Andrew Ballen

Andrew Ballen
Andrew Ballen Shanghai, 2008.
Born	Andrew Craig Ballen (1973-04-27) April 27, 1973 Manhattan, New York, United States
Nationality	American
Education	The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Occupation	CEO/Founder of AVD Digital Media, A&R Executive, Interactive-media Content Developer, TV Personality
Years active	2001-present
Religion	Episcopal
Website
www.avdmg.com

Andrew Craig Ballen (born April 27, 1973) is an American television producer and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of AVD Digital Media,^[1] headquartered in Shanghai, China.^[2]

More often known as Da Long (大龙), or Big Dragon, Ballen is a familiar foreign-face on Chinese TV.^[3] Ballen is known for his role as host of China's nationally aired bi-lingual travel series, Getaway.^[3]

Early life and education

Ballen was born in New York.^[1] He is the son of Belizean and Jamaican parents and was raised in Greensboro, North Carolina.^[1][3] Ballen left home aged 14 to attend Hargrave Military Academy, in Chatham, Va.^[4] During Ballen's final year at Hargrave, he became the first person of colour in school history to become Battalion Commander thus achieving the Academy's highest cadet rank.^[4][5] Ballen majored in Political Science and International Affairs at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.^[1] He later attended Duke University Law School, in Durham, North Carolina. Ballen left Duke after two years, unsatisfied with the constraints of a legal education.^[1][6]

Early career

Ballen arrived in China in August 2001.^[7]

At first unable to speak a single word of Mandarin, Ballen first found work teaching English at the Wall Street Institute.^[3] He made several guest appearances on Shanghai Media Group entertainment programming and a regular guest slot on the Shanghai talk show “Live It Up Shanghai”.^[8][9]

While frequenting Shanghai night spots, Ballen and Adam Wilkes^[10] observed China's lack of a hip-hop and urban club scene.^[11] This led to the idea of Hip Hop Thursday's, held at night club, Pegasus,^[3] targeting the younger international student crowd. Ballen and Pegasus were featured in the fly-on-the-wall documentary No Sleep Til Shanghai.^[12][13] The weekly events became highly successful, leading Ballen to bring to China for the first time the likes of Ice-T,^[14] Asian-American hip-hop artists Far East Movement^[15] and MC Jin.^[16][17] serving as the benchmark formula for other club venues in Shanghai and Beijing.^[18] Ballen's unorthodox entertainment-driven success was covered in a book by Darren J. Perkins entitled Business is War: The Unfinished Business of Black America.^[19]

Ballen was also the first A&R Exec. to have Chinese mega-star Leehom Wang perform in a club setting,.^[20] when he presented the MC Jin/Leehom Wang collaboration to promote Leehom's single and studio album "Heroes of the Earth".^[21]

In 2002, by quoting reporter Michelle Zhang from Shanghai Daily

Charmed by his silky-smooth voice and perfect pronunciation, one of his students at the Wall Street Institute recommended him to a local radio show "Live It Up Shanghai.^[3]

No sponsors or advertising existed for the show^[7] – the same being true later for his TV show Getaway.^[22] Ballen seized on this gap in the market, starting his own company (BallenWest Events Media, later AVD Digital Media) targeting sponsors seeking China's youth market and bi-lingual white collar college graduates.^[3]

Getaway

Ballen went on to host China's nationally aired bi-lingual travel adventure series, Getaway from 2003 until 2007.^[3][23] On Getaway, Ballen toured China by car, conversing with locals and exploring local culture and cuisine, starring in hundreds of episodes.^[22] Getaway appeared on Dragon TV and Channel Young and later aired nationally on CCTV News, and currently airs on ICS.^[3]

Several brands have used Ballen's voice based on its distinctive gravelly bass sound, including China Bank of Communications, McDonald's, Motorola and Toshiba.^[7]

Ballen also served as co-host and co-producer of China's first nationally broadcast Western Pop Music radio show I-music.^[9]

2008 Beijing Summer Olympics

In 2008, as China hosted the Beijing Summer Olympics, Ballen was responsible for handling Jamaica's media, event production and public relations activities, including all event programming related to Jamaican track and field sensation Usain Bolt.^[24] His company and partners were permitted to bring foreign artists into Beijing (for non-IOC sanctioned event programming) hosting the likes of Paolo Nutini and Bob Marley's son Julian Marley for Beijing Olympic concert appearances.^[25]

REMIX

In 2011, Ballen's Company launched China's first bi-lingual reality series, REMIX,^[26] a talent series for amateur young Chinese performers.^[1] With auditions via online micro-videos, winners are pitched against Chinese and Western stars to see whose version of global hits is best.^[26] REMIX is shown across China and Asia on TV and online.^[26]

Awards

April 23rd 2015, Shanghai, Ballen was awarded the Digital A-List of Campaign Asia 2015 China and was successfully on the list of “Digital Entrepreneur”. The “Digital Entrepreneur” list aims at the entrepreneurs, who can be top of the industry, or budding and promising with its great creativity among all the entrepreneurs. This is the second year of Campaign Asia Digital A-List, brought together more than 400 attendees from top brands, agencies and media to debate trends in China's digital marketing industry, Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba also appeared in this award.^[27]

References