Online video has “reinvented the world of moving image,” said David-Michel Davies, executive director of The Webby Awards, during Monday night’s Webby Film & Video Awards presentation at New World Stages in New York City. This is the eleventh year of The International Academy of Arts and Sciences Webby Awards, but the first for film & video, which signals the arrival of the new medium.
Awards were given in a number of categories, but there wasn’t one for video advertising. However, some of the winning videos were ad related, most notably “The Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments,” by Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, which won the Best Viral Award.
The geyser-like spewing of Diet Coke from cans containing Mentos candies was filmed by the pair in their hometown of Buckfield, ME after six months of research. The idea had been suggested by a friend. The first video was posted at Revver.com on May 31, 2006 and it was an instant success, receiving over five million hits in two months. The video was so popular that Revver sold advertising with it, to Microsoft and other major advertisers. The video was also posted at Grobe’s and Voltz’s site, www.eepybird.com.
Grobe and Voltz appear in the video, so it was shot by a friend, Mike Miclon.
After the first video played, “Mentos called right away,” Grobe said, with Coke calling last August. “The second video was sponsored by Diet Coke and Mentos, they provided materials and paid the production costs,” Grobe said.
The second video featured a chain reaction or domino effect. “One bottle triggers the next one and 250 bottles were used,” Voltz said.
The second video also featured a tag at the end, which was an ad for Diet Coke that promoted Poetry in Motion, a video contest that called for videos of “ordinary objects doing extraordinary things, which doubled traffic at Coke.com,” according to Grobe.
Mike Donnelly, The Coca-Cola Company’s director of interactive media, said Grobe and Voltz judged the contest and their video was “an inspiration for entries.” A winner was chosen last week. Donnelly also said Coke relaunched its strategy of interactive media last July to focus on consumer generated media, which is why the company reached out to Grobe and Voltz. “The timing was perfect,” he said.
The Best Actor Award at the Webbys was Ninja, star of Ask A Ninja, a series of comedy webisodes created by Los Angeles improvisational comedians Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine. When asked who the actor playing Ninja is, Nichols wouldn’t say. When asked if it was Sarine, he remained silent, but he was willing to discuss the advertising. The episodes, which play at www.askaninja.com, feature five second pre-rolls and fifteen second ads that run near the end. The series started in November, 2005 and advertising started last August. Nichols and Sarine signed a deal in January with Federated Media Publishing/Sausalito, Calif. the company that sells advertising for blogs and other websites. Ask.com bought a three month sponsorship and started running ads on May 18, Nichols said.
There’s lots of online video advertising now, but the advertising successes of these videographers suggests that independent video producers can support their work and even profit from it. Grobe and Voltz started with a revenue share from Revver and are on to bigger and better things, including a new series of videos they wouldn’t discuss at the show. Nichols and Sarine received a huge payout from Federated and a generous revenue share. There was plenty of jubilation on Monday night as the videographers and the rest of the winners celebrated their achievements.
Supreme Court Allows Multibillion-Dollar Class Action Lawsuit To Proceed Against Meta
The Supreme Court is allowing a multibillion-dollar class action investors' lawsuit to proceed against Facebook parent Meta, stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.
The justices heard arguments in November in Meta's bid to shut down the lawsuit. On Friday, they decided that they were wrong to take up the case in the first place.
The high court dismissed the company's appeal, leaving in place an appellate ruling allowing the case to go forward.
Investors allege that Meta did not fully disclose the risks that Facebook users' personal information would be misused by Cambridge Analytica, a firm that supported Donald Trump 's first successful Republican presidential campaign in 2016.
Inadequacy of the disclosures led to two significant price drops in the price of the company's shares in 2018, after the public learned about the extent of the privacy scandal, the investors say.
Meta spokesman Andy Stone said the company was disappointed by the court's action. "The plaintiff's claims are baseless and we will continue to defend ourselves as this case is considered by the District Court," Stone said in an emailed statement.
Meta already has paid a $5.1 billion fine and reached a $725 million privacy settlement with users.
Cambridge Analytica had ties to Trump political strategist Steve Bannon. It had paid a Facebook app developer for access to the personal information of about 87 million Facebook users. That data was then used to target U.S. voters during the 2016 campaign.
The lawsuit is one of two high court cases involving class-action lawsuits against tech companies. The justices also are wrestling with whether to shut down a class action against Nvidia.... Read More