The initials C and W stand for two related entities–one of which has creative implications for the advertising community; the other is a new TV network slated to make its debut in September.
The latter–which takes its C from CBS Corp., the W from Warner Bros. Entertainment–will be a combination of the best programs from the soon-to-be-shuttered WB and CBS-owned UPN networks. The plan calls for two fledgling networks to become a strong single network.
This CW network in turn has devised another c.w., this one in lower case–“content wraps”–which combine advertising and entertainment. Content wraps deploy serialized stories told in three two-minute segments that run during an evening of programming. CW is hoping that its c.w. will lead to meaningful advertiser experimentation.
The new hybrid ad form is designed as a means to hold viewer attention, counteracting the TiVo effect in which commercials get bypassed. There’s also the fear that another countermeasure to TiVO, product integration in TV series, could eventually reach a saturation point, meaning that advertisers still will need other forms and genres–such as content wraps–to effectively get their messages and branding across to prospective consumers.
Though a first sponsor had not yet been lined up for the content wrap concept at press time, the CW network has a sample of how the three-part format would play. In the prototype, a geeky young man gets a makeover, then goes out on a date, and then conjectures about whether he will get a second date–all the while talking about certain products.
While the CW network will still primarily rely on traditional advertising support, the diversification into content wraps and other forms is deemed necessary due to the changing media landscape in which viewers can more easily circumvent spots.
Lucy Walker Made A Searing Documentary About Wildfires In 2021; Now, People May Be More Inclined To Listen
When Lucy Walker debuted her harrowing documentary about California wildfires, "Bring Your Own Brigade," at Sundance in 2021, it was during peak COVID. Not the best time for a film on a wholly different scourge.
"It was really hard," the Oscar-nominated filmmaker says now. "I didn't blame people for not wanting to watch a film about the fires in the middle of the pandemic, because it was just too much horror."
And so the film, though acclaimed — it was named one of the 10 best films of the year by the New York Times – didn't reach an audience as large as Walker had hoped, with its urgent display of the human cost of wildfires and its tough, crucial questions for the future.
That could change. Walker thinks people may now be more receptive to her message, given the devastating wildfires that have wrought havoc on Los Angeles itself the past week. Firefighters were preparing on Tuesday to attack new blazes amid warnings that winds combined with severely dry conditions created a " particularly dangerous situation."
"This is probably the moment where it becomes undeniable," she said in an interview.
She added: "It does feel like people are now asking the question that I was asking a few years ago, like, 'Is it safe to live in Los Angeles? And why is this happening, and what can we do about it? And the good news is that there are some things we can do about it. What's tricky is that they're really hard to accomplish."
Documenting the human cost, confronting complacency
In "Bring Your Own Brigade" (available on Paramount+), Walker portrays in sometimes terrifying detail the devastation caused by two wildfires on the same day in 2018, products of the same wind event — the Camp Fire that engulfed the... Read More