When Rocketboom, a three-minute newscast on technology and culture, signed on to be distributed by blip.tv, blip developed the first clickable overlay ads on QuickTime versions of the show for Rocketboom’s sponsor, Comedy Central’s The Sarah Silverman Program.
“It’s important for a couple of reasons,” said Mike Hudack, blip’s CEO. “Blip focuses on serialized content on the web and a lot of people watch it in iTunes. They subscribe to it and it gets delivered in podcast, so a large percent of the viewers see it in QuickTime. If you sell overlays that only play in Flash, you only hit a percentage of the audience. Now you’re making everybody happy because you get an ad in front of the entire audience and people can click on it. If it’s not important, they can hide it which is important for the show’s creator and the viewer.”
Andrew Baron, founder of Rocketboom, said the sponsorship model is “a great system because we burn the sponsorship message into our master file and distribute across all platforms. Not just one Flash file, but all our files, everywhere, through our own site (iTunes, Facebook, YouTube, TiVo, etc.).”
The ads were sold to Comedy Central by Deep Focus/New York. Eric Druckenmiller, the agency’s media director, said QuickTime has a hard coded video delivery technology unlike Windows Media Player that makes it difficult to serve ads. “We figured out how to get the Flash overlay to exist in the QuickTime environment for the first time. So the ads are playing in the iTunes world, the coveted Apple platform.”
The two-week campaign, which ended Oct. 3, featured overlay ads to promote the second season of The Sarah Silverman Program.
Rocketboom was used because “its underground video has an irreverent quality to it, like Sarah Silverman,” Druckenmiller said. He noted blip.tv was a good place for the advertising for two reasons: “it mirrors the irreverence of the show and the ad delivery methodology of the overlays was the most effective way of reaching the audience.” He said overlays were preferable to pre-rolls and post-rolls and the ability to deliver them in QuickTime increased the views.
Hudack said blip.tv will play overlay ads in QuickTime again. “We’re talking to advertisers about using it in the future,” he said.
Netflix Series “The Leopard” Spots Classic Italian Novel, Remakes It As A Sumptuous Period Drama
"The Leopard," a new Netflix series, takes the classic Italian novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa and transforms it into a sumptuous period piece showing the struggles of the aristocracy in 19th-century Sicily, during tumultuous social upheavals as their way of life is crumbling around them.
Tom Shankland, who directs four of the eight episodes, had the courage to attempt his own version of what is one of the most popular films in Italian history. The 1963 movie "The Leopard," directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon and Claudia Cardinale, won the Palme d'Or in Cannes.
One Italian critic said that it would be the equivalent of a director in the United States taking "Gone with the Wind" and turning it into a series, but Shankland wasn't the least bit intimidated.
He said that he didn't think of anything other than his own passion for the project, which grew out of his love of the book. His father was a university professor of Italian literature in England, and as a child, he loved the book and traveling to Sicily with his family.
The book tells the story of Don Fabrizio Corbera, the Prince of Salina, a tall, handsome, wealthy aristocrat who owns palaces and land across Sicily.
His comfortable world is shaken with the invasion of Sicily in 1860 by Giuseppe Garibaldi, who was to overthrow the Bourbon king in Naples and bring about the Unification of Italy.
The prince's family leads an opulent life in their magnificent palaces with servants and peasants kowtowing to their every need. They spend their time at opulent banquets and lavish balls with their fellow aristocrats.
Shankland has made the series into a visual feast with tables heaped with food, elaborate gardens and sensuous costumes.... Read More