By GREGORY ZELLER //
An award-winning digital-media innovator with a flair for the dramatic has doubled down on its Hollywood ambitions.
Edgewood-based Lorraine Gregory Communications, which raised the curtain on its Lorraine Gregory Studios video-production facility in 2018, has absorbed Aurora Productions, a Huntington Station-based broadcasting and media-production house. Details of the transaction were not disclosed, but Aurora is now operating under the LGC flag, with Aurora President Rich Poggioli on board as LGC’s director of video services.
The merger, which closed in March, adds topflight audio and video tech – and years of production experience – to LGC Communications’ two New York State-certified film-production studios, including a 3,500-square-foot sound stage and an intimate green-screen studio, home of the “Ask a CEO” interview show hosted by LGC Communications Founder and Chief Executive Officer Greg Demetriou.
It also adds a few watts to LGC’s already bright lights: Aurora boasts a broad client portfolio including multimedia productions for Jericho-based 1-800-Flowers.com, Hauppauge-based Island Federal Credit Union, Hicksville-based Kozy Shack Enterprises and other well-known regional brands.
That experience level makes for the “perfect complement” to LGC’s existing services, according to the mothership, with the two firms’ six decades of combined institutional knowledge “propelling the joint venture to the top of the list of agency competitors.”
Benjamin Demetriou: Important addition.
This is not LGC’s first video-production collaborator. When Lorraine Gregory Studios went live three years ago, it did so with an assortment of media-minded affiliates, including the Drake Media Network, producer of internationally syndicated talk show The Donna Drake Show.
But this may be LGC’s best video-production partner, according to President Benjamin Demetriou, who called Pogglioli “the consummate professional” and trumpeted the Aurora Production addition as another major advance for the 28-year-old marketing and communications cornerstone.
“Lorraine Gregory Communications continues to grow and mature as a leading marketing agency,” the president said. “With each important step, expansion and addition, LGC has firmly planted our flag in the marketplace.”
Equally enthused by the merger is LGC’s new director of video services, who’s jazzed by the combined corporation’s ability to shoot both on location and inside those top-rate Edgewood studios, on top of a large assortment of first-rate communications services.
“I feel energized with the possibilities,” Poggioli said in a statement. “The early support I have received here allows me to think about the future and where we can improve so many of the marketing programs assigned to us with film and video.
“Joining forces with LGC was a natural.”
Thrilled to have been a part of the LGC journey. When I moved from St Louis to New York my first friends in the video world was the team at Aurora 4. My time spent at LGC will always be treasured. Looking forward to supporting not only our efforts at Drake Media Studios in Melville thrive but in supporting all video production, film production and the like soar to
incredible heights to help our economic landscape. Thank you for the mention in this article. Congrats to LGC and to Rich. Bravo. Donna