There’s a certain sense of irony that Hollywood’s hottest properties are discovered in one of America’s coldest bastions. I think it was 9 degrees when I arrived at the Slamdance Film Festival. Even still, Main Street was brimming with activity. Parties poured from thumping clubs onto snow-covered sidewalks, and there were more skirts and high-heels than snow pants and parkas. It’s like there’s an invisible heated bubble around Park City. It must be the electricity of the festival–the fact that all of these filmmakers suspend the L.A. grind for one week to come together in that little town and embrace their communal love of film. There’s an inescapable energy, and it makes you feel…warm. I had a helluva time–even if the commercial director is a bit of a fish out of water.
At film fests, “advertising” is typically reserved for outside events or sponsors. HP hosted a party lodge, for example, and Blackmagic Design demoed their new camera in the filmmaker lounge. The films themselves, however, are usually devoid of any branding. So I was surprised when the creative director of Carhartt announced that the four-minute corporate documentary I directed for them, Made By Hand, would receive a special screening. Granted, Carhartt is a major Slamdance sponsor so pulling strings probably wasn’t advanced puppetry. But interestingly (and thankfully) the piece seemed to fit. There was a brief introduction by festival president, Peter Baxter, and a Q and A following. Questions focused not on how we positioned the brand or targeted the marketing, but on how it was shot and the nature of the performances. In short, it was received as a film, even though the piece is distinctly commercial.
As viewers become savvier, brands need to find ways to sift through the noise and establish meaningful connections with consumers. I’m certainly no industry sage but if Carhartt is an effective case study, then story-driven, character-centric narratives are offering more and more popular platforms for advertising. Branding without selling. Sure, this is nothing new, but it certainly seems like the crossover is trending, and certainly for the better.
After the Q and A, they cued up the next film: a short documentary titled Good Karma $1. It stars ad icon Alex Bogusky and chronicles his exploration of homeless signs…as marketing. Yes, advertising will always look to Park City for talent, but maybe this little ski town is starting to look back. Here’s hoping.
Director Andrew Laurich is repped by ContagiousLA which has recently partnered with The Outhouse.
Growth Brings Growing Pains–and Bots–To Bluesky
Bluesky has seen its user base soar since the U.S. presidential election, boosted by people seeking refuge from Elon Musk's X, which they view as increasingly leaning too far to the right given its owner's support of President-elect Donald Trump, or wanting an alternative to Meta's Threads and its algorithms.
The platform grew out of the company then known as Twitter, championed by its former CEO Jack Dorsey. Its decentralized approach to social networking was eventually intended to replace Twitter's core mechanic. That's unlikely now that the two companies have parted ways. But Bluesky's growth trajectory — with a user base that has more than doubled since October — could make it a serious competitor to other social platforms.
But with growth comes growing pains. It's not just human users who've been flocking to Bluesky but also bots, including those designed to create partisan division or direct users to junk websites.
The skyrocketing user base — now surpassing 25 million — is the biggest test yet for a relatively young platform that has branded itself as a social media alternative free of the problems plaguing its competitors. According to research firm Similarweb, Bluesky added 7.6 million monthly active app users on iOS and Android in November, an increase of 295.4% since October. It also saw 56.2 million desktop and mobile web visits, in the same period, up 189% from October.
Besides the U.S. elections, Bluesky also got a boost when X was briefly banned in Brazil.
"They got this spike in attention, they've crossed the threshold where it is now worth it for people to flood the platform with spam," said Laura Edelson, an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University and a member of Issue One's... Read More