and during this time, you could have seen her at hundreds of events across the State of Virginia pouring your favorite TNB beers. Collean loves rolling up her sleeves and directly connecting people with brands.
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Anne enjoyed over 7 years as a radio advertising rep. She became the Director of Digital Sales when digital advertising was added to the advertising mix. With a career of client, product, and media management under her belt, she decided it was time to launch her own agency in 2020 when the pandemic changed everything!
As the Director of Events for Three Notch’d Brewing, Collean spent years attending events like this one - Floyd Fest - to see what makes consumers tick - here, it’s a Photo Booth hosted by their fav craft beer company.
King Family Vineyard is near and dear to Collean's heart! As the GM she oversaw all areas of the business, including creating new events like "Wine Wednesdays", increasing online wine sales, managing Sunday polo, and weddings, and so much more.
Rivanna River Clean Up: Service and volunteering is important to Collean. Seen here at a local river clean up, she spends a lot of her free time giving back to the local community. She serves on many board of directors in Charlottesville as well.
One of Anne's final product creations was the RPET (Recycled Plastic Bottle) bag. Each bag was made from over 30 plastic bottles and took over 10 years of sales and modifications to develop to perfection.
Needing a hobby during the pandemic Anne decided to get into drone photography and videography. She finds "flying" as peaceful and fulfilling as her early days of filming underwater, and loves how its all come full circle.
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Collean's LinkedIn Profile
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