Who

Schafer is the co-founder of Deep Focus, an online marketing agency that services major entertainment companies like Fox, HBO and MGM.

Backstory

George Washington University grad Schafer started off his career at Scott Heiferman's i-traffic (where he worked on the Disney account) and later joined Harvey and Bob Weinstein's Miramax as the company's vice president of new media. In 2002 Schafer went out on his own, co-founding Deep Focus and landing his former bosses at Miramax as his first major client. The agency has since handled online marketing duties for a long list of entertainment biggies, including MGM, HBO Universal Music Group, and Fox.

Of note

Among the firm's most memorable campaigns: Deep Focus was the shop behind the "Interview with Ari" promotion for HBO's Entourage, which allowed fans to get virtually insulted by Jeremy Piven's character, a promotional effort that won the company an award for the "most innovative use of technology for advertising" at the Digital Entertainment Media + Marketing awards in 2006. And in partnership with fellow boutique shop Amalgamated, Deep Focus cooked up the "That Girl Emily" campaign for Court T.V.'s Parco P.I., in which a supposedly cheated-on housewife named Emily tells her "poorly-endowed slimeball" husband to get a divorce lawyer via a billboard. Deep Focus's growing client roster has certainly helped the bottom line: 2007 revenues doubled to $12 million and Schafer relocated the shop from its Dumbo lodgings to fancier digs in the West Village. There's also been increasing chatter that the firm is a likely buyout target by an ad conglomerate like WPP or Omnicom.

On the side

Schafer maintains a blog, IanSchafer.com, where he writes about media and advertising. He also sermonizes on new media trends in periodic columns for tech website ClickZ.

Personal

He and his wife Cheryl live in the Gramercy Park neighborhood.