It used to be that a diversification into branded entertainment meant the announcement of a company or division’s formation with a rundown of the key players whose mandate was to ferret out new opportunities. But that norm is now being replaced by new enterprises that open and are already embarking on such opportunities, signaling a continuing maturation of the branded content marketplace.
A prime case in point is the recent launch of Goon Media, a producer of sponsored content and new media fare working in conjunction with bicoastal commercial production house Go Film. The partners in Go Film brought on board executive producer Catherine Finkenstaedt–who has a music video production pedigree, including having been at the helm of RSA’s clips operation Black Dog Films–to head Goon and she went headlong into several projects, among them an ambitious interactive adventure for the Jeep Patriot, which just hit the Internet (www.patriotadventure.com, as well as generating a YouTube buzz) out of Onnicom shops BBDO Detroit and interactive agency Organic, Detroit.
The agencies had a 60-page script and were seeking the right director with long-form chops. They eventually gravitated to spot director Andrews Jenkins of Go, who had just wrapped his feature debut, How To Rob A Bank. The DaimlerChrysler Jeep project entailed extensive lensing in that the storyline has alternate paths and options for those who log onto the Jeep site, taking them on an offbeat adventure through the backcountry and rugged terrain where they encounter different people and a host of situations as they motor about in their Liberty.
Goon is also teaming with Go on projects for Amazon.com and Stolichnaya vodka, which at press time Finkenstaedt wasn’t yet at liberty to publicly discuss in detail. Finkenstaedt noted that the Amazon assignment involved a freelance art director/filmmaking talent, underscoring that Goon is open to not only opening up new media opportunities for Go directors but also other directors whom she and Go partners like executive producer Gary Rose have come to know and have formed working relationships with over the years.
“Goon doesn’t have its own roster of directors, which was a conscious decision on our part,” related Rose. “The exciting part of this space is that every single project is so crazy different. There are so many people we have been working with in development–and assorted relationships that Catherine, myself, [Go partners/executive producers] Jonathan [Weinstein] and Robert [Wherry] have made over the years–that it makes the most sense to package the right talent for each job. That’s a major reason we wanted Catherine who’s so well versed in production and has relationships with creative filmmaking talent throughout the industry. Just look at her background [which dates back to music video making at Squeak Pictures, then A Band Apart and Propaganda Films prior to three years at the helm of RSA’s Black Dog].
“In commercial production,” continued Rose, “ad agencies traditionally want to see the director’s reel–that’s not necessarily the way we want this branded entertainment business to evolve. Instead our lineup of talent is evolving to be more along the lines of writers, producers, directors, Flash animators and designers and bringing all these resources together to take on projects.”
Finkenstaedt observed that a current undisclosed Goon project involving a direct marketing agency hearkened back to her early days producing music videos in which production houses were deeply involved conceptually. “We at Goon conceived and packaged the content without a director attached,” she said. “As the project evolved, a variety of directors we had access to were brought to the table and then a selection was made.”
Microsoft
Goon and Go recently tapped into feature filmmaker Christopher Guest (Best In Show, Waiting For Guffman, A Mighty Wind, For Your Consideration), who is repped by Go for commercials, to bring comedic inspiration–and part of his improvisational performer ensemble, including Fred Willard and Michael Hitchcock–to an engaging Microsoft project out of McCann Erickson, San Francisco. The prime elements are a downloadable eight-minute film and a three-minute version of the piece, which both center on The Stu Osborn Show, in which “hard-hitting journalist” Osborn (portrayed by Hitchcock) interviews entrepreneur/supposed business guru Brandon Romer (played by Willard), who’s the twisted, borderline corporate criminal CEO of the defunct Lododyne Corporation. The tongue-in-cheek, offbeat humor of The Stu Osborn Show is slated to be accessible via TiVo or on a specially designed website to be linked to that of Microsoft. The specialty site contains other content, including excerpts from the book “Romer’s Rules For An Impressive Business” (including such tips as “Keeping employees in the dark–and productive”). The Romer persona is in sharp contrast to–and thus showcases–the “People Ready” Microsoft mantra, which is about companies providing their most valuable asset, their people, with the proper tools.
Rose, who was lead executive producer for Go and Goon on the Microsoft project, noted that McCann Erickson wrote and developed a great concept, which Guest and his cast were able to advance via improvisation and their comedic ensemble way of working together. “The humor and spirit of the work are what makes the branded entertainment entertaining, which is where,” said Rose, “a lot of branded entertainment often falls short.”
In bloom
Indeed Goon has entered a marketplace in which viable branded content opportunities are starting to bloom, a dynamic underscored by the recently released results of the fourth annual Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) membership survey, which was conducted and analyzed independently by Los Angeles-based firm Goodwin Simon Victoria Research. A prime finding was that 69 percent of respondent companies said they had produced “non-traditional advertising projects.”
Lee Einhorn–who spent two-and-a-half years teaming with Teddy Lynn to head Arnold Worldwide’s entertainment division before recently joining San Francisco-based creative/production/syndication shop Mekanism (Lynn continues at Arnold)–said that exciting opportunities are indeed opening up, even more so, he believes, at new business model shops like hybrid roost Mekanism headed by founder/creative director/director Tommy Means.
“At Arnold we had clients who we were constantly developing content ideas for, sometimes pitching these concepts to talent agencies like CAA, ICM, William Morris, Endeavor,” Einhorn related. “But those talent agencies had their own brands that they were looking to develop entertainment product for. An ad agency like Arnold couldn’t go there [and work for those brands], but at Mekanism I can pitch those talent agencies and their 30 brands if I feel we have something relevant for them in the entertainment space. We also are cultivating our own clients as well as working with advertising agencies. And Mekanism has the flexibility of being this ‘unholy trinity’–conceptualizing content either direct to client or with an ad agency or talent agent; producing the content from start to finish; and syndicating it so that it gets out to the right audience.”
Syndication, noted Einhorn, has matured considerably in a relatively short period of time. “As recently as six or so months ago, the idea was to build a website and drive people to that site,” he observed. “Now the bigger push is to build that site and push its content out to the world from there…you find out who the relevant bloggers are in your target audience, what the sites are they’re going to. We have tracking software here that shows how successful you are or aren’t in terms of branding your client and getting its content out to the right audiences…We’re able to give great metrics back to the client.”
Having that syndication capability within Mekanism helps in the conceptual/strategic stage. “You can plan out your attack when you have creative, production and syndication under one roof,” said Einhorn. “It’s a business model that I think has advantages over the one in which someone conceptualizes the piece, someone else shoots it, someone else edits, and someone else is responsible for getting it seen by the desired audience.”
Getting back to the premise of hitting the ground running, Einhorn has done just that, having directed and creative directed for Mekanism a large-scale integrated web campaign, “Connectile Dysfunction” (based on this year’s Super Bowl spot of the same title), for Sprint out of Publicis & Hal Riney, San Francisco. The customized site and its content–the centerpiece of which is a viral video, which takes us to a Connectile Dysfunction treatment center all the way from check-in to check-out–were about to go fully online at press time. The project represents a reunion of sorts for Einhorn who earlier in his career was a group creative director at Riney.
Also soon to be unveiled is a more powerful version of Pacific Gas & Electric’s letsgreenthiscity website for which Mekanism is producing a series of 14 entertainment shorts, all of which help the viewer think and live “green,” promoting easy-to-adopt behavior and practices that contribute to a healthy environment. There are eight animation shorts and six live-action pieces, all out of PG&E agency Venables, Bell & Partners, San Francisco. Einhorn directed the live-action shorts, tapping into additional in-house writers as well as people he’s worked with over the years at different places.
Mekanism is also involved in feature-length fare. In fact Einhorn got to know Mekanism while he was at Arnold. The San Francisco shop completed a movie for Arnold client Jack Daniels that entailed six months of shooting.
Currently Mekanism has a couple other features in the hopper for undisclosed clients, according to Einhorn, who said that opportunities for content creation across multiple platforms are surfacing throughout the marketplace. “By breaking the story into pieces of content and spreading these pieces across different media channels, we are able to fully tell the story for a brand,” he said. “You need to use the next-generation media channels to get people’s attention, spreading stories across the Internet, mobile devices and so on. The key question is what’s the proper way to use each medium to advance the story. How can the mobile phone component best be utilized to advance the story and make it even richer?”
Indeed, look for much more to emerge on the mobile front in the coming months. SHOOT got wind of a couple of major commercial production houses that have ambitious series in the works for mobile and portable devices.
