Andrew Ballen
Andrew Craig Ballen (born April 27, 1973) is best known in China as Da Long (大龙), or Big Dragon. He is a familiar foreign face on Chinese TV, known for his role as host and producer of China’s internationally broadcast travel series, Getaway. Ballen is the first American to produce, host, and syndicate his own TV series in China.
Andrew Ballen | |
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Ballen in 2013 | |
| Born | Andrew Craig Ballen April 27, 1973 New York City, US |
| Education | The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| Occupation(s) | Founder AVD Digital Media, Ad and Marketing Executive, TV Host and Producer |
| Years active | 2001–present |
Founder of AVD Digital, headquartered in Shanghai, China, in 2014 Ballen and his team conceived and developed China’s seminal interactive in-video touch advertising system, for which he was awarded two China invention patents in 2017.
Brands including Nike, Unilever, Kraft Foods, LVMH Group's Sephora, and Asian TV shopping platform Acorn International Archived 2016-09-21 at the Wayback Machine employed Ballen’s system on a variety of digital campaigns. These in video TOUCH™ to buy mechanisms produced greater than 250% increases in viewer engagement relative to traditional online banner and pre-roll ads. Though patented, Ballen's TOUCH™ mechanism was later back-engineered and duplicated by several of China's larger government-backed online video platforms.
- Patents granted to Ballen
- AVD Patent 1
- AVD Patent 2
- Interactive Video Schematic Patent 1
- Interactive Video Schematic Patent 2
- Playback System Schematic Patent 1
- Playback System Schematic Patent 2