Posts for 'MyDamnChannel'

MyDamnChannel's CEO Rob Barnett was the featured speaker at last night's Multi-Screen Mix-Up in NYC and his short presentation and Q&A with Tubefilter's Josh Cohen underscored how persistence pays when it comes to pursuing brand dollars. Rob was pretty candid is explaining that in the beginning it was nearly impossible for MyDamnChannel to attract brand attention, so it settled for low-five figure deals to get the ball rolling and develop its content model. Flash forward to today and Rob says he and the team are now getting in to see chief marketing officers at Fortune 500 companies (and sometimes even the CEO himself/herself) to discuss brand entertainment projects.

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Daisy Whitney and I are pleased to present the 44th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for December 18, 2009. This will be the last podcast for 2009, and we'd both like to say a huge thanks to everyone who's been listening in this year.

This week I start things off by providing further detail on my experience so far with Comcast's TV Everywhere initiative, Fancast Xfinity TV (or "FXTV" as I call it for short), which was released in beta to 14 million subscribers this week at no additional charge. On the whole I think it's a respectable effort, and in the big picture, is exactly what the company should be doing with online distribution. The main challenge for improving it is getting lots more content from ad-supported and premium cable networks, so that users are more likely to find what they're looking for. For all kinds of reasons, this won't be easy, but if any company can make it happen, it's surely Comcast.

Then Daisy reviews her '09 predictions and shares her "New Media Minute Awards for Excellence." She recognizes Kaltura, 5Min, boxee, Quantcast, and  number 1 pick, MyDamnChannel. All have excelled this year, attracting new venture financing, signing new deals and growing their business. Daisy is particularly proud of MyDamnChannel because it also achieved profitability this year. Listen in to find out more.

Click here to listen to the podcast (14 minutes, 18 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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The broadband content provider Crackle is notching a win with its new comedy/interview series "The Jace Hall Show." I received a press release that it generated 500K visitors in the first two days following its launch on June 5th and a million to date. I'm always intrigued with what kinds of original broadband programs are working - and why - so I grabbed some time yesterday with Mary Ray, Crackle's VP of Marketing to learn what's behind Jace's success.

For those of you like me who are not gamers, Jason "Jace" Hall is probably unfamiliar. But Mary explained that if you're in the gaming community he's a fairly well-know producer who has a wide network of relationships in the industry. His show brings you into the world of his relationships, making you feel more connected to gamers' movers and shakers. And since he has his finger on the pulse of what the young male gamer audience is looking for, that gives him a real edge. Plus Mary believes that Hollywood still hasn't paid much attention to this market, despite gaming's huge following.

In the program's first episode Jace provided a sneak peek at a Duke Nukem Forever game that has reputedly been in development for 12 years. Gaining this type of access is practically like having exclusive content. Mary said that Crackle didn't do any advance paid marketing for the show; rather the audience was driven purely by word-of-mouth and buzz-building. I joked with Mary - spend no money but gain a big audience - the show sounds like a marketer's dream!

I asked Mary what she thinks the most important takeaway from Jace's early success is. Her feeling was that tapping into what the audience is hungry for is the key. While I agree, I'd go a step further. I think that trying to find talent that already has a following - whether in gaming, TV or some other medium - is a genuine way to improve a program's odds of success. I'm not necessarily talking about A-list talent per se, but rather talent that is at least known within some kind of niche (e.g. finance, comedy, woodworking, etc). That's not say "don't go with unknown talent looking to break out," but I do think it's important to recognize that doing so carries more risk.

The whole area of original broadband content is surging with players like Crackle, Next New Networks, 60Frames, ManiaTV, Break, Heavy, MyDamnChannel, FunnyorDie and lots of others pioneering the model. It's going to be very interesting to learn more about what works and why.

What do you think works in original broadband video? Share your comments now!

At the OMMA Video Summit yesterday in NYC, I moderated a panel entitled "Branded Entertainment." Readers of VideoNuze know that I have been tracking brand marketers' varied broadband initiatives which are whittling away traditional demarcations between advertising and content. Broadband is opening up a whole new frontier for brands to engage their audiences.

We had a stellar group of panelists who have been on the front lines of branded entertainment, including three from agencies (Jeremy Lockhorn from Avenue A Razorfish, Joe Frydl from Ogilvy Entertainment and John McCarus from Digitas/The Third Act) and two from independent video sites making a strong push into this area (Rob Barnett from MyDamnChannel and Peter Hoskins from ManiaTV).

The whole area of branded entertainment is still in its infancy, meaning different things to different people. The panel's consensus was that these projects must provide "entertaining consumer experiences in which brands receive 'permission' to market their products." Joe, who's produced the Hellmann's "Real Food" campaign (now back for its second season on Yahoo), emphasized the importance of presenting content that's authentic to the brand while also finding partners who can deliver big audiences.

Those partners can vary as John mentioned that in a recent 45 webisode series it created for Holiday Inn Express, 90% of the series' views came from 10% of its overall distribution sites and that these were mainly smaller outlets. That sparked a consensus that when picking distribution partners, those with narrower but more passionate audiences were preferred to larger, but less focused outlets. Peter and Rob both noted that there smaller size and focused audiences allow them work more closely with brands to tailor content for their audiences' interests.

That synched up with advice from Jeremy (and seconded by others) that when it comes to branded entertainment, brands must be involved from the start of the creative process. Content companies still tend to look upon brands as little more than checkbooks, with products to be written into scenes after the creative is essentially complete. That bias needs to change fast if branded entertainment is to succeed. To increase the odds of success, Peter noted that ManiaTV focuses on episodic content, as consumer relationships build slowly over time.

The role of agencies is certain to change as branded entertainment gets more traction. Since it's still so early, panelists concurred that agencies need to "embrace ambiguity" and focus on "earning attention, not buying attention" for their clients. Listening to the panelists, it seemed to me that agencies looking to operate successfully in this area will also need significant business development/partnership skills as pulling distribution into these campaigns is quite important.

Branded entertainment is yet another greenfield opportunity that broadband is opening up. Given how many agencies and others are setting up branded entertainment specialty units, it's certain to get more priority by brands.