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Showing posts with label Branded Entertainment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Branded Entertainment. Show all posts
In part two of my conversation with Erick Hachenburg, CEO of Metacafe®, he talks specifically about the growing opportunity for online video advertising and how companies are using online video for advertising and branded entertainment. For Metcafe, the key to its business model is advertising and as a result, the company recently expanded it advertising sales team to meet the growing demand for its online video advertising offerings. Metcafe has premium content deals with Hulu, Warner and other Hollywood studios, and it has grown its movies-related advertising revenues over the past year by more than 70% year-over-year.
Hachenburg pointed out that in addition to being content partners, movie studios are also marketing partners. Metcafe works with movies studios very early on, sometimes 6 months before the movies release to build an audience, and on the opening weekend Metcafe can deeply integrate the brand into the site. Hachenburg noted that many of the consumer brands are interested in reaching consumers where they have their "passion points" through movies, television, video games, sports and music. This gives both advertisers and consumers more choices to both create and consume compelling branded advertising messages and entertainment.
Research findings from Metcafe's annual sponsored study on online video consumption conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates in May 2010, that found online video advertising is increasingly accepted by consumers. More than 55 percent of the 2,412 online video viewers surveyed found online video ads just as or more acceptable than TV ads, a 3% increase from 2009 and 18-34 year-olds are more likely than older viewers to find online video ads more acceptable than TV ads.
Hachenburg said:
"Clearly the way, that consumer brands have been marketing their products over the past years has been through video, through television primarily, the commercial break. What's happening with online video is, we're seeing for the first time a real movement of the brands from the television space to the online video space."
The first thing, he said, is to take the simple approach and take what you have that you know what works, which is the commercial break and bring that to the online video space.
"We are running pre-rolls and we are running different ways of trying to present that message. The impact, the sight, sounds and motion of commercials is just so powerful. It is almost the only way you can effectively brand advertise."
Beyond the pre- and post-rolls, Metacafe offers a suite of advertising programs to maximize viewer engagement with brands. From more robust programs where brands can take over the home page or site, mashup tools, branded entertainment channels and a variety of other options for product placement. One of the key advantages that Metcafe delivers to advertisers, Hachenburg said, is an audience that is passionate about the content and entertainment properties, and that offers greater value than a broad based site. Often times broad based sites have a much a greater audience, but according to Hachenburg, they are just passerbys just coming and going, and not spending that much time on the site.
Metcafe's audience is primarily the ‘entertainment drivers’ and social connected influencers that drive entertainment decisions for others. They don't snack on content, but dive deep into all the entertainment categories and are an especially valuable audience for advertisers. Metacafe believes that the real value lies not through scale but through depth and focus. While the company was once a YouTube competitor, it has been able to navigate the changing currents of online video industry and focus its business model on premium content, branded entertainment and the growing opportunity for online video advertising.
The online video portion of the Magid Media Futures TM 2010 study was sponsored by Metacafe. A complete summary of the online video portion is available for download at http://magid.com/metacafe.pdf.
This is the first of several videos I'll be featuring from the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards from my view in the front row at the Orpheum Theater, Los Angeles, California. This video captures Auto-Tune the News performing "Magical Streamys Remix" live on April 11, 2010. You'll see Shaycarl and his wife KatiletteOlgaKay dance on stage for a cameo.
Auto-Tune the News won three Streamy Awards for Best Experimental Web SeriesBest News or Politics Web Series, Best Experimental Web Series and Best Original Music in a Web Series,and is nominated for 2 Webby Awards. Vote for them here: http://nxtnw.tv/goATTN and here: http://nxtnw.tv/voteATTN . If you're a fan, spread the word and get out the vote!
This video was shot with a Kodak Zi8 video camera. Many thanks to my friends at Kodak for hooking me up!
Also a big thanks Glenn Gutierrez and all my friends at Popscreen including Kevin Nguyen, Nick Palacios, Kenneth Sok and Vance Lawrence, for getting me into the Streamys!
Through a sponsorship by Warner Brothers Theatrical for its upcoming “Watchmen" movie, New York-based online media studio For Your Imagination has created a custom package of comedy and entertainment shows produced under FYI’s Axis of Comedy video network. Clever "Watchmen”-themed tie-ins and crossovers between four of their comedy web series through an integrated storyline defines their innovative approach to the promotional campaign which launched on February 18, 2009 and runs through March 6, 2009, the opening date of “Watchmen”.
All programming will be available on www.axisofcomedy.tv utilizing a customized interactive video player by Innovid that includes clickable Easter eggs and “Watchmen” references as part of a fan contest. Videos will be syndicated across For Your Imagination’s distribution network of video sharing platforms such as Blip, DailyMotion, MySpace, Yahoo! and Viddler, entertainment and comic book websites and as a podcast on iTunes.
I had the opportunity to speak with Paul Kontonis, CEO and Co-Founder of For Your Imagination about the Warner Brothers sponsorship and their unique campaign in the following interview. This is part one of a two-part conversation with Paul.
Larry Kless: It's certainly a great way to kick off the new year with this Warner Brothers sponsorship deal. How is FYI approaching the "Watchmen" promotional campaign?
Paul Kontonis: It's been a good strong start of the year with a nice mix of brand entertainment and original sponsored entertainment. The Watchmen is a sponsorship of current web series, Kyle Piccolo being one of them and three other series, The Retributioners, Abigail's X-Rated Teen Diary and HungrymanTV's Phistophicles, and the sponsorship is original videos within those four web series with the purpose being, and the reason those four were selected is the three series.
The Retributioners, Abigail’s X-Rated Teen Diary and Phistophicles are very popular with mainstream audiences, adults 18-34 and not necessarily comic book focus. Kyle Piccolo's audience is a subset of the mainstream audience. They have much more of a comic book bent to them and they're the ones who are rabid and excited about the upcoming “Watchmen” movie.
Kyle Piccolo also has the benefit of having of an ability to talk to a mainstream audience without setting them totally astray. The purpose of the whole campaign is to take these three original web series that are mainstream ones and use them as a way of delivering the masses into the comic book airlock that is Kyle Piccolo and then bringing them to Watchmen.
This campaign right now looks pretty straightforward. You saw a video for Kyle Piccolo that has “Watchmen” tie-ins. Another one's going to come out and it's going to have “Watchmen” tie-ins and it's part of a mini-series called "3 6 9" and it's about the mystery of 3 6 9. 03.06.09 is the launch date of the movie but Kyle and Doucheus don't know that.
Now when you see the videos next week from the other web series. They have crossovers into the Kyle Piccolo world and what they're meant to do is to take you from The Retributioners’ world into Kyle Piccolo into the Watchmen.
So for somebody who sees the Watchmen right away and get turned off because it's all superheroes, they'll get slowly introduced to it and acclimated to the storyline by going first from The Retributioners into Kyle Piccolo. Then if they're really interested, then they'll make the next jump.
So instead of making it a big leap, we made it two small jumps. We think this will be a great way of getting the masses to come to Watchmen while still exciting the base because Kyle Piccolo excites the base. What's cool about it is the videos are done from different point of views, so in The Retributioners’ video Kyle Piccolo exists in that world. So Stephanie who is in The Retributioners is in the same world as Kyle Piccolo himself; in fact you're going to see her in one of the Kyle Piccolo videos. So she crosses over even in that way.
In “Abigail”, Kyle Piccolo is media. It is a show you can watch. It is a web site you can go to. So it's as though Abigail is in our world and Kyle is just as he is in our world It is a web series you can go see.
And in "Phistophicles", it's done even more insidiously and Kyle is almost a fellow philosopher. They're almost peers since Phistophicles in the video is from 3000 years ago. So it's really unclear who Kyle is --- there’s kind of a mystery about how old Kyle is; is he really an older soul, so it kind of gives it a little bit of a legend to it. So we came it from all different angles assuming that most people wouldn't see the connection. “Abigail” has its own fan base; "The Retributioners" has its own fan base, and all of the series have their own fan base. They share some commonality because they're all on “Axis of Comedy” but they really have their own unique points of distribution that will channel their own grouping of that 18-34 audience into a funnel that will take them right to “Watchmen.”
LK: So for everyone on the shows, Stephanie, all the cast of Kyle, etc, How have they responded to the campaign?
PK: They're excited… it's a lot of fun. What was really fun about it was they got to do their own video with some elements of the campaign in it, but it's their own content that they can distribute across their sites out to their fans. They're done in such a way that their fans will like the content and not be, "what is this? A promotion video for the movie?" No, it will be like another video of Abigail or Phistophicles but it has these elements in it that pique your interest and give you the opportunity to explore more. So they were very happy about that, plus there's going to be a lot of distribution and a lot of points of syndication, as part of this campaign across a lot of comic book sites, movie web sites and entertainment web sites that will really increase the exposure of all these web series and really help build their audiences out, as well.
LK: I'm a comic book collector from way back and your approach reminds me the big comic crossovers they do every year (at Marvel and DC) and you have to get all the issues to get the whole story. From an editorial standpoint, how did you work with all the writers on developing the continuity of the storylines and how quickly did it come together?
PK: Hats off to Alec Pollak who is our Chief Creative Officer and he's also one of the co-creators and writers of Kyle Piccolo. He's the one who really spearheaded the integration and the crossing over to the other shows and he worked with each of the writers and helped them with the script ideas and the concepts. We had to run things by Warner Bros for approval to make sure they were okay with how we were using the Watchmen brand and we didn't have a lot of time to do it. The concepts came together in under a week and then we had to jump right into production. We only got approval for this in early February and we didn't get the g- ahead until the first week of February. It launched on the 16th and there will be four new videos out this next week. Each of the other web series plus another episode of Kyle. So as it was coming together, we knew we were going to be doing this, but we had to wait for approval.
PK: We just shot the second one Wednesday (2/11/09) and just got the rough cut together yesterday and ran it by approval to Warner Bros for approval. We're hoping to get it approved as early as possible and once that's done, we'll shoot the last one one Wednesday (2/26/09) night. We're really excited about a possible surprise for the third episode, which we can't yet reveal. Stay tuned…
End of Part One of the interview. Read more tomorrow in Part Two.
A 3-part series on KYLE PICCOLO: COMIC SHOP THERAPIST Problems with women? Frustrated at work? Suspect you have a mutant power? Just head down to your local comic book shop and have a chat with the man behind the counter — Kyle Piccolo, the always sardonic, sometimes empathetic, and not quite all-knowing Comic Shop Therapist.
ABIGAIL’S TEEN DIARY Abigail is a 13 year-old girl vlogging about boys, school and living with Bloomberger's Syndrome. That's a fictional genetic condition that makes her look like a 30-something guy!
THE RETRIBUTIONERS Stephanie Scott, is a happily married, accomplished woman, who feels that she has not yet proven herself to the world. She decides to contact past boyfriends, former friends, teachers, rude people, skinny people, etc., to seek retribution.
HungrymanTV’s PHISTOPHICLES The lesser known Greek philosopher, Phistophicles, recites his ponderings on all things important in this recently discovered, thought-to-be-lost ancient video footage.
Beet.TV posted this follow up interview with Paul Kontonis, CEO of the online media studio For Your Imagination to discuss the business of branded entertainment and product placement. A few months ago FYI secured funding from OmniReliant Holdings, Inc., a holding company that has a portfolio of companies that utilizes direct response to build brands.
In the press release that announced OmniReliant's equity stake in FYI, Paul W. Morrison, CEO of OmniReliant said, "For Your Imagination has shown the way for online branded entertainment that not only entertains and engages an audience but also delivers a powerful marketing message. We recognize that brands can use the internet for more than just advertising with publishers – brands can now become the publisher and truly engage their customers and For Your Imagination knows how to do it successfully."
"It's definitely a very powerful model for it; [but] it's hard to buy. It's hard to quantify the value of a product placement," he says in the segment. "I think there will be big dollars when they do happen, and they will represent a real great growth in the dollars in this industry," Paul says.
According to Beet.TV Associate Producer Kelsey Blodget, "Branded entertainment done right seems like a win-win--a profitable model for the publishers, and fun and un-obnoxious entertainment for the viewers. FYI produced a branded mini-series called "Day with the Hiltons" earlier this year for the launch of Kathy Hilton's new fragrance, My Secret. The series got distributed over the TV Guide network, received five million views in the first six weeks, and spurred a considerable jump in sales of My Secret at Macy's."
Kelsey Blodget, Beet.TV Associate Producer spoke with For Your Imagination CEO and Co-founder Paul Kontonis about the new vertical video networks FYI is launching in 2009. A personal finance network GEQ and fashion network Glampede, will join their existing networks The Green House, DadLabs and Axis of Comedy. She notes that, "although sponsorships for the videos grew significantly in 2008, branded entertainment still accounts for the vast majority of revenue."
eMarketer predicts that online video will surge forward this year as a viable base for brand marketers with a +45% spend in 2009 to reach to reach $850 million, and with it will be the companies like For Your Imagination that have established footholds in the industry.
In the interview Paul says, "Until the media side really gets its act together and understands how to buy sponsorships in online video, you're going to see a lot more on the branded side because that's starting from the creative groups that are much more willing to jump into the space, play with those experimental dollars."
Digital media and web video studio For Your Imagination has been successful in defining itself as a leader in online video. In a market still unsure of revenue models, FYI has demonstrated year-over-year revenue growth of 34% in sponsored and branded entertainment implemented of a leveraged distribution network and delivered strong advertiser video solutions. Their 2008 highlights have been on expansive reach, powerful advertising solutions, a focus on vertical video networks and sponsored and branded entertainment and on agency partnerships. They recently held a Spring 2009 Upfront event as a preview of upcoming web shows and verticals launching in 2009. FYI has held these in the past and they've been successful in building interest with advertisers and brand sponsors.
The night's theme was “Who’s Watching?” and Tilzy.tv and Tubefilter both covered the Upfront here:
I spoke with FYI CEO Paul Kontonis about the Upfront event and their press release on enhancing market leadership with reach, revenue and solutions which can be found at the end of this post.
Larry Kless: How did the Upfront go? How successful was it for FYI?
Paul Kontonis: I think it was successful for us because it gave us an opportunity to attract some attention to what we're doing in our content. It allowed us to position our content to the advertising agencies that we'd love to work with. I think it's important that we react to the changing economy not only by reducing expenses but by also putting out a more compelling product and service that can still attract the dollars.
So, I do agree very strongly that when the economy is not going in the right direction you reduce expenses and run a very tight ship and we've been needing to do that our whole lifespan… so for us it's all about how do we continue to innovate, get those dollars and provide a real powerful advertising solution for the brands we hope we can work with.
LK: How often do you host the Upfronts? Have you been doing them for a while?
PK: Yes, the first one we did I believe was in the Fall of '07 so I think that this might our 6th. We've been doing them once a quarter since late 2007.
LK: Any immediate results?
PK: Sure, we've had inquiries on a couple of our shows right away and about some brand opportunities. I would say that we've sent out information on Lurker the new series by the Break a Leg guys to some big online destination site type of networks. We've had inquiry on the Greenhouse which is our Green Living network and also on the Spanish show Spanish por la Mañana.
LK: Regarding your press release, did you share that as part of the package for the Upfront event?
PK: Not all of it. The revenue related stuff wasn't there at the event but everything else was.
LK: So how about the expansive reach? Your release says you're looking at exciting partnerships with Hulu, Joost, Dailymotion, Howcast and Tremor Media and OggiFinoggi.
PK: Coming in January we'll start having our content put out on Hulu. We actually close the Hulu deal much earlier this year but they use an encoding format MP2 that is not really standard in the industry so we've been holding back on spending the time to do that encoding specifically for them. Everyone else uses .mp4 except for them and Joost. They both are MP2 holdouts and they some pretty.
When it comes to the file format they're a little on the primitive side in that A) they are using MP2 and B) they don't have the ability to encode. So for example, you could upload to let's say Blip or Viddler an .mov, an .avi, a .wmv, a .mp2, a mp4, pretty much any format you can think of, you can upload the Flip video format (.avi plus Divx plug-in) and it will work fine and they encode to the .mp4 format they use and the .flv format that use. Both Hulu and Joost don't do that at all so you actually have to give them exactly the file format you're going to use. So when you got all your files in your workflow to be .mp4 based since everyone uses.mp4, H.264 files are beautiful and then all of a sudden it come around to another file format it's a real pain in the @$. There's over 300 files and downloads alone and we're talking over 80 hours to encode all of that. It's insane.
But we're looking forward to finally getting our content up on Hulu and since were doing Hulu we might as well do the web version of Joost as well because they've got some great functionality and we've got a nice working relationship with them that was built in the Dailymotion days when most of the people left Dailymotion to go to Joost. So we're really excited about that too.
We're solidifying the relations with Howcast and we'll probably see some content for them to continue to build out their content library.
With Tremor, they really helped us with targeting publishing verticals and helping with not really distribution but targeting some of the relationships with the publisher and ad networks that we want to work with for promotional purposes.
OggiFinoggi has a video player that we will use and a widget that we'll distribute on other sites that has some really cool functionality to it when you mouse over it, it expands into a much bigger player that has multiple videos and ad units on it and so we can drive specific traffic to videos as well as to additional videos by using their player as a widget we can place all around vertical sites across the web.
LK: In terms of powerful advertising solutions, in working with these destination sites that use the ad server model, how effective has that been in combination with the "baked in" endorsement approach? Do see this as a one-two punch?
PK: Definitely, I think the ad server model adds in a little supplemental revenue which is pretty negligible at this point so we really don't pay much attention to those dollars, the pre-roll, the overlays and post-rolls, The baked in host endorsement product placement and thematic content -- meaning we do an episode about something that relates to that product's brand but still stays in the vein of the show and the authenticity and the credibility of the show -- is definitely a very successful way for us to integrate advertising messages in a real quality kind of way into the content and still make it very true to the content brand that we've created and yet very accommodating to the advertisers. and again in a way that people receive it as informative and entertaining and not a straight up pitch. The host endorsements are very sincere they're very authentic and they really differentiate from the ad sever model.
The response we've seen form the audience is, "Okay, cool." It's a very positive reaction because we're very clear that they're helping bring this programming that you find informative, entertaining and useful to being a Dad, for example, people respond very positively to it. The recall is very high, the brands and everyone is re-upped so everyone who's tested something out has decided to do more at this point. So we're really excited about Hasbro coming in this week at DadLabs because we're hoping that they re-up for their next release.
LK:What drove the new expansion into these other areas of personal finance, style and fashion?
PK: The one that I'm personally most excited about is GEQ network which stands for Generation Equity and that's the personal finance content. It's something that from pretty early in setting up For Your Imagination I had always followed the "click these rankings" of brand spending online and looked at the categories and personal finance has been one of these areas that has been a very very high dollar spend online and that continued even through this downturn in he economy. It's still one of the biggest areas of online spending. So take that and balance it with this idea that you have this whole generation of people, Generation Y and even older and younger, who are active, building their futures, some in the workforce some still in school and have really no idea how to manage their money, how to balance their checkbook, how to control their spending, how to work with debt, how to work credit cards.
Home Economics used to be one of the biggest classes you had to take at some point and now it's out of the curriculum, it doesn't exist anymore. So you people who really have no clue what they're doing, and the number one source for information for them are their friends first who are also completely illiterate on personal finance and then you have family members as the next place they turn to. And for the most part we've become a society ridden with debt and really managing our money every well as a whole. You've got a generation that's turning to itself which doesn't really know what it's doing relying upon then their parents who don't know what they're doing either. So it's a real mess.
There is a need here for really good, and sometimes I call it mundane and practical, information on what you should be doing -- and I'm not talking about Jim Cramer, "Get your money into an IRA and roll it over to this and make investment in these stocks..." -- I'm talking about which online banking is better? How to do it? SHOULD you have a credit card or should you NOT have a credit card? And if you do what do you really look for? What do you need in a credit card? And how do you pick one?
Most college students at this point got their credit card because someone was giving them a T-shirt or a hat at street fair outside their school or on the school grounds. And they sign up for the credit card they've got no idea why except, "I got a cool T-shirt" or "I'm getting a coupon for Pizza for my friends."
LK:Right, and they have no idea the 19% APR kicks in after a few months.
PK: Yes! And the blatant marketing towards the use on the credit card arena is really disastrous and causing problems now and could potentially cause more problems in the future. So, I'm not against credit cards, I think I'm against people not knowing what to do with them and the credit card companies not educating people on how to best manage it.
We did a round table here and we asked a very simple question of college students, "Do you improve your credit rating with a credit card? Or how do you affect your credit rating with credit cards?" and some of the people said, "Oh yeah, it's good to have a credit card. Get and just don't use it." Other people said, "Oh no, you have to get put money on it and pay it off right away." While others said, "No, I thought you were supposed to carry a balance and just make your monthly payment."
LK:(LAUGHS)
PK: There's just total ignorance without even realizing you don't need a credit card at all to improve your credit rating. But that's what people have come to think and they're just going through the motions of and how much debt are people accumulating when their in college and how long will the it take to really pay it off? We asked people how long it take to pay off their student loans they had no idea and said, "I don't know, a few years after school?" But how long is it really going to take? 30 years, 50 years? They really had no understanding whatsoever.
So that's the one that has the most robust financial opportunities and tech revenue generator for us but also it serves a real true purpose. It is filling a gap that is missing in content online in an accessible kind of way. I consider, take Suze Orman mix it with a little Consumer Report and then make it fun and informative for that generation and that's what we're really shooting for with GEQ.
LK:Are there several programs launching in that vertical or one main program?
PK: There's four shows total.
The first one is news and interview and community focused show taking to peers and interviewing news makers and giving vital information. That one's called straight up, "Generation Equity."
The next one is a How-to series called, "Ka-ching! Live Well Spend Less" and that's going be giving real practical tips on how to manage your money. A lot of people have advocated, "You cut your expenses, don't sound any money, never eat out, never do this," but I'm a believer in you just do in moderation and you learn how to balance everything. So this is really going to focus on how to help people understand you can still live well and spend less.
Then there's going to be straight up entertainment scripted comedy called, "Broke in the City" about two recent college graduates who are living in a big city. One is planning to go to Grad school and works whatever odd jobs while he's in school. The other one is getting an entry level position in a big ad agency and it's them living in a city with most of their money going to rent, eating ramen noodles and really giving people a chance to laugh at themselves. Because everyone has bought something they really shouldn't have when they didn't have any money and put it on a credit and said, "Aw crap, now what I going to do?" Everyone has done that so this gives you an opportunity to laugh at that and probably learn through making fun of yourself in a way.
The last one is called "The Economiguide" and it's a practical product review show that will do things like comparing all the different Master Card options you have, comparing the online banking between Chase, Citybank, HSBC, ING, What are the pros and cons of each? To educate you on if you're going to make a decision and something like this is important here's all the information you need to know. "What's so special about a Capital One Visa Card?" They do all those these commercials and make it really cool, Is it really cool? What does it means when fees change on the ATMs? How does that compare across all the different banks?
So you take all four different shows and you're building out the community, you're educating people and you're doing the How-to component which is very popular online. So the first one is very timely, the next one is very evergreen because it's How-to, the product review we're hoping is evergreen as well and the evergreen scripted comedy is pure entertainment, another way of getting people into the space and open to learning and participate in. To me, I see it as a big hole in the marketplace and we've had some initial conversations with brands and agencies and their response has been absolutely overwhelming. We're hoping that we will close something up and start to be able to begin production in January and get that out in January too.
We're bringing in special directors for it, John Threat who's over at Media Threat and has done absolutely amazing film work and really funky online video stuff and Jesse Cowell who did an amazing series called "Drawn by Pain." So we're bringing in people who from a visual standpoint and a content standpoint taking what could be a very dry and hard to just sit there and listen and really apply some real creative techniques in delivering it making it accessible to the audience. On the flip-side we've put together an advisory board of real experts in the informational side to make sure what we're putting out us as accurate as could be. We will have an opinion and not totally be neutral, it is going to be about avoiding debt as much as possible to do the things you want to do. The panel of financial experts will guide the content and the panel of entertainment exports to make it as popular as we possibly can.
LK:Will it all be brand new content vs. established brands?
PK: Right now the plan is that it will all be brand new. But as we do with all our other networks we are always looking for established shows or shows that are already being planned that we can also put through the distribution network as well. I don't know if that will be dome in time for the launch.
LK:Any plans in place to pitch to the shows to other established networks? For example Glam Media with Glampede?
PK: Nothing formal, we have a budding relationship with them but nothing really solid there. We'll see what happens though, we just have a very unique opportunity to work with a very well established fashion photographer by the name Tom Concordia who's very well entrenched in the fashion industry and has been producing absolutely incredible shoots and has the opportunity to film them all and produce this content. So we've been producing the content but haven't been editing it yet and putting it out there but it will have some amazing access. It's not so much about, "On my God, who's the model?" it's more like, "Wow, look at how they actually did that!" It's going to have wonderful product integration opportunities and that's going to be very product oriented.
LK:How about the Agency Partnerships? For Your Imagination will continue to support and enhance the agency-to-brand relationships with traditional, interactive and public relations agencies.
PK: I think what's really important is recognizing the ecosystem that we're in -- that the agencies are the brand stewards -- and we need to think in terms of supporting the strategy that agency has created for their brands. Being a real partner to that strategy versus a renegade to that strategy. I've seen a lot of production companies produce content for other brands and they don't stay true to that brand. I don't think they understand what brand guidelines are and what the positioning strategy of a campaign is and that's something that where we're building off our interactive agency experience and our agency experience.
I was CMO for a big agency for three and half years working with Mastercard, Samsung, Pfizer, Lucent, really big brands and when every point of marketing is fully brand enabled and supports the brand strategy and criteria it's a beautiful thing. It ends up being very powerful so I think we're very mindful that these agencies are really the stewards and the brands and the ones we need to support and if we empower them with powerful tools that support their brand and positioning strategies then we're going to get a great response. We're going to be a team player not somebody who's trying to usurp their relationship with the brand.
We've had a lot of positive reaction to the way we've been working with agencies and we hope to continue to expand upon that. I think that's something that differentiates how our approach is from a lot of the other companies. As well is that we are agency and traditional media production people, we're not coming at this as Hollywood script writers or talent that want to do something exactly their way and find the brand integration obtrusive. When you see our brand integration it's smooth, it's very high quality because we know there's more than putting a bottle of water on somebody's desk and saying, "Hmm, good!", it's a lot more about thinking of brand strategy. The agencies are very comfortable with our approach to things. I think that's a real important piece for what we want to do moving forward.
LK:In terms of the economic state, it seems like FYI is well positioned with this exciting launch of these new networks. What do you think about of the current state of the online advertising marketplace? How long before you see it bouncing back and for the ad dollars start to support this new programing?
PK: I think there's going to be a shifting of ad dollars. Whenever there's a downturn you go a lot towards direct response and away from brand marketing. Different mediums will lose and gain accordingly. I think traditional will take another big hit. So TV, newspapers and magazines and out of home will take additional hits from what they've already been taking so I think they'll drop faster. I think you'll still see online spending going up but the year over year growth rates won't increase as much. There will be a shifting like to more keyword buying and search engines, more email marketing, more direct type of response.
We need to prove that we can take some of those dollars that are fleeing TV and provide an absolutely compelling proposition to anybody who is considering advertising on TV. This is an educational challenge for us. It's educating brand that, instead of spending $400,000 to produce a 30 second intrusive spot and then buying a million dollars worth of media to do a little campaign, spend that $400,000 on 6 months of an original web series that you will underwrite and be integrated into in a quality way that will attract an audience and we'll go out on the line and say, we'll guarantee you that you're going to get 5-10 million views a month on it with that budget. Let's go do it and don't go spending the dollars on media spend it on more keyword buying and a few good promotions to move the product off the shelf.
So we can be a real strong component to their media plans and marketing plans and do it in a ridiculously cost-effective way and still provide them something they're comfortable with, which is TV-like content produced specifically for the web that still allows them to increase their brand reach and frequency but also put a direct response component into it. On TV, the direct response is you do the phone number and hope somebody calls. I'm glad we could do the phone number, click to go over here, click to sign up for that, we have so many more options. We know that if you're already on a web page and see something really cool you're more likely to click on that than you are to go from your TV to your website. So we increase the likelihood of the response. We can give the same brand awareness and that's not even higher recall and higher responses that they use on TV for a fraction of it maybe a 5th of the budget total between the production and the media.
LK: So when are we going to see some of the first programming?
PK: I don't know the official launch date that why we have done a GEQ only release or any shows specific releases. As we start getting closer and know the exact dates then we'll start doing releases.
LK: Final comments?
PK: I believe in a down economy you innovate you get more creative and you get scrappier you focus on ROI and cost-effectiveness and you'll be in a better position once it starts swinging up the other way.
ONLINE VIDEO COMPANY ENHANCES MARKET LEADERSHIP WITH REACH, REVENUE AND SOLUTIONS November 24, 2008 For Your Imagination, a leading digital media studio, developing, marketing and distributing targeted online video networks and web series, today announced notable growth and successes for 2008. In a market still unsure of revenue models, For Your Imagination has demonstrated year-over-year revenue growth of 34% in sponsored and branded entertainment implemented of a leveraged distribution network and delivered strong advertiser video solutions.
For Your Imagination 2008 highlights include:
Expansive Reach: With a total potential reach of 60 million views per month, For Your Imagination has developed a leverage distribution network that can target audience and interests. Some of the most exciting new partnerships for 2009 include Hulu, Joost, DailyMotion, Howcast, Tremor Media and OggiFinoggi.
Powerful Advertising Solutions: For Your Imagination’s authentic and popular hosts deliver endorsements and product placements that drive the highest brand recognition and actions in online video.
Focus on Verticals: In 2008 For Your Imagination bolstered a commitment to deliver high quality comedy, green and parenting audiences and will expand into the lucrative personal finance and style and fashion lifestyle markets in 2009.
Sponsored and Branded Entertainment: High quality original content, led by Axis of Comedy, The Green House, and DadLabs, is complemented by the development and production of popular and effective branded entertainment. The new, targeted networks for early 2009 are GEQ, a personal finance network, and Glampede, fashion and style videos.
Agency Partnerships: For Your Imagination will continue to support and enhance the agency-to-brand relationship through strong alliances with traditional, interactive and public relations agencies.
For more information contact: Kathryn Jones For Your Imagination 866-475-6908 x704 kathryn@foryourimagination.com www.foryourimagination.com
About For Your Imagination: For Your Imagination is a leading online media studio which develops, markets and distributes high-quality original Internet TV and web video series, turning concept into reality for brands and content creators. The studio works with brands and content creators to develop their online video content, offering them the opportunity to reach a targeted advertiser-friendly audience effectively and monetizing quickly.
About Paul Kontonis: Paul is the Chief Executive and a co-founder of For Your Imagination. As an interactive media veteran, Paul has been a new media pioneer and has developed interactive content practices which reach out and engage an audience. Paul was the General Manager of Educational Marketing and Corporate Sales for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, the leading test preparation provider. Prior to joining Kaplan, Paul was the Chief Marketing Officer of btldesign, a 25-year-old marketing communications agency, specializing in business-to-business marketing communications for Fortune 100 global brands like MasterCard, Samsung, Pfizer, Major League Baseball and the FIFA World Cup. Paul's interactive experience began as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at SenseNet, a Web application development agency, and as the Director of Business Development for Silver Shock, a boutique interactive agency. He appears in a number of marketing publications, digital media books including the Documentary Filmmakers Handbook, and is a speaker at several industry conferences and seminars annually. View Paul Kontonis' Linkedin profile. Contact: Paul Kontonis For Your Imagination (o) 866-475-6908 x 701 (e) paul@foryourimagination.com www.foryourimagination.com
I recently spoke with Paul Kontonis CEO and Co-Founder of the New York-based online media studio For Your Imagination about the funding they secured from OmniReliant Holdings, Inc. in a bridge capital round two weeks ago. The amount of the funding was undisclosed but it gives OmniReliant an equity stake in FYI and helps fund ongoing operations. In the FYI press release Paul W. Morrison, CEO of OmniReliant said, "For Your Imagination has shown the way for online branded entertainment that not only entertains and engages an audience but also delivers a powerful marketing message. We recognize that brands can use the internet for more than just advertising with publishers – brands can now become the publisher and truly engage their customers and For Your Imagination knows how to do it successfully."
Larry Kless: How about your big announcement with OmniReliant? Had you been working with them for a while? How did the initial relationship get started?
Paul Kontonis: It was a long time coming but it felt very good to say we came in to a little bit of money. We met OmniReliant through a potential client that we were pitching at the time. Somebody who was on their Board knew the guys at OmniReliant really well and made an introduction and then we took it from there.
We worked with them on a web series together called, A Day with the Hiltons, one of the products that they license and they own is a fragrance called "My Secret" which is Kathy Hilton's fragrance. They had come to us and said, "Hey look we're going to be doing this PR event with a mother and daughter who won this competition in Cleveland to come over to LA to celebrate Mother's Day with Kathy Paris and Nicky Hilton. What would you guys do with that?"
This was a month before Mothers' Day and we developed the concept of A Day With the Hiltons and we went out to LA and shot the while day and released it as a 5-part mini-series. It involved meeting the contestants and meeting Kathy Hilton and going to brunch and getting their hair and nails done at a beautiful salon in Beverly Hills and going shopping on Rodeo drive, and probably the most exciting part about it is the shopping on Rodeo Drive in which the paparazzi are just absolutely insane, and they're like vampires outside a church because you can't go on private property so that when they would duck into a store they would all stay out front and try to shoot through the windows but the minute they went outside they got inundated.
The goal of the web series was to move product. It was to create awareness for Kathy Hilton's fragrance that was being sold at Macy's and they saw a really nice increase in sales, I don't remember exactly how much, but it went up enough that they said WOW, here's a great company that could some really wonderful stuff for us and this idea of branded entertainment is really powerful. So they made the commitment to invest into us.
The series was actually on the TMZ blog, they blogged about it, there was something going on Rodeo Drive with Kathy and her daughters and it showed up in People magazine and not Entertainment tonight, but one of those other kind of celebrity shows, plus we did a distribution deal with TV Guide broadband so it showed up on TV Guide celebrity show and across the TV Guide network.
LK: So what does it mean that OmniReliant gets an equity interested in FYI? Do they have a financial stake now in the company?
PK: Yes, they own a percentage of the equity of the company, like owning shares. So it's not convertible debt. The structure of the investment was not debt it was equity.
LK: What is your goal with this funding? Do you have immediate investment plans?
PK: It's actually the non-sexy working capital answer. Every other month we're in and out of profitability so we wanted to make sure that we had enough money in the bank to insure smooth functioning of the company and also support to new hires.
We just brought on a new VP of Brand and Sponsored Entertainment and we're about to bring on a new distribution person.
(Editors note: See related post, Branded and Sponsored Programming Hits the Big Time - For Your Imagination - For Your Imagination - develops and markets high-quality original web video "As online video programming continues to develop and the pathways to monetization become more evident, branded and sponsored videos are taking center stage. For this reason, For Your Imagination is proud to announce that Kathryn Velvel Jones has joined the team as the Vice President of Branded and Sponsored Entertainment Kathryn will be responsible for matching brands with For Your Imagination's strong line-up of targeted and advertiser friendly content and for developing original branded entertainment that meets messaging and reach needs..." (more)
LK: What do you say to the fact that you've been able to secure funding in the current financial crisis?
PK: Well I think the securing funding thing is kind of significant given the environment but kind of not significant since we started way before the financial problems hit the markets. So it really only needed to close which it did before all the financial hits. I don't know if things would have gone different if it took longer but I'd like to think it wouldn't. A lot of things are still business as usual and there's a lot of business conducted and to be conducted . Everyones knee jerk reaction is "Oh my God things are gong to be terrible now", but it's not really the case. We're seeing some clients pulling budgets and holding off until 2009 but we're also seeing a lot of things moving forward that were already pre-planned. Maybe people are a little more gun shy with the off-the-cuff expenditures but for the planned expenditures for the most part they're still going to move forward.
It helps to have a business plan.
LK: So what's new and sexy with FYI?
PK: I think there's a significance here with Omni getting more involved in a company like ours because they are a direct response company. They are looking at how do you move product off the shelves directly to consumers. They're not a company that sells to stores. So rather directly online or directly over the phone that's what they do. So they're seeing a big opportunity with online video as a mechanism for direct response. Now we've heard a lot about it being a great brand medium and to create brand awareness and that's all great but we haven't heard many case studies about it really coming into play in the direct response arena. So I think this is going to be interesting.
A couple of things are going to cross paths now: A) Direct response B) Infomercials and C) The idea of branded entertainment
So that is more brand building all with the intent of driving sales. They (OmniReliant) have legends in their company of the Harrington Brothers and the Harringtons are probably the biggest names in the infomercial space. If there was a major infomercial series or an infomercial that you remember, Billy Mays, Anthony Sullivan, all those guys were part of the Harringtons. So the Harringtons are part of OmniReliant and are driving OmniReliant's business so for them to look at, they've been innovators in the infomercial space, for them to specifically look at a company like ours and say WOW, this is where we need to start going in and start investing in that space, I think is very interesting. There's no proof points for it yet but everyone recognizes that there could be an incredible opportunity for video to be a direct response vehicle just like everyone thought banner ads, direct emails and online campaigns could be.
LK: How long do you think it will be before you see some results? For that "Wow" to hit?
PK: I don't know. We did one series so far and it seemed to be pretty good. We're probably going to begin production on a new series or at least a couple of videos for one of their products and we'll see how that goes. I think it will be interesting to see it evolve especially when there's a downturn in the economy everyone wants to invest in direct response type of vehicle so if web video can be also seen as a direct response tactic then that is really going to insure that it retains a lot of the money in this downturn.
LK: How will these OmniReliant video be different from your current FYI web series?
PK: We're looking at these from the idea of brand entertainment which is original. So it would be something specifically created for them vs. sponsored entertainment where a brand comes in and says, "I love your network DadLabs I'm going to sponsor it and get my brand out through that." This idea is make us something completely brand new like we did with the Hiltons and then what we bring to the table that a production company can't, because were not a production company is the idea of distribution and insuring that people actually see the videos.
So when we did the Hiltons deal we knew we had a goal of at least 2 million views on those videos and we got about 4 million on them in the end. Whatever series we do next we're going to have goals on the viewership of those videos as well. So part of what we contribute to it is, yeah we can develop an idea, we can write it, we can shoot it we can make it look beautiful but then we can insure that it gets out and is seen by however many people or it gets as many views as we think will meet the needs of the campaign. So we're talking millions of views which is usually the goal so that's an important piece there. Anyone can make a really nice video but not everybody can make sure that it's viewed.
LK: That must make you feel pretty good? PK: Sure! (laughs)
LK: With the Hiltons campaign, where did all those views take place? On their own web site? Various distribution networks?
PK: Mostly it happened on the distribution networks. There was also views on her web site Kathy Hilton Fragrance. On ForYourImagination.com there is a button that will take you to the series on her web site.
LK: What else is happening with FYI? Through the end of the year? Plans ahead?
PK: The next phase for us is trying to close a Series A round of investment so we can really expand the type of product that we put there but also our sales and marketing efforts. Specifically our sales efforts, that's going to be really critical because with the ability to ensure that we have inventory to sell. It's just a function of our sales. What I mean by that is if we can sell up to 20 million views on DadLabs a month then it's just a function of our sales on how much money we make. If we sell all 20 million great, if we only sell a million okay, if we only sell 100,000 that sucks. So we really need to be able to expand our sales capabilities to make sure we've got dedicated sales people per network or per channel of content that we're putting out there to close the bigger and better deals.
LK: What are your key metrics? What are you looking at each month?
PK: Because of our ability to leverage our distribution and to ramp up our views when we need to it's almost more interesting to say what is our capacity for viewership, that's how we measure it. So we know that for our comedy side of things our network Axis of Comedy our capacity is 60 million views in a month, on DadLabs we're looking at 15 millions view a month and on our Green network GreenHouse our capacity is 20 million views so we're looking at really big opportunities in each of our networks that is just a function of sales on how much money we make from them. So that's how we look at it, what is our capacity? and these are guaranteed views so if somebody came along and said,"I want to sponsor Axis of Comedy and in the month I want get 60 million views" we can deliver 60 million views.
LK: Do you take any time off?
PK: Between Christmas and New Years. That's the only time we're off. But if we're putting out content, content doesn't take a day off. So if it's a holiday on a Monday we still have to put content out and that means working over the weekend to make sure it's distributed and it hits. Our people work all the time.
About For Your Imagination: New York City based For Your Imagination develops and markets high-quality Internet television and web video series, turning concept into reality for brands and content creators. The company works with creative individuals to develop their show, offering them the opportunity to reach a targeted, advertiser-friendly audience effectively and monetizing quickly. For Your Imagination is built upon the experience of industry veterans whose combined expertise includes web development, major television and movie production, national marketing campaigns and technology. Video networks and shows available now include DadLabs, The Green House, Axis of Comedy and more -- see for yourself, visit www.foryourimagination.com.
About Paul Kontonis: Paul is the Chief Executive and a co-founder of For Your Imagination. As an interactive media veteran, Paul has been a new media pioneer and has developed interactive content practices which reach out and engage an audience. He appears in a number of marketing publications, digital media books including the Documentary Filmmakers Handbook, and is a speaker at several industry conferences and seminars annually. Read Paul's full profile here and his Linkedin profile here.
In part two of my conversation with Erick Hachenburg, CEO of Metacafe®, he talks specifically about the growing opportunity for online video advertising and how companies are using online video for advertising and branded entertainment. For Metcafe, the key to its business model is advertising and as a result, the company recently expanded it advertising sales team to meet the growing demand for its online video advertising offerings. Metcafe has premium content deals with Hulu, Warner and other Hollywood studios, and it has grown its movies-related advertising revenues over the past year by more than 70% year-over-year.
View Paul Kontonis' Linkedin profile.
