Ventura, CA — May 7, 2001 — Three CE industry veterans — John Caldwell, Chris Esse, and Kevin St.John Leja — have created a unique sales and marketing support agency by combining the resources of their individual companies. The three principals of Cebiz have more than 60 years of experience in virtually every facet of the consumer electronics business - from retail selling to sales management; from editorial to PR and ad agencies; from R&D and manufacturing to the latest in web-based products and services.

How Did Cebiz Originate?
The founders of Cebiz have all experienced the challenges of managing the consumer electronics marketing process - complete with budget crunches, time constraints, multitasking, brand-building hurdles, and all the rest. They had worked together in a loose alliance for more than two years when Caldwell recognized the wonderful synergy of the group. He realized that the time was right to revolutionize the marketing services arena for consumer electronics manufacturers, dealers, and reps.

"The learning curve for consultants and agencies dealing with CE companies is steep. We have something they don't — direct experience. No matter what a CE client needs, chances are we've not only done it before, but been in their shoes, too!"

The process of building brands in the CE category requires a thorough understanding of the unique aspects of marketing and selling technologically advanced products. "The average MarComm (marketing & communications) specialist can only scratch the surface," says Cebiz’s Kevin Leja. "Cebiz can draw on truly pertinent marketing and product knowledge, and a long history of it, at that. In fact, we have coined a new term for what we do in this area. We call it TechComm."

The Cebiz Founders and Their Specialties
Cebiz develops and works on projects as a team, taking advantage of the perspective of each founder. While there is a considerable overlap of skills among the founders, each has certain areas of prime responsibility:

President, John Caldwell - Sales and distribution development; strategic planning; alliances; project management.

Vice President, Chris Esse - Message and materials development; brand development; communications.

Vice President, Kevin St.John Leja - Web strategy and development; brand development; marketing strategy.

Web-Enabled Marketing Tools
While much of the consulting work Cebiz does is in an "analog" fashion, the company offers top-to-bottom web development and I.T. integration strategies. It is also developing several digital (i.e., web-enabled) services. The first is Cebiz info.cast - a distance-learning service based on proprietary Internet radio technology and sophisticated TechComm techniques. Cebiz info.cast technology is adapted from e-learning techniques employed in the financial markets for tra