David van Eyssen, a director/writer/new media producer, is a laptop computer maestro. With a click of a mouse, he shows how entertainment—specifically a music video and a pilot for a proposed science fiction series—can be an effective vehicle for advertising and sales on the Internet.
Clicking on the clip artist’s jacket, for instance, reveals the garment’s manufacturer, price, fabric and size. Further mouse clicks change the color of the jacket, letting the music fan/ shopper see what looks good and what’s worth buying immediately with yet another click. Meanwhile, the sci-fi series may represent even more fertile ad ground, with product placement opportunities and myriad interactive options that are well suited to the computer savvy, demographically desirable youth market.
What’s particularly intriguing about this demonstration of entertaining e-commerce is that it’s taking place at the Beverly Hills office of The End, a bicoastal commercial/music video production house. Van Eyssen and Ashley Beck—a director/designer/visual effects artist recently signed by The End for spots and videos—are in the process of forming a new media relationship with the company. While the details are not yet ironed out, the working arrangement represents The End’s investment in exploring and developing new ad forms for its clientele.
The model for cross-media advertising will be both new and familiar, says van Eyssen. In a way, new media advertising will hearken back to the early days of television when advertisers helped develop programming (like The Philco Playhouse) or became the primary sponsors of particular shows (like the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations). The challenge today, van Eyssen says, is to prevent audiences from bypassing the ads via new technology, such as the personal digital video recorders made by TiVo and Replay Network. In short, van Eyssen’s plan is to embed advertising within entertainment, but in a manner that’s both inviting and unobtrusive.
The End is one of supposedly many commercial production companies that are on the verge of branching out. Some, responding to new tools and media, are forging alliances with software companies, technology developers and postproduction houses. Others, hoping to provide content for whichever form of new media eventually wins out, are moving into television and feature film production.
Several shops are formulating strategies based on their pipelines to new media resources. For example, though bicoastal/international Propaganda Films hasn’t made public its specific plans for future advertising media, the company is well connected to the Internet via SCP Private Equity Partners, a Wayne, Pa.-based investment fund. SCP is part of the group—headed by entertainment entrepreneur Gary Beer—that bought Propaganda’s commercial, music video and talent management businesses from Universal Studios earlier this year (SHOOT, 4/16/99, p. 1). Part of the thinking behind the deal was that Propaganda’s content provider prowess complemented SCP’s investments in such arenas as communications information technology and Internet ventures. SCP is a $265 million private equity fund affiliated with Safeguard Securities, which is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
And Fuel, the Santa Monica-based broadcast design and commercial production firm, was recently purchased by Razorfish, a publicly traded, New York-headquartered global digital communications company. The deal provides an infusion of capital that will enable Fuel to expand its live action spot production operation. Additionally, the connection to Razorfish figures to bode well for Fuel, as it diversifies into new media and ad forms (see separate story, p. 64).
Form And Function
Production house Random/ Order Information and Entertainment plans to forge another path in convergent media: exploring new technology and teaching advertising agencies how to use it. Stuart Gross, the company’s chairman/CEO, says Random/Order will offer its consulting services in an advertising lab, which will be built at the company’s Culver City, Calif., headquarters. The ad lab, whose exact contents were not disclosed by Gross, will introduce agency creatives to emerging technology and allow them to experiment with enhanced TV or interactive versions of their traditional spots. Random/Order is also in the process of signing additional directors for its own commercial production division, and will soon announce the acquisition of an editorial design company.
To further cement its new media connections, the company has announced strategic partnerships with several new media firms, including Intertainer, a Culver City company that is developing an on-demand interactive programming library and delivery system; Wink, an Alameda, Calif.-based venture that adds e-commerce capabilities to TV commercials; and Foxman Group, a tracking and software company based in Norriston, Pennsylvania.
A smaller-scale version of Random Order’s ad lab will make its public debut next month at the Western Cable Show in Anaheim, Calif. Random/Order’s demonstration of interactive television (ITV) is being arranged in conjunction with Liberate, a San Carlos, Calif.-based firm that has developed software for digital, two-way interactive cable television. (Liberate has a strategic partnership with one of Random/ Order’s associates, Wink, and is in negotiations for a direct alliance with Random/Order to build interactive advertising models.)
Though Gross will not go into details about the demonstration, he says that Liberate’s software "takes existing commercials and allows you to enhance them by laying HTML seamlessly over the TV. It’s actually more like overlaying TV with TV."
The idea is not to add clutter to the TV screen, Gross says, but to offer incentives—aesthetic, visceral, and monetary—that encourage viewers to explore an ad’s interactive options. Whereas most TV advertising focuses on image-building, interactive spots are a way of leading consumers to form a positive impression of the product or company, and then toward an actual purchase. "Say you’re watching a beautiful BMW ad on regular TV," says Gross. "That’s visceral, emotive advertising, with sound and picture that invites you to understand the experience and thrill of being a BMW owner. Now, how can that visceral and emotional experience be enhanced by interactive TV?"
For the same reason advertisers target their ads to certain markets by buying spots on particular broadcast or cable shows, an interactive service could, by surveying a viewer’s previous preferences, actually tailor an interactive ad to more readily appeal to a potential consumer. That way, the ad for a high-performance vehicle could include segments set on city streets or in the mountains, and show children, pets, or no one in the back seat. The musical soundtrack could change as easily as the color of the car being shown. If the viewer opts to sit through the ad and explores prices, availability, and location of car dealerships, the advertiser could offer further incentives, such as a $1,000 rebate coupon, or a lower selling price if the car is purchased within 30 days. "If that sounds like a lot just for watching an ad," Gross says, "consider how much information the advertiser has gotten out there, and how much the advertiser has gotten in return.
"We are focused on a migration, not a leap, from traditional TV to interactive television," Gross continues. "We can’t take the viewer and all of a sudden plunk a shitload of functionality on the screen and expect them, in thirty seconds, to make a bunch of decisions about where to click. And what happens if they do click? In thirty seconds, the spot ends."
Though Gross declines to reveal the names of any of Random/Order’s agency clients, he says that many are interested in having Random/Order build satellite labs at their agencies so they can experiment in private. "The horror for the advertising agency," says Gross, "is to see their finely developed, expertly executed thirty-second commercial invaded by some HTML jockey throwing a bunch of buttons on without any reverence toward the creative, or to the look or the feel of the spot."
Remote Control
Other commercial production companies are making inroads in the entertainment industry. Creative ventures—such as the television and film divisions added this year at bicoastal/international Hungry Man—have proven to be appealing to directors and producers who want to move easily between commercial and longform work.
Founded in ’97 by directors Bryan Buckley and Hank Perlman and producer Steve Orent, Hungry Man has produced campaigns for such clients as Nike, Microsoft and Coca-Cola. Hungry Man TV was launched in October with Allan Broce—a former executive in the marketing and promotions departments of MTV and ESPN—as president. The new division is developing television programming in conjunction with Brillstein-Grey Television, Beverly Hills, Calif. "When this company started," says Orent, who is now Hungry Man’s executive producer, "we wanted to be an entertainment company, not just a commercial company."
Though the commercial business is regarded by some as a training ground for feature filmmakers, Hungry Man is also looking seriously toward television. "It’s tough to get a feature film greenlit," explains Orent. "There’s a lot of waiting." The television business, on the other hand, has fixed schedules and seasons for listening to proposals for new shows, producing pilots, and selecting the pilots that will be added to the schedule as new series. At the same time, acknowledges Broce, the structured process in TV is "not always good—it can result in a lot of crap."
Hungry Man TV has already sold one comedy pilot, Doughboy, to the FOX network, and recently pitched two more series ideas to ABC, NBC, and FOX, according to Broce. One, a variety show, was conceived as a showcase for Hungry Man’s directorial talent. "We’re waiting to hear what the next step is," says Broce. "But even the pitch process is an example of why I think we are going to be successful. Usually it’s just a pair of writers who go in to a network to pitch an idea. We used our backgrounds in TV, promotion and commercials to put together the pitch, and actually shot some material to show the network."
Because Hungry Man has a reputation for producing humorous spots, Broce says, the television networks seemed more receptive to the shop’s comedy ideas. "We wanted the reaction to be, ‘That’s a great idea, and we can totally see you guys doing it.’" If Hungry Man TV achieves its goal of getting at least one of its shows onto the fall 2000 schedule, Broce says, the networks will be more receptive to its ideas for dramatic series as well.
Hungry Man is also developing features. Its film division, established in May, is headed by Mary Jane Skalski, a former partner at Good Machine, a New York-based independent film production company. So far, only Finger Rocks, a feature film to be directed by Buckley, seems close to going into production. Skalski brought several projects with her from Good Machine, and has since acquired others. "We’ll be making announcements about them before the end of the year," Skalski says.
As its film and television projects move forward, Hungry Man is also looking at other ventures and partnerships. "We may get into an Internet-related venture, where we buy a company," says Broce, "or we may offer some Internet company the capability to have a production. But we want TV to be up and running before we make the next move."
Wild West
Crossroads Films, bicoastal and Chicago, has moved into postproduction as well as feature and television work. "We started becoming more diverse five or six years ago, before it seemed to be the trend," says Cami Taylor, partner/executive producer. "I can’t imagine it any other way. I definitely think it’s a necessity, because a slowdown in commercial production can ruin a company that’s only doing that one thing."
The company’s first side venture was 89 Greene, a New York postproduction facility that has been kept busy with spot projects from Crossroads as well as from outside clients. Since ’93, Crossroads has also had separate wings for television and corporate communications. Crossroads Television is working on the launch of Oxygen, the new cable network aimed at female viewers, and is developing an animated series through its alliance with U Ground, Los Angeles. Crossroads Communications, which creates company Web sites and does corporate I.D. work, is doing "a huge project for the U.S. Army in Sarajevo," according to Taylor.
Crossroads Pictures, a feature company launched in ’96, is looking to a January start of production for Carnivore, a satirical horror story in which guests at a boarding house check in but don’t check out. The film is based on an early screenplay by Larry and Andy Wachowski, who wrote and directed The Matrix. The company’s first foray into movie theaters was Jawbreaker, a darkly comic teen movie co-produced and distributed by Trimark Pictures. More recently, Crossroads Pictures produced The Big Split, a romantic comedy that does not yet have a distributor.
Crossroads’ commercial division, though, "has always been kind of the flagship," says Taylor. During a slowdown of commercial work that occurred last year, Taylor says, the company did not need to downsize to stay afloat. "Our basic structure is in place," says Taylor. "When we did The Big Split, we did it within our office space, with our accountants and our insurance, so the costs were amortized over the whole company."
Though Crossroads is not ready to announce future plans, Taylor will say that "any company that’s not looking at the Internet right now is making a big mistake. It’s like the wild, wild west—everybody’s got ideas, and all of them are possible."
