Digital Content NewFronts just around the corner, I had a quick chat with Wayne Powers, senior vice president of North American sales at Yahoo!, regarding the upcoming event and some of the digital content services offered by the company.
What is the purpose of the Digital Content NewFronts, and what should it mean for advertisers?The Digital Content NewFronts (DCNF) is the industry coming together to showcase the quality content that we offer at scale and our original video programming it's not just about ad inventory. With Americans having streamed 43.5 billion videos in December 2011 (up 44% since December 2010, according to comScore), brands and agency demand for strong, quality content is increasing and the DCNF will serve to create a marketplace where providers and advertisers can connect.
What's the state of digital video at Yahoo?We have also seen significant growth in video. In October 2011, we announced our content alliance with ABC News, and later we added a slate of video series geared towards women, featuring talent such as Morgan Spurlock of "Supersize Me" and Judy Greer of "Arrested Development." Just last month, comedian Bill Maher kicked off the new Yahoo! Comedy Channel, part of the programming that we offer on Yahoo! Screen, that will feature a series of short-form comedy shows.
Where does Yahoo! Screen fit into the company's overall digital content distribution strategy?With advertisers increasingly looking for quality, premium content, we will continue to provide brands with the right environments to reach their audiences, including Yahoo! Screen. Every day, millions of users come to our sites to view our quality original programming and Yahoo! Screen provides us with a unique digital destination for reaching even more users.
Why should digital advertisers and publishers be on Yahoo! Livestand? What tools does it offer them? What kind of reach does it have?Livestand from Yahoo! is a personalized, living magazine that offers publishers the ability to bring their content to life for consumers and it changes the game in digital advertising for brands. On Livestand, brands have access to an unmatched creative canvas with ad formats that combine the interactive capabilities of a tablet with real emotional engagement to deliver a more engaging advertising experience.
In Yahoo!'s opinion: define the relationship between digital advertising and digital video content?Digital advertising and digital video content complement each other and you need both to support these initiatives. Yahoo!'s original video programming, for example, puts advertising content in a relevant content that sparks higher levels of message and brand awareness as well as engagement.
Jose María Castillejo, co-Founder, President, and Chairman of Spain-based Zinkia Entertainment
Answering a few of our questions this week is Jose María Castillejo, co-Founder, President, and Chairman of Spain-based Zinkia Entertainment, is integral in the development and execution of the company's growth strategy. He is also involved in the distribution of the company's entertaining and educational brands in markets around the world. Founded in 2001, the mission of Zinkia Entertainment (www.zinkia.com) is to use its properties to change the world for kids by modeling basic values that will ultimately make them "better human beings". Zinkia is probably best known for its 3D preschool animated series (and specials) Pocoyo (www.pocoyo.com), a co-production with ITV Studios (f/k/a Carlton International). Pocoyo revolves around a young boy, fully clad in blue and set against a white background, as he discovers the world around him, and can now be seen in 120+ territories worldwide. The property has also grown to include a range of consumer products, video games, CDs, DVDs and books, websites like PocoyoWorld.com, a blog, and various social media pages, among other things. Zinkia's other properties include the K6-11 targeted animated series Shuriken School, various games (Hello, Pocoyo; Pocoyo Racing; PlayChapas; Moviles), and it is currently working on new animated projects too. Last year Zinkia Entertainment acquired a stake (51%) in the kid/family targeted entertainment company London-based Cake, both maintaining their own management. Castillejo has created and managed companies, including numerous chairmanships, in a variety of business sectors over the past 20+ years, including many financial institutions, biotech companies. Among many other companies, he also served as a founding member and owner of ACJM SA (Vivavoce), a Spanish retailer of mobile phones.
Why do you think so many children have responded Pocoyo?I think the reason that children, as well as adults, respond to Pocoyo is because they see themselves in him. He represents the child in all of us and the child we would all like to be. Pocoyo also demonstrates how children can open themselves up to new experiences. He shows kids that it's fun to learn and imagine and that having friends and sharing makes you feel good. He uses his imagination and creativity to dream up fun scenarios that can sometimes get him into trouble, but his friends are there to help him through. And in the long run, hopefully, Pocoyo will make children happier while also teaching them the values that are important for being a well-balanced, successful and happy adult, too.
Most characters don't hear their own narrators, but Pocoyo not only does, he responds to this disembodied voice. Why doesn't Pocoyo find this unusual?Pocoyo's narrator, who is the well-known British actor, writer, director and comedian Stephen Fry by the way, is the voice of reason. He plays the part of parent or caregiver in Pocoyo's life. And just like most kids, when you start to do something that is questionable, you may not see your parents, but you certainly hear their voice, if only in your head. In this way, the narrator can correct or re-direct Pocoyo, helping him to learn and grow with a gentle comment or probing question, which in turn, causes Pocoyo to rethink his plan or behavior.
In your vision, what potential does Pocoyo have? Could he be another Mickey Mouse or SpongeBob SquarePants?As we have seen, Pocoyo is a very popular character, and not just with children. He's cute and fun and endearing but he's not perfect, which is very much like Mickey Mouse, right? Yes, the colorful characters and the engaging storylines are critical, but I also think that once parents learn of our commitment to engaging, empowering and inspiring children and they learn of the impressive results we have with our 'learning through laughter' approach in teaching core values like love, respect and tolerance and they see how successful we are in igniting a child's natural curiosity about the world, they too come to value Pocoyo. We all share a desire to raise healthy, happy children and to provide them with all the tools and skills they'll need to be happy and successful adults. I think that is at the core of Pocoyo's appeal and that, in itself, has true and everlasting value.
What new characters, shows or projects from Zinkia are you most excited about at this moment?Everything we do at Zinkia is rooted in helping our children to be the best they can be, to see the world from an optimistic perspective and to encourage them to explore and enjoy this beautiful time in their life. That is what drives our enthusiasm and our desire to develop unique entertainment properties like Pocoyo, and what is also behind our development of new properties like Mola Noguru, which is a colorful comedy-adventure animation series targeting children from 3 to 6 years of age that teaches them how to think for themselves while imparting basic values in a fresh, fun way. We're planning on producing 52 11-minute episodes for the series.
When you were younger, you had considered becoming a priest. Do you bring any of that former calling into your work at Zinkia?I think my earlier experiences can be credited for my desire to make a difference in the world. And I think my spiritual development definitely played a part in forging my commitment to imparting lessons of love, respect, inclusion and tolerance. I'm not trying to pass on a religious theology here, but I do believe it is important that we show children that using our intelligence and being curious are the characteristics that bring us great joy in our lives. Everything about the world our environment, animals, plants, each other needs to be valued and cared for, and I like to believe that's our nature as human beings.
There is a lot of kid content out in the world right now and more created it seems daily. What are the challenges in developing new properties and distributing them? Are the challenges different now versus when you first started in the business?Ten years ago, we knew that being an independent in a world where large corporations dominate by continuously acquiring and absorbing, meant that we'd have to be very focused about where we wanted to go and how we wanted to get there. Our approach has been focused on high-quality content that delivers important lessons in a fun and engaging manner. Combining that with years of work and patience has made it possible for us to compete and succeed in the animation sector on an international scale. Our talent and our products convey our unique commitment to our audience and that has made it easier to distinguish ourselves in this competitive arena.
How did Zinkia and Pocoyo get involved with the World Wildlife Fund's Earth Hour initiative? What are you hearing from parents and kids about this effort?I'm sorry to keep repeating myself, but the core values imparted by Pocoyo and his friends -- curiosity, interest and learning through friendship with a heavy dose of respect, love and tolerance as well -- also resonate with the principals at the heart of World Wildlife Fund's Earth Hour.
Three years ago, we partnered with the World Wildlife Fund International on the Earth Hour campaign in Spain to teach kids how to incorporate eco-friendly habits into their daily lives and, more importantly perhaps, how they could share these earth-friendly lifestyle practices with their whole family. The result was simply amazing and confirmed our ability to affect change in the world for our children, to make them happier if we can, while imparting basic values that will later play a role in making them better human beings which is why all of us at Zinkia are so excited to continue our partnership with World Wildlife Fund International and Earth Hour by accepting the role of Global Kids' Ambassador for Pocoyo.
What did you watch on TV growing up? What were your favorites?I loved THE FLINTSTONES! Yabba Dabba Doo!
You have several noble titles including three Count titles: Conde de Armildez de Toledo Fuente, Conde de Fuente del Sauco, which dates back to King Philip III in 1612, and Conde de Floridablanca, a title that dates back to King Carlos III of Spain in 1773; and the more recent title of Marques de Aldama, created by King Alfonso XIII, which you inherited from your great grandfather. Is it good to be a Count?I'm proud of my family's history and its long association with Spain, and I suppose perhaps holding the title of Count could be beneficial in being introduced at a royal wedding, but it doesn't allow you to get a better table at a crowded restaurant or bypass security at the airport. If it did, believe me, I'd use it on my passport!
Why do you think so many children have responded Pocoyo?I think the reason that children, as well as adults, respond to Pocoyo is because they see themselves in him. He represents the child in all of us and the child we would all like to be. Pocoyo also demonstrates how children can open themselves up to new experiences. He shows kids that it's fun to learn and imagine and that having friends and sharing makes you feel good. He uses his imagination and creativity to dream up fun scenarios that can sometimes get him into trouble, but his friends are there to help him through. And in the long run, hopefully, Pocoyo will make children happier while also teaching them the values that are important for being a well-balanced, successful and happy adult, too.
Most characters don't hear their own narrators, but Pocoyo not only does, he responds to this disembodied voice. Why doesn't Pocoyo find this unusual?Pocoyo's narrator, who is the well-known British actor, writer, director and comedian Stephen Fry by the way, is the voice of reason. He plays the part of parent or caregiver in Pocoyo's life. And just like most kids, when you start to do something that is questionable, you may not see your parents, but you certainly hear their voice, if only in your head. In this way, the narrator can correct or re-direct Pocoyo, helping him to learn and grow with a gentle comment or probing question, which in turn, causes Pocoyo to rethink his plan or behavior.
In your vision, what potential does Pocoyo have? Could he be another Mickey Mouse or SpongeBob SquarePants?As we have seen, Pocoyo is a very popular character, and not just with children. He's cute and fun and endearing but he's not perfect, which is very much like Mickey Mouse, right? Yes, the colorful characters and the engaging storylines are critical, but I also think that once parents learn of our commitment to engaging, empowering and inspiring children and they learn of the impressive results we have with our 'learning through laughter' approach in teaching core values like love, respect and tolerance and they see how successful we are in igniting a child's natural curiosity about the world, they too come to value Pocoyo. We all share a desire to raise healthy, happy children and to provide them with all the tools and skills they'll need to be happy and successful adults. I think that is at the core of Pocoyo's appeal and that, in itself, has true and everlasting value.
What new characters, shows or projects from Zinkia are you most excited about at this moment?Everything we do at Zinkia is rooted in helping our children to be the best they can be, to see the world from an optimistic perspective and to encourage them to explore and enjoy this beautiful time in their life. That is what drives our enthusiasm and our desire to develop unique entertainment properties like Pocoyo, and what is also behind our development of new properties like Mola Noguru, which is a colorful comedy-adventure animation series targeting children from 3 to 6 years of age that teaches them how to think for themselves while imparting basic values in a fresh, fun way. We're planning on producing 52 11-minute episodes for the series.
When you were younger, you had considered becoming a priest. Do you bring any of that former calling into your work at Zinkia?I think my earlier experiences can be credited for my desire to make a difference in the world. And I think my spiritual development definitely played a part in forging my commitment to imparting lessons of love, respect, inclusion and tolerance. I'm not trying to pass on a religious theology here, but I do believe it is important that we show children that using our intelligence and being curious are the characteristics that bring us great joy in our lives. Everything about the world our environment, animals, plants, each other needs to be valued and cared for, and I like to believe that's our nature as human beings.
There is a lot of kid content out in the world right now and more created it seems daily. What are the challenges in developing new properties and distributing them? Are the challenges different now versus when you first started in the business?Ten years ago, we knew that being an independent in a world where large corporations dominate by continuously acquiring and absorbing, meant that we'd have to be very focused about where we wanted to go and how we wanted to get there. Our approach has been focused on high-quality content that delivers important lessons in a fun and engaging manner. Combining that with years of work and patience has made it possible for us to compete and succeed in the animation sector on an international scale. Our talent and our products convey our unique commitment to our audience and that has made it easier to distinguish ourselves in this competitive arena.
How did Zinkia and Pocoyo get involved with the World Wildlife Fund's Earth Hour initiative? What are you hearing from parents and kids about this effort?I'm sorry to keep repeating myself, but the core values imparted by Pocoyo and his friends -- curiosity, interest and learning through friendship with a heavy dose of respect, love and tolerance as well -- also resonate with the principals at the heart of World Wildlife Fund's Earth Hour.
Three years ago, we partnered with the World Wildlife Fund International on the Earth Hour campaign in Spain to teach kids how to incorporate eco-friendly habits into their daily lives and, more importantly perhaps, how they could share these earth-friendly lifestyle practices with their whole family. The result was simply amazing and confirmed our ability to affect change in the world for our children, to make them happier if we can, while imparting basic values that will later play a role in making them better human beings which is why all of us at Zinkia are so excited to continue our partnership with World Wildlife Fund International and Earth Hour by accepting the role of Global Kids' Ambassador for Pocoyo.
What did you watch on TV growing up? What were your favorites?I loved THE FLINTSTONES! Yabba Dabba Doo!
You have several noble titles including three Count titles: Conde de Armildez de Toledo Fuente, Conde de Fuente del Sauco, which dates back to King Philip III in 1612, and Conde de Floridablanca, a title that dates back to King Carlos III of Spain in 1773; and the more recent title of Marques de Aldama, created by King Alfonso XIII, which you inherited from your great grandfather. Is it good to be a Count?I'm proud of my family's history and its long association with Spain, and I suppose perhaps holding the title of Count could be beneficial in being introduced at a royal wedding, but it doesn't allow you to get a better table at a crowded restaurant or bypass security at the airport. If it did, believe me, I'd use it on my passport!
Jesse Redniss, Senior Vice President of Digital, USA Network
Jesse Redniss, Senior Vice President of Digital, USA Network, about the network's plans to build online user engagement and second-screen components around the 136th annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, which airs tonight and tomorrow. In the Q&A, Mr. Redniss also discussed how USA Network has valued digital content and Social TV in the past and what it sees for the trend in the future.
In your opinion, what is the value of offering viewers content across multiple platforms? Ubiquitous access across multiple platforms for viewer and user consumption helps shape the overall digital experience with our original content - moving it from the traditional "sit back" to a more active and lean forward environment. With multiple layers of social and content engagement opportunities the network gains an enhanced connection with fans and extends the brand experience. Additionally, our brand partners benefit from a more organic connection to our loyal fan base.
How is USA Network using additional platforms to boost coverage around this upcoming Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show? This year we have expanded our Social TV initiatives with our first live video coverage during the day and social viewing experiences including community chatting, interviews, Facebook and Twitter integrations and real-time behind the scenes moments from the floor. We are partnering with UStream for the video coverage, which will be accessible worldwide via online and mobile phones. Subaru of America is sponsoring a special Character Chatter with expert Chuck Bessant on Tuesday, February 13 at 10pm ET.
What makes the WKC a great program to show how online engagements can impact TV viewership? WKC presents a unique opportunity to track this activity back to viewership because of its very specific niche target demographic. While there isn't an industry standard yet that tracks digital activity to viewership in a standardized manner, USA Network is working to closely monitor, track and standardize this connection.
How has the network used Social TV/second-screen/social gaming components in the past to build viewer engagement? USA Network has worked with industry-leading partners to use cutting-edge technologies, such as check in services like GetGlue and Echo to build new ways for fans to interact with show producers, talent and community. It's something that's allowed USA to gain valuable insight into future programming, audience interest and loyalty. We also launched CLUB PSYCH in 2010, which quickly became one of the most talked about successful examples of gamification in our industry, due to our rabid fan base and their excitement about being rewarded for online activity.
Looking toward the future: What do you see on the horizon for Social TV, and what role does USA Network want to play as part of that trend? With each of our digital executions, USA Network is lending its hand in shaping the overall definition of Social TV. We work closely with our show producers, writers and talent to ensure the multiplatform executions act as storytelling extensions and seamless experiences for the fans. This is the make or break inflection point for a network in Social TV. We see this trend continuing and possibly having Social TV influence what we see in original programming, as consumers share their likes and dislikes.
In your opinion, what is the value of offering viewers content across multiple platforms? Ubiquitous access across multiple platforms for viewer and user consumption helps shape the overall digital experience with our original content - moving it from the traditional "sit back" to a more active and lean forward environment. With multiple layers of social and content engagement opportunities the network gains an enhanced connection with fans and extends the brand experience. Additionally, our brand partners benefit from a more organic connection to our loyal fan base.
How is USA Network using additional platforms to boost coverage around this upcoming Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show? This year we have expanded our Social TV initiatives with our first live video coverage during the day and social viewing experiences including community chatting, interviews, Facebook and Twitter integrations and real-time behind the scenes moments from the floor. We are partnering with UStream for the video coverage, which will be accessible worldwide via online and mobile phones. Subaru of America is sponsoring a special Character Chatter with expert Chuck Bessant on Tuesday, February 13 at 10pm ET.
What makes the WKC a great program to show how online engagements can impact TV viewership? WKC presents a unique opportunity to track this activity back to viewership because of its very specific niche target demographic. While there isn't an industry standard yet that tracks digital activity to viewership in a standardized manner, USA Network is working to closely monitor, track and standardize this connection.
How has the network used Social TV/second-screen/social gaming components in the past to build viewer engagement? USA Network has worked with industry-leading partners to use cutting-edge technologies, such as check in services like GetGlue and Echo to build new ways for fans to interact with show producers, talent and community. It's something that's allowed USA to gain valuable insight into future programming, audience interest and loyalty. We also launched CLUB PSYCH in 2010, which quickly became one of the most talked about successful examples of gamification in our industry, due to our rabid fan base and their excitement about being rewarded for online activity.
Looking toward the future: What do you see on the horizon for Social TV, and what role does USA Network want to play as part of that trend? With each of our digital executions, USA Network is lending its hand in shaping the overall definition of Social TV. We work closely with our show producers, writers and talent to ensure the multiplatform executions act as storytelling extensions and seamless experiences for the fans. This is the make or break inflection point for a network in Social TV. We see this trend continuing and possibly having Social TV influence what we see in original programming, as consumers share their likes and dislikes.
Carol Greenwald, Senior Executive Producer of Children's Programming at WGBH.
Carol Greenwald, Senior Executive Producer of Children's Programming at WGBH. Greenwald is co-creator and executive producer for the first eight seasons of hugely popular PBS series Arthur. She also served as executive producer of Postcards from Buster also a PBS series, and Time Warp Trio, which ran on the Saturday morning Discovery Kids block on NBC. Greenwald partnered with Universal to launch Curious George, based on H. A. and Margret Rey's classic books. Greenwald is the executive producer of Martha Speaks, based on Susan Meddaugh's book series. Greenwald also helped to develop kid-targeted programs including Between the Lions and Peep and the Big Wide World. She was one of the original creators of Long Ago & Far Away, and additionally held several other roles on that series, including project director, series editor and producer. Prior to her tenure at WGBH, Greenwald was a freelance producer on radio projects, documentary films, and multimedia efforts.
You have helped bring many popular books to television. What is the most exciting and/or challenging part of adapting an already popular or beloved property and character to another format?
The initial development process on these projects is just about the most fun we get to have. On the television side, we have had the opportunity to work with terrific writers and artists who really understand how to stay true to the vision of the original books but at the same time expand the world so that it is comprehensive enough to build it into a media property.
When we do have the opportunity to collaborate with the authors and illustrators (like Marc Brown and Susan Meddaugh), the creative sparks fly. Susan insisted, for example, that Martha had to always, always act and think like a dog and never cross the line into human behavior. That was a great guideline to start with.
In the case of Curious George, we had to dig deeply into the books for clues about how to create his world. Joe Fallon, who was the head writer for the first several seasons of that series, scrutinized every page of the original books. He noticed, for example, that the Reys (Hans and Margret, the author/Illustrators of those books) clearly had a fondness for dachshunds because there was one who kept showing up in the illustrations as a background character. That inspired him to create the character of Hundley, who has become one of my favorite characters.
One of the missions of Martha Speaks is to help kids develop their vocabulary. What comes first, creating a storyline and then selecting a word within the arc of that episode to support that theme, or the other way around? Is there a full curriculum built around each episode?
The goal of Martha Speaks is to support the development of oral vocabulary for kids. So it's not about decoding, or phonics, but about making sure kids get introduced to the words they need to know to succeed and become literate.
Educational research is pretty definitive that there is a strong correlation between kids who enter school with a good stock of vocabulary and their success in school, all the way up through high school. And that makes sense because as you transition from learning to read to reading to learn, even if you have the best phonics and decoding skills in the world, you're going to have problems if you keep bumping into words that you have never heard. So Martha Speaks is chock full of vocabulary, and we aren't afraid to include words that are challenging because we know kids actually really love to have those kinds of words roll off their tongues!
As to what comes first the words or the story -- it goes both ways. In some cases, writers will pitch us a story and then we will work with our advisor, Dr. Rebecca Silverman, to come up with a group of vocabulary words that works within the story. But we've also done it the other way Rebecca will tell us that kids really need more support on directional words or science words and we'll go back to the writers and ask them to dream up a fun story that incorporates those words.
Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt will appear with their dog Cora in the season four premiere of Martha Speaks on February 20. How did this episode come about and what was it like working with them?
Ken Scarborough, head writer for Martha Speaks (who also had that role on Arthur and is currently on Curious George) and his wife, Raye Lankford (who also writes for all three shows) were on an elevator with their dog, Ruby, in New York and bumped into Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt. Jennifer started petting Ruby and mentioned how much she was missing Cora who lives on the West Coast. Raye and Ken immediately realized that this was the basis of a great Martha story and suggested that we could make Cora a guest star on Martha. They reported the conversation to us and we jumped on it. And when they said yes, we were thrilled.
It has been reported that Marc Brown, who wrote the Arthur books, was originally reluctant to turn his eight-year-old aardvark into a TV character. What changed his mind?
I know that Marc had already turned down many very attractive offers to turn Arthur into a TV series when I first approached him in 1994. But I think what resonated with him was the idea that we could use Arthur as a vehicle to motivate kids to read. Some new research had just come out from Action for Children's Television which showed that kids were more likely to read books if they saw them adapted into a TV show. And that once they connected to reading the books they saw on TV, there was a real opportunity to get them to continue reading. So we took our cue from that research and, with Marc's enthusiastic support, designed Arthur as a series that would motivate reading. In fact, at the time, Arthur had no last name and we decided that we might as well just be right out there and call him Arthur Read.
Arthur lives in Elwood City, home of the Elwood City Grebes baseball franchise. How is the team doing?
Sadly, the Grebes still haven't been able to get a winning season going. But, as we in Boston know only too well, there's always next year!
You've been developing shows for more than two decades. How has digital media changed the way you approach a project.
In 1997, a guy named Howard Cutler, who was one of the people at WGBH thinking about what this new technology meant for public media, told me that we should get ahead of the curve and develop a web site for Arthur. Frankly, I was pretty skeptical but when we rolled out our first, very simple prototype several months later and started getting about 1000 emails a week, I realized he was right.
Now, of course, we look at everything we do across every possible platform. Our Martha Speaks app (Martha Speaks Dog Party) has been incredibly effective at teaching kids vocabulary and Arthur's Facebook page has nearly 825,000 fans. We view ourselves as content providers, and our goal is to be able to deliver this content to kids wherever they might be and to figure out how we can best take advantage of all of the affordances each platform offers.
You also have the premiere of two new episodes of Postcards from Buster airing February 18 and 25. Where is Buster traveling and how can families learn about these countries?
Buster travels to Chennai, in India and to Santiago and its environs in Chile. Of course these two places couldn't be more different, which is part of what makes these two programs so great. In India, Buster learns a lot about how important extended family is to the culture. In Chile, he's impressed by the adventurous spirits of the kids he meets.
What was your favorite book when you were growing up? Do the characters from that book (or series) still live in your head as you create your projects?
My mother was an English teacher, so I caught the reading bug early on and spent a lot of time (probably too much!) reading things like The Little House books, Nancy Drew, and theChronicles of Narnia, to name a few. But where my mother really influenced me was to encourage me to start reading the classics at a very young age, from Greek myths to Dickens, from The Call of the Wild to Jane Eyre. Those books have staying power I still go back and re-read them now. What I think all that reading did for me was teach me what makes a good story, and that is probably the thing that's most important to me as I work on these shows.
Can you tell us about what is new on your current development slate?
Without getting too specific, there are two projects I'm very excited about. I'm developing a new book based project which, of course, is something I love to do, and I've also been working on another project in collaboration with Angela Santamero from Out of the Blue. It's been great fun for me to be able to learn from her unique approach to getting kids to interact with their TV sets!
There are those in Congress who continually target cutting funds to public TV and radio stations and programs provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. What do you say to lawmakers who advocate those cuts?
The small amount of money that the federal government invests in public broadcasting creates amazing resources for all kids. The programming is free, easily accessible and proven to help children learn. There's plenty of research to support this, for example the research we did on Martha Speaks (http://pressroom.wgbh.org/assets/txt/mart_MSEvalRel_2552.pdf) that demonstrated how the show and the iPhone app, as I mentioned above, had a significant impact on increasing vocabulary for kids who watched the show and played with the app.
You have helped bring many popular books to television. What is the most exciting and/or challenging part of adapting an already popular or beloved property and character to another format?
The initial development process on these projects is just about the most fun we get to have. On the television side, we have had the opportunity to work with terrific writers and artists who really understand how to stay true to the vision of the original books but at the same time expand the world so that it is comprehensive enough to build it into a media property.
When we do have the opportunity to collaborate with the authors and illustrators (like Marc Brown and Susan Meddaugh), the creative sparks fly. Susan insisted, for example, that Martha had to always, always act and think like a dog and never cross the line into human behavior. That was a great guideline to start with.
In the case of Curious George, we had to dig deeply into the books for clues about how to create his world. Joe Fallon, who was the head writer for the first several seasons of that series, scrutinized every page of the original books. He noticed, for example, that the Reys (Hans and Margret, the author/Illustrators of those books) clearly had a fondness for dachshunds because there was one who kept showing up in the illustrations as a background character. That inspired him to create the character of Hundley, who has become one of my favorite characters.
One of the missions of Martha Speaks is to help kids develop their vocabulary. What comes first, creating a storyline and then selecting a word within the arc of that episode to support that theme, or the other way around? Is there a full curriculum built around each episode?
The goal of Martha Speaks is to support the development of oral vocabulary for kids. So it's not about decoding, or phonics, but about making sure kids get introduced to the words they need to know to succeed and become literate.
Educational research is pretty definitive that there is a strong correlation between kids who enter school with a good stock of vocabulary and their success in school, all the way up through high school. And that makes sense because as you transition from learning to read to reading to learn, even if you have the best phonics and decoding skills in the world, you're going to have problems if you keep bumping into words that you have never heard. So Martha Speaks is chock full of vocabulary, and we aren't afraid to include words that are challenging because we know kids actually really love to have those kinds of words roll off their tongues!
As to what comes first the words or the story -- it goes both ways. In some cases, writers will pitch us a story and then we will work with our advisor, Dr. Rebecca Silverman, to come up with a group of vocabulary words that works within the story. But we've also done it the other way Rebecca will tell us that kids really need more support on directional words or science words and we'll go back to the writers and ask them to dream up a fun story that incorporates those words.
Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt will appear with their dog Cora in the season four premiere of Martha Speaks on February 20. How did this episode come about and what was it like working with them?
Ken Scarborough, head writer for Martha Speaks (who also had that role on Arthur and is currently on Curious George) and his wife, Raye Lankford (who also writes for all three shows) were on an elevator with their dog, Ruby, in New York and bumped into Jon Hamm and Jennifer Westfeldt. Jennifer started petting Ruby and mentioned how much she was missing Cora who lives on the West Coast. Raye and Ken immediately realized that this was the basis of a great Martha story and suggested that we could make Cora a guest star on Martha. They reported the conversation to us and we jumped on it. And when they said yes, we were thrilled.
It has been reported that Marc Brown, who wrote the Arthur books, was originally reluctant to turn his eight-year-old aardvark into a TV character. What changed his mind?
I know that Marc had already turned down many very attractive offers to turn Arthur into a TV series when I first approached him in 1994. But I think what resonated with him was the idea that we could use Arthur as a vehicle to motivate kids to read. Some new research had just come out from Action for Children's Television which showed that kids were more likely to read books if they saw them adapted into a TV show. And that once they connected to reading the books they saw on TV, there was a real opportunity to get them to continue reading. So we took our cue from that research and, with Marc's enthusiastic support, designed Arthur as a series that would motivate reading. In fact, at the time, Arthur had no last name and we decided that we might as well just be right out there and call him Arthur Read.
Arthur lives in Elwood City, home of the Elwood City Grebes baseball franchise. How is the team doing?
Sadly, the Grebes still haven't been able to get a winning season going. But, as we in Boston know only too well, there's always next year!
You've been developing shows for more than two decades. How has digital media changed the way you approach a project.
In 1997, a guy named Howard Cutler, who was one of the people at WGBH thinking about what this new technology meant for public media, told me that we should get ahead of the curve and develop a web site for Arthur. Frankly, I was pretty skeptical but when we rolled out our first, very simple prototype several months later and started getting about 1000 emails a week, I realized he was right.
Now, of course, we look at everything we do across every possible platform. Our Martha Speaks app (Martha Speaks Dog Party) has been incredibly effective at teaching kids vocabulary and Arthur's Facebook page has nearly 825,000 fans. We view ourselves as content providers, and our goal is to be able to deliver this content to kids wherever they might be and to figure out how we can best take advantage of all of the affordances each platform offers.
You also have the premiere of two new episodes of Postcards from Buster airing February 18 and 25. Where is Buster traveling and how can families learn about these countries?
Buster travels to Chennai, in India and to Santiago and its environs in Chile. Of course these two places couldn't be more different, which is part of what makes these two programs so great. In India, Buster learns a lot about how important extended family is to the culture. In Chile, he's impressed by the adventurous spirits of the kids he meets.
What was your favorite book when you were growing up? Do the characters from that book (or series) still live in your head as you create your projects?
My mother was an English teacher, so I caught the reading bug early on and spent a lot of time (probably too much!) reading things like The Little House books, Nancy Drew, and theChronicles of Narnia, to name a few. But where my mother really influenced me was to encourage me to start reading the classics at a very young age, from Greek myths to Dickens, from The Call of the Wild to Jane Eyre. Those books have staying power I still go back and re-read them now. What I think all that reading did for me was teach me what makes a good story, and that is probably the thing that's most important to me as I work on these shows.
Can you tell us about what is new on your current development slate?
Without getting too specific, there are two projects I'm very excited about. I'm developing a new book based project which, of course, is something I love to do, and I've also been working on another project in collaboration with Angela Santamero from Out of the Blue. It's been great fun for me to be able to learn from her unique approach to getting kids to interact with their TV sets!
There are those in Congress who continually target cutting funds to public TV and radio stations and programs provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. What do you say to lawmakers who advocate those cuts?
The small amount of money that the federal government invests in public broadcasting creates amazing resources for all kids. The programming is free, easily accessible and proven to help children learn. There's plenty of research to support this, for example the research we did on Martha Speaks (http://pressroom.wgbh.org/assets/txt/mart_MSEvalRel_2552.pdf) that demonstrated how the show and the iPhone app, as I mentioned above, had a significant impact on increasing vocabulary for kids who watched the show and played with the app.
Josh Selig, Founder Little Airplane Productions
Josh Selig, Founder and President of the 13-year-old Little Airplane Productions (www.littleairplane.com). Selig also creator and executive producer of preschool series including The Wonder Pets!, Oobi!, and Go, Baby!, Small Potatoes and 3rd & Bird, among others including a brand series we discuss below, and has directed countless short films. Selig also toiled as a writer on Sesame Street and the head writer on the animated series Little Bill, as well as serving as the Resident Producer in Jerusalem on the notable Israeli-Palestinian production of Sesame Street. If you happen to be in NYC, or live nearby, you should definitely make a visit to Little Airplane Productions' home in a more than 200-year-old building located in New York City's South Street Seaport.
We understand you are creating a new preschool TV series with singer/songwriter Laurie Berkner called Sing It, Laurie! How did you meet Laurie and what will you be doing together?
Laurie and I have been friends for years and we've always talked about making a show together. We have a very similar sensibility when it comes to preschoolers. Sing It, Laurie! is an animated preschool series about a little girl who loves to sing and play music. She has a little dog named Jam and they fly around her neighborhood in her super cute vehicle called a Wing Dinger. The show will feature many of Laurie's biggest hits, as well as great new songs written by Laurie. The whole show is simply adorable.
Are there any TV, or other deals, for Sing It, Laurie! in place here in the US or elsewhere?
Laurie and I will be sharing the series for the first time this month with broadcasters, publishers, toy people and licensing folks at both KidScreen and Toy Fair. We expect that Sing It, Laurie! will appeal to both the domestic and international markets so we'll be taking the show to MIP TV as well. We see this as a global brand.
Your work has appeared on Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, PBS, and CBeebies and on other channels around the world, what is the biggest challenge in entertaining preschoolers and what draws you so much to reaching this age group?
I make shows for preschoolers because I honestly believe that human beings peak at age four. At age four, we have our priorities straight: Family, friends, play and artwork. The biggest challenge in entertaining preschoolers is that many of the commissioners aren't as creative as the children they buy shows for.
Your shows like Wonder Pets, Small Potatoes and 3rd & Bird have remarkable kids' voices. How do you cast those kids and how do you get them to perform so naturally and with such enthusiasm? And by the way you continually work with kids and animals going against the famous W.C. Fields adage, "Never work with animals or children."
We typically audition about 100 children for every child that we cast in a lead role. We always audition both professionals and non-professionals. Once we've found the right kid for a part, we just let them be themselves. I find that most children are naturally brilliant and funny. They only sound unnatural when they're told to act like someone else. By the way, I've heard that animals and children didn't like working with W.C. Fields either.
Speaking of Small Potatoes... Little Airplane has just wrapped production on the Small Potatoes animated musical film, Meet the Small Potatoes. Can you tell us about the movie and how it's the same and/or different from what we know on the TV series? Do you have a movie distribution deal in place?
Meet The Small Potatoes is an animated rock mockumentary in the spirit of This Is Spinal Tap. The film stars Malcolm McDowell as the band's manager and features new songs by the legendary Broadway composer, the late Jerry Bock (Fiddler on the Roof). Our Facebook page just passed the half million fan mark, and we've taken the bold step of casting 1,000 of our Facebook fans' potato avatars in the film. Meet The Small Potatoes was made for the whole family--not just preschoolers--and we're currently in talks with one of the larger international distributors.
Is there a licensing program underway for Small Potatoes or specifically the movie?
Absolutely. Aardman Rights is now managing all the rights for Small Potatoes in the UK & EMEA and they expect to announce our master toy partner shortly. In addition to our existing deals with Penguin (publishing), and iTunes (music), Little Airplane will be announcing several new deals at Toy Fair including games, apps and digital books.
Your programs also feature infectious songs by noted composers and lyricists. Are you a would-be Broadway producer?
Never. I hear that Broadway is even harder than kids' TV. But we do take our music seriously at Little Airplane and we're proud to have been honored with several Emmys® in this area. For us, the script is the narrative body of a show but the music is its heartbeat.
So for shows like Wonder Pets and 3rd & Bird how much time does the production team spend photographing real baby animals.
We've actually photographed many live animals over the years at Little Airplane. We rescued the original Ming-Ming Duckling from a Fois Gras farm in upstate New York and, after we photographed her, we gave her to an animal rescue center who released her into Central Park. We're told Ming-Ming lives there still. Seriously.
Do you have any plans to create content for older kids, tweens and teens?
Last year I helped launch Toronto's Little Tugboat Productions with my dear friend Brenda Nietupski. Brenda knows the older kids' TV space better than I do, so we've decided to include both a preschool show and a tween show on our upcoming Tugboat development slate for 2012.
You were on Sesame Street as a child. Did you ever get in trouble on the set?
Hmm. I do seem to recall a shoplifting incident at Hooper's Store involving a Rubber Ducky.
We understand you are creating a new preschool TV series with singer/songwriter Laurie Berkner called Sing It, Laurie! How did you meet Laurie and what will you be doing together?
Laurie and I have been friends for years and we've always talked about making a show together. We have a very similar sensibility when it comes to preschoolers. Sing It, Laurie! is an animated preschool series about a little girl who loves to sing and play music. She has a little dog named Jam and they fly around her neighborhood in her super cute vehicle called a Wing Dinger. The show will feature many of Laurie's biggest hits, as well as great new songs written by Laurie. The whole show is simply adorable.
Are there any TV, or other deals, for Sing It, Laurie! in place here in the US or elsewhere?
Laurie and I will be sharing the series for the first time this month with broadcasters, publishers, toy people and licensing folks at both KidScreen and Toy Fair. We expect that Sing It, Laurie! will appeal to both the domestic and international markets so we'll be taking the show to MIP TV as well. We see this as a global brand.
Your work has appeared on Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, PBS, and CBeebies and on other channels around the world, what is the biggest challenge in entertaining preschoolers and what draws you so much to reaching this age group?
I make shows for preschoolers because I honestly believe that human beings peak at age four. At age four, we have our priorities straight: Family, friends, play and artwork. The biggest challenge in entertaining preschoolers is that many of the commissioners aren't as creative as the children they buy shows for.
Your shows like Wonder Pets, Small Potatoes and 3rd & Bird have remarkable kids' voices. How do you cast those kids and how do you get them to perform so naturally and with such enthusiasm? And by the way you continually work with kids and animals going against the famous W.C. Fields adage, "Never work with animals or children."
We typically audition about 100 children for every child that we cast in a lead role. We always audition both professionals and non-professionals. Once we've found the right kid for a part, we just let them be themselves. I find that most children are naturally brilliant and funny. They only sound unnatural when they're told to act like someone else. By the way, I've heard that animals and children didn't like working with W.C. Fields either.
Speaking of Small Potatoes... Little Airplane has just wrapped production on the Small Potatoes animated musical film, Meet the Small Potatoes. Can you tell us about the movie and how it's the same and/or different from what we know on the TV series? Do you have a movie distribution deal in place?
Meet The Small Potatoes is an animated rock mockumentary in the spirit of This Is Spinal Tap. The film stars Malcolm McDowell as the band's manager and features new songs by the legendary Broadway composer, the late Jerry Bock (Fiddler on the Roof). Our Facebook page just passed the half million fan mark, and we've taken the bold step of casting 1,000 of our Facebook fans' potato avatars in the film. Meet The Small Potatoes was made for the whole family--not just preschoolers--and we're currently in talks with one of the larger international distributors.
Is there a licensing program underway for Small Potatoes or specifically the movie?
Absolutely. Aardman Rights is now managing all the rights for Small Potatoes in the UK & EMEA and they expect to announce our master toy partner shortly. In addition to our existing deals with Penguin (publishing), and iTunes (music), Little Airplane will be announcing several new deals at Toy Fair including games, apps and digital books.
Your programs also feature infectious songs by noted composers and lyricists. Are you a would-be Broadway producer?
Never. I hear that Broadway is even harder than kids' TV. But we do take our music seriously at Little Airplane and we're proud to have been honored with several Emmys® in this area. For us, the script is the narrative body of a show but the music is its heartbeat.
So for shows like Wonder Pets and 3rd & Bird how much time does the production team spend photographing real baby animals.
We've actually photographed many live animals over the years at Little Airplane. We rescued the original Ming-Ming Duckling from a Fois Gras farm in upstate New York and, after we photographed her, we gave her to an animal rescue center who released her into Central Park. We're told Ming-Ming lives there still. Seriously.
Do you have any plans to create content for older kids, tweens and teens?
Last year I helped launch Toronto's Little Tugboat Productions with my dear friend Brenda Nietupski. Brenda knows the older kids' TV space better than I do, so we've decided to include both a preschool show and a tween show on our upcoming Tugboat development slate for 2012.
You were on Sesame Street as a child. Did you ever get in trouble on the set?
Hmm. I do seem to recall a shoplifting incident at Hooper's Store involving a Rubber Ducky.
Martin Baynton, a creator/writer/narrator/executive producer
Answering a few of our questions today is Martin Baynton, a creator/writer/narrator/executive producer as well as co-founder, with Richard Taylor of Weta Workshop (www.wetanz.com), of Pukeko Pictures, an intellectual property development company. Baynton, who has written and illustrated 30+ kids' books, most recently co-created, with Taylor, the preschool TV series the WotWots (www.wotwots.com/americas/home), and is the series editor and executive producer, as well as the voice of the show's narrator SpottyWot. Baynton and Taylor adapted his classic book series Jane And The Dragon (1986) into a TV series that has aired around the world. Baynton has done a myriad of things, including studying painting, yoga and Electrophysiological technology, worked in a biofeedback unit at a hospital, and he has served as a roadie, a scene painter, a relief House Parent to young teens under house arrest for petty crimes, and as a literacy motivator seriously he's done all this and more. Born and raised in England, Baynton now lives in New Zealand with his family.
As co-creator, series editor and executive producer of The WotWots, can you tell us something about the planet SpottyWot and DottyWot come from? Does the planet have anything in common with life in New Zealand?
All WotWots explore life around the universe to seek out attributes they want to embrace. So when the return to their world they 'grow up' into Chimera, which depict their unique points of difference. The WotWots encourage diversity and they respect and embrace differences. So on their home planet no two WotWots look alike, they have different colours, furs, tails, horns etc and they fill every niche of ecological life on their planet. There are no other life forms there, every living creature is a WotWot and they are all sentient. Hence they only eat vegetables and fruit, no farming fishing or hunting like in New Zealand.
How did watching the behavior of your own kids lead to the creation of the WotWots? What did you hope to capture?
My wife Diane homeschooled them for a few years. She never did formal lessons with them, she just used their thirst of knowledge and their desire to have adventures as platforms for learning. So everyday was an expedition into the unknown. The kids loved it, and I hope the WotWots display that same thirst for learning.
You are the writer and illustrator of more than 30 kid's books, including the beloved Jane and The Dragon. She's in training to become a knight--in 9th century England--and her friend is a 300-year-old fire-breather who happens to talk. Why was it so important for you to create this courageous 12-year-old girl?
Back in the 1986 when I wrote Jane there were still attitudes and expectations about what girls should do. So Jane was a modern fable that turned old fairy tales on their heads. Girls were rewarded for good behavior, for cleaning up after stepmothers and dwarfs, and they were rewarded by meeting a handsome prince who would marry them, as if that was a good thing. So setting a defiant girl into that medieval male dominated setting was a way of throwing those attitudes into high relief.
Why does Jane utter the word "Maggots!" now and then?
I hate kids using swear words, it's ugly and demeaning to them. So I encouraged my own kids to create their own fruity and unique oaths that would def' express their feelings but were more earthy than rude. So I did the same for Jane, I created a lexicon of colloquial expressions that felt like swearwords but were perfectly literary and respectable. So her favorites were 'Maggots' and 'Puss and Pestilence!' Full of attitude but perfectly safe to broadcast.
When one of your books becomes an animated character, what concerns you the most? Are you protective of the original concept, or do you just let your characters grow in a different medium?
It's a matter of trust, of building a great team around a show and evolving ownership from myself to the group in a slow and practical way so that every member of the team knows the DNA of the characters as if they were family. Having said that I have always been the exec producer and lead creative so all the final creative decisions sit with me.
You worked as an auxiliary nurse, caring for terminally ill patients. Are there lessons from that experience that inform your books for young people?
Only that life should be lived as a celebration of all things wonderful. I don't have time to engage with the negative, I don't enjoy creative arts that press easy buttons of despair or anger, I only write books that seek to harness the uplifting aspects of life.
You once spent six weekends walking a dog with actress Ava Gardner, in preparation for a book. Was that your "Week with Marilyn" experience?
Yes, it was the late 70s and I was in my twenties, unpublished. She was wonderful, full of stories about her amazing life. I would meet her in her apartment in Kensington and we would walk her corgi dog 'Morgan' round Hyde Park. I was hired to ghost write her story idea and to illustrate it. In the end the publisher passed on her book but hired me as an illustrator on other books.
Would you reveal the next character you are about to give birth to?
Yes. Right now I'm writing a children's book that is an allegory for walking away from bullying and other forms of violence, be it domestic or playground. I can't tell you more or I would have to kill you, which would be a poor start to the marketing campaign for this book.
As co-creator, series editor and executive producer of The WotWots, can you tell us something about the planet SpottyWot and DottyWot come from? Does the planet have anything in common with life in New Zealand?
All WotWots explore life around the universe to seek out attributes they want to embrace. So when the return to their world they 'grow up' into Chimera, which depict their unique points of difference. The WotWots encourage diversity and they respect and embrace differences. So on their home planet no two WotWots look alike, they have different colours, furs, tails, horns etc and they fill every niche of ecological life on their planet. There are no other life forms there, every living creature is a WotWot and they are all sentient. Hence they only eat vegetables and fruit, no farming fishing or hunting like in New Zealand.
How did watching the behavior of your own kids lead to the creation of the WotWots? What did you hope to capture?
My wife Diane homeschooled them for a few years. She never did formal lessons with them, she just used their thirst of knowledge and their desire to have adventures as platforms for learning. So everyday was an expedition into the unknown. The kids loved it, and I hope the WotWots display that same thirst for learning.
You are the writer and illustrator of more than 30 kid's books, including the beloved Jane and The Dragon. She's in training to become a knight--in 9th century England--and her friend is a 300-year-old fire-breather who happens to talk. Why was it so important for you to create this courageous 12-year-old girl?
Back in the 1986 when I wrote Jane there were still attitudes and expectations about what girls should do. So Jane was a modern fable that turned old fairy tales on their heads. Girls were rewarded for good behavior, for cleaning up after stepmothers and dwarfs, and they were rewarded by meeting a handsome prince who would marry them, as if that was a good thing. So setting a defiant girl into that medieval male dominated setting was a way of throwing those attitudes into high relief.
Why does Jane utter the word "Maggots!" now and then?
I hate kids using swear words, it's ugly and demeaning to them. So I encouraged my own kids to create their own fruity and unique oaths that would def' express their feelings but were more earthy than rude. So I did the same for Jane, I created a lexicon of colloquial expressions that felt like swearwords but were perfectly literary and respectable. So her favorites were 'Maggots' and 'Puss and Pestilence!' Full of attitude but perfectly safe to broadcast.
When one of your books becomes an animated character, what concerns you the most? Are you protective of the original concept, or do you just let your characters grow in a different medium?
It's a matter of trust, of building a great team around a show and evolving ownership from myself to the group in a slow and practical way so that every member of the team knows the DNA of the characters as if they were family. Having said that I have always been the exec producer and lead creative so all the final creative decisions sit with me.
You worked as an auxiliary nurse, caring for terminally ill patients. Are there lessons from that experience that inform your books for young people?
Only that life should be lived as a celebration of all things wonderful. I don't have time to engage with the negative, I don't enjoy creative arts that press easy buttons of despair or anger, I only write books that seek to harness the uplifting aspects of life.
You once spent six weekends walking a dog with actress Ava Gardner, in preparation for a book. Was that your "Week with Marilyn" experience?
Yes, it was the late 70s and I was in my twenties, unpublished. She was wonderful, full of stories about her amazing life. I would meet her in her apartment in Kensington and we would walk her corgi dog 'Morgan' round Hyde Park. I was hired to ghost write her story idea and to illustrate it. In the end the publisher passed on her book but hired me as an illustrator on other books.
Would you reveal the next character you are about to give birth to?
Yes. Right now I'm writing a children's book that is an allegory for walking away from bullying and other forms of violence, be it domestic or playground. I can't tell you more or I would have to kill you, which would be a poor start to the marketing campaign for this book.
Susanna Pollack, VP/Global Sales and Marketing, SocialSamba
Susanna Pollack, VP/Global Sales and Marketing, SocialSamba (www.socialsamba.com). Pollack has been in the media distribution business for 15+ years, working with both international entertainment companies and media startups. Pollack previously toiled for BBC Worldwide as SVP, CBeebies Channel Development, US, and prior to that as BBC Worldwide Americas as Director/Co-Productions and Sales. She was previously SVP/Global Television and Licensing, Star Farm Productions. Before joining SocialSamba, Pollack served as a consultant for locally produced TED events, TEDxEast, Massiverse; and Sandbox Summit. Look for SocialSamba this week at NATPE.
Can you tell us a bit about SocialSamba and how it works?
SocialSamba is a platform for scripted social networking which means we enable fans to "friend" the characters they love from TV, movies, books, and brands, and experience what it's like to be part of a social network with those characters. It's the same way you experience the lives of friends and family using Facebook, only the content from the characters is created by professional writers so it tells a great story. We license our platform to the professional storytellers to create these stories, we have current productions live from the TV shows Covert Affairs and Psych from USA Networks, and the movie Dolphin Tale and Joyful Noise from Warner Bros.
The difference between our platform and the legacy models of storytelling through social media is that we enable these storytellers to script the posts, comments, images and videos once, and then we play them back for each fan whenever they want it. In other models, the social storytelling experience is reliant on storytellers to push out posts/dialogue in real time as well as having fans be available when the stories are released (not to mention being able to sift through the deluge of tweets and posts being put up by all of their friends.) Our system ensures that the stories are not lost in today's massive social fire hoses, because the fans can experience whenever they want. The stories actually become assets that are accessed on the fan's time.
This sort of social networking seems like a natural idea for kids and tweens, who want nothing more than to get closer to their favorite shows/movies, characters, singers and idols. Have you created or are you currently working on any projects specifically targeted to kids and/or Tweens?
We did not originally design this platform to reach the kids market. However, because it is a closed social network, it is COPPA compliant. The user is the only real person in the story. This unintended feature has allowed the door to be open to the under 13 demo. That and the opportunity for kids to be able to friend their favorite characters and actually become part of a story is irresistible.
Because of this feature, many kids and tween brands have shown interest in us building experiences for their fans. The other beauty of the SocialSamba platform is that it can live anywhere. We consider ourselves platform agnostic. We just want to go to where the fans are, whether they are on Facebook, Twitter or your website site. We can create an app that can live on any or all of these places.
We are currently in deep conversations with several brands and networks to bring a scripted social experience to kids, tweens and teens. You can expect an announcement very soon.
What are the biggest challenges when creating a scripted social networking program for kids/tweens?
I guess I would have to say it's the same challenge any storyteller has creating characters and stories that keep kids engaged and wanting to come back. The characters development and storytelling we leave up to the experts (remember, we are a technology company first and foremost). But we do offer some advantages that make the connection between character and fan more immediate and deeper. First and foremost, in the scripted social experience, the fan becomes a participant in the story, is called by name, and is empowered to direct the story.
We also help design the overall experience using a good deal of gamification strategies to motivate fans to come back and check out the next 'scene' or episode. We use points systems to rewards fans to return to the story, we have characters send emails and DM's to fans to remind them that there are new posts waiting, we even offer exclusive footage for those fans who can solve mysteries or trivia games.
So, in the scripted story does every user get the same information experience? Is new material added daily or weekly or all launched at once?
Remember that with the SocialSamba platform, all the scripting is done in advance. We work with the storytellers to shape an experience that allows the fan to have direct impact on how the story unfolds. Using a natural language processer, we can take key moments in a story, ask the fans to comment and use their response to direct where the story goes. That way, each fan can have a different experience from their friends.
The length of our stories depends on the story and the consumer. For some stories (and fans), the appropriate length for an experience may be a single sitting for 20 minutes. Perhaps the experience is something that can be repeated several times and each time the user has a different outcome.
For other stories, take USA Network's Psych for example - the story they created, called #hashtagkiller, existed over 7 week long episodes. Each week consisted of 5 days of content, which was posted every week. So that was a very involved story, broken down into week long chunks which allowed the fan to enjoy the story, take a break if desired and then return when the new content was posted. All episodes remained up so the fan can drop in when he/she desired.
What happens when users reach the end of the script? Can they start from the beginning again and make different choices?
Absolutely. It's like a 'choose your adventure' book that you might have read when you were a child. How exciting is it to see what happens if you took door number 2 instead of door number 1?
How does the big SocialSamba machine know what a participant is looking for? Is the program triggered by key words or choices?
As part of the proprietary SocialSamba technology, we use a natural language processer that looks for key words as well as sentiments that help direct how the story unfolds. The difference is that we are not prompting simple yes/no questions. We are encouraging conversation and it's through this natural exchange that we can pick up responses that impact where the story goes.
We also have a system whereby we can interpret the kind of social media user the fan is. We all know there are people out there who feel compelled to check their Facebook page 20 times a day (no comment) but also those who look maybe 2 times a week. We can structure and time the pacing of our stories to ensure that we meet the appetite of that voracious fan while not overwhelming the more casual fan.
Do kids and adults interact with the platform differently?
I think the interaction with character and story is the same regardless of age. The difference is really where you are experiencing the story. If the targeted demo for the story is over 13, and the app lives on Facebook, we will create features that will encourage making the experience more public and viral. For example, although the scripted social network is private (meaning none of the posts appear on your public Facebook page) we do allow opportunities for the fan to select pre-scripted posts/videos and post to their wall, which is designed, of course, to draw friends into the experience. We also offer rewards to users to invite friends to join the app using a 'friends meter'.
Are there educational opportunities that SocialSamba is looking to tap into? Can you tell us about them?
I think this a scripted social experience has tremendous potential in the educational space. As educators are seeking digital experiences to engage children in and out of the school a scripted social experience offers a child a portal into the world of amazing historical figures on a platform that is familiar and fun! Imagine being invited to 'friend' America's founding fathers, or Shakespeare or Albert Einstein or Genghis Kahn. Obviously with a little suspension of belief, a child can become a player in some of the most important events of our world.
We haven't focused on the education sector yet, but I would certainly welcome a discussion!
What's your favorite story from childhood that you can still hear over and over again?
I was always a fan of Grimm's Fairytales and believe me there were many times I wish I could have helped direct the outcome of those stories. If only Hansel and Gretel didn't wander into the house... or the miller's daughter didn't listen to Rumpelstiltskin! If I had the opportunity to join these characters in the story, I can't say the endings would have changed (that's up the storytellers of course) but I would have loved being part of the action.
Can you tell us a bit about SocialSamba and how it works?
SocialSamba is a platform for scripted social networking which means we enable fans to "friend" the characters they love from TV, movies, books, and brands, and experience what it's like to be part of a social network with those characters. It's the same way you experience the lives of friends and family using Facebook, only the content from the characters is created by professional writers so it tells a great story. We license our platform to the professional storytellers to create these stories, we have current productions live from the TV shows Covert Affairs and Psych from USA Networks, and the movie Dolphin Tale and Joyful Noise from Warner Bros.
The difference between our platform and the legacy models of storytelling through social media is that we enable these storytellers to script the posts, comments, images and videos once, and then we play them back for each fan whenever they want it. In other models, the social storytelling experience is reliant on storytellers to push out posts/dialogue in real time as well as having fans be available when the stories are released (not to mention being able to sift through the deluge of tweets and posts being put up by all of their friends.) Our system ensures that the stories are not lost in today's massive social fire hoses, because the fans can experience whenever they want. The stories actually become assets that are accessed on the fan's time.
This sort of social networking seems like a natural idea for kids and tweens, who want nothing more than to get closer to their favorite shows/movies, characters, singers and idols. Have you created or are you currently working on any projects specifically targeted to kids and/or Tweens?
We did not originally design this platform to reach the kids market. However, because it is a closed social network, it is COPPA compliant. The user is the only real person in the story. This unintended feature has allowed the door to be open to the under 13 demo. That and the opportunity for kids to be able to friend their favorite characters and actually become part of a story is irresistible.
Because of this feature, many kids and tween brands have shown interest in us building experiences for their fans. The other beauty of the SocialSamba platform is that it can live anywhere. We consider ourselves platform agnostic. We just want to go to where the fans are, whether they are on Facebook, Twitter or your website site. We can create an app that can live on any or all of these places.
We are currently in deep conversations with several brands and networks to bring a scripted social experience to kids, tweens and teens. You can expect an announcement very soon.
What are the biggest challenges when creating a scripted social networking program for kids/tweens?
I guess I would have to say it's the same challenge any storyteller has creating characters and stories that keep kids engaged and wanting to come back. The characters development and storytelling we leave up to the experts (remember, we are a technology company first and foremost). But we do offer some advantages that make the connection between character and fan more immediate and deeper. First and foremost, in the scripted social experience, the fan becomes a participant in the story, is called by name, and is empowered to direct the story.
We also help design the overall experience using a good deal of gamification strategies to motivate fans to come back and check out the next 'scene' or episode. We use points systems to rewards fans to return to the story, we have characters send emails and DM's to fans to remind them that there are new posts waiting, we even offer exclusive footage for those fans who can solve mysteries or trivia games.
So, in the scripted story does every user get the same information experience? Is new material added daily or weekly or all launched at once?
Remember that with the SocialSamba platform, all the scripting is done in advance. We work with the storytellers to shape an experience that allows the fan to have direct impact on how the story unfolds. Using a natural language processer, we can take key moments in a story, ask the fans to comment and use their response to direct where the story goes. That way, each fan can have a different experience from their friends.
The length of our stories depends on the story and the consumer. For some stories (and fans), the appropriate length for an experience may be a single sitting for 20 minutes. Perhaps the experience is something that can be repeated several times and each time the user has a different outcome.
For other stories, take USA Network's Psych for example - the story they created, called #hashtagkiller, existed over 7 week long episodes. Each week consisted of 5 days of content, which was posted every week. So that was a very involved story, broken down into week long chunks which allowed the fan to enjoy the story, take a break if desired and then return when the new content was posted. All episodes remained up so the fan can drop in when he/she desired.
What happens when users reach the end of the script? Can they start from the beginning again and make different choices?
Absolutely. It's like a 'choose your adventure' book that you might have read when you were a child. How exciting is it to see what happens if you took door number 2 instead of door number 1?
How does the big SocialSamba machine know what a participant is looking for? Is the program triggered by key words or choices?
As part of the proprietary SocialSamba technology, we use a natural language processer that looks for key words as well as sentiments that help direct how the story unfolds. The difference is that we are not prompting simple yes/no questions. We are encouraging conversation and it's through this natural exchange that we can pick up responses that impact where the story goes.
We also have a system whereby we can interpret the kind of social media user the fan is. We all know there are people out there who feel compelled to check their Facebook page 20 times a day (no comment) but also those who look maybe 2 times a week. We can structure and time the pacing of our stories to ensure that we meet the appetite of that voracious fan while not overwhelming the more casual fan.
Do kids and adults interact with the platform differently?
I think the interaction with character and story is the same regardless of age. The difference is really where you are experiencing the story. If the targeted demo for the story is over 13, and the app lives on Facebook, we will create features that will encourage making the experience more public and viral. For example, although the scripted social network is private (meaning none of the posts appear on your public Facebook page) we do allow opportunities for the fan to select pre-scripted posts/videos and post to their wall, which is designed, of course, to draw friends into the experience. We also offer rewards to users to invite friends to join the app using a 'friends meter'.
Are there educational opportunities that SocialSamba is looking to tap into? Can you tell us about them?
I think this a scripted social experience has tremendous potential in the educational space. As educators are seeking digital experiences to engage children in and out of the school a scripted social experience offers a child a portal into the world of amazing historical figures on a platform that is familiar and fun! Imagine being invited to 'friend' America's founding fathers, or Shakespeare or Albert Einstein or Genghis Kahn. Obviously with a little suspension of belief, a child can become a player in some of the most important events of our world.
We haven't focused on the education sector yet, but I would certainly welcome a discussion!
What's your favorite story from childhood that you can still hear over and over again?
I was always a fan of Grimm's Fairytales and believe me there were many times I wish I could have helped direct the outcome of those stories. If only Hansel and Gretel didn't wander into the house... or the miller's daughter didn't listen to Rumpelstiltskin! If I had the opportunity to join these characters in the story, I can't say the endings would have changed (that's up the storytellers of course) but I would have loved being part of the action.
Brian Fitzgerald, Co-founder of Evolve Media Corp
Brian Fitzgerald, Co-founder of Evolve Media Corp, a provider of online advertising solutions, creative agencies and video platforms. Evolve is the parent company of four business units, Gorilla Nation Media, AtomicOnline, Double Helix and SpringBoard Video. Fitzgerald was a Co-founder and developer of all of these franchises. Today our questions will focus specifically on Youthology Media (www.youthologymedia.com), a subsidiary of Gorilla Nation Media that provides kid, tween and teen targeted digital marketing programs. Until last year, Youthology Media was formerly known as Gorilla Nation Kids and Teens (GNKids and Teens). Youthology's services include digital content development, branded entertainment, targeting, and brand studies, as well as video production and distribution for clients in the entertainment, consumer goods, food and beverage, retail, and telecommunications industries. It also provides targeted brand campaigns, show cases for brands, and online advertisement sales, as well as sells advertisements to advertisers and agencies internationally. Prior to co-founding Gorilla Nation in 2001, Fitzgerald was an Intellectual Property attorney. He lives in LA with his wife and kids.
Gorilla Nation had been involved in the kid and teen world for some time, what happened or changed to make you decide that you needed a specific company, Youthology, specifically for the youth market? Was it one area that drove the decision specifically kids, tweens or teens?GNKids and Teens was the starting point for us in the youth world and we were hugely successful. The deeper we got into this vertical we discovered brands really wanting to reach tweens specifically. Therefore we added more tween specific sites to our offering in order cater to this growing demand. The Youthology vertical encompasses kids, teens and tweens allowing us to present brands with a more specific audience, with ad products and media programs custom tailored to engage said audience.
What is the main difference between the way adults and kids, tweens and teens use digital media?There are some parallels between digital use of adults and youth in the fact they are on the web for 3 things- research information, entertainment and to socialize. The difference is in the content. Tweens and Teens are researching information they might need for school projects as well as info about music, movies, sports, and video games. Adults tend to search for information about how-to's, travel, local events, etc. When it comes to entertainment, games are HUGE for kids, teens, tweens and this really spans all ages of youths. We have found one of the best ways for a brand to engage with youth is through a branded game. Adults enjoy entertainment through games as well but also watch videos and visit humorous sites.
And specifically social media?I think it goes without saying that the main source of social media for adults is Facebook and Twitter. Given the age minimum for Facebook is 13, younger youth are not even able to participate. Youth tend to socialize on sites surrounding content where they share common interests and are able strike up conversations about those topics. We have been very impressed and somewhat surprised about how mature and well spoken some of the youth are on our social sites. We often see them talking about politics and world affairs. They are very in tune with current events and quite vocal about them on our message boards. Recognizing that market opportunity, our publishing division AtomicOnline purchased TeenSpot.com, one of the Web's largest teen community sites, allowing Youthology to offer to marketers media programs that are far more integrated than what we customarily can execute reliably on sites that are merely affiliates.
Have the current economic challenges changed how you are partnering and developing new relationships in marketing, branded entertainment and custom video production and distribution?Over the last 2 years we have been diligent in delivering branded entertainment and other highly custom executions at constantly improving price points. At the same time we have ensured that our represented sites are able to seamlessly and effortless integrate these custom elements. These dual focuses provide advertisers with price effective high impact scalable executions and our publishers access to advertising dollars previously out of their reach.
Do you think that kids, tweens and teens are as fickle, unpredictable, unreliable, etc., as industry folks like to think they are or is that just an excuse?I wouldn't say they're fickle; they just know what they like and what they don't like. Through our community of youth websites we've noticed that if something doesn't grab kids' attention immediately, they'll move on without hesitation, it's easy to do since so much is being thrown at them. So for us, it's important to capture their interest as soon as they click onto our sites it's how we keep our readers coming back.
How hard is it to keep up with kids, tweens and teens or a step ahead of them to make sure you can reach them the way you need to reach them?This question kind of goes hand and hand with the previous question. Youth are very busy on the web surfing around different sites and if they are not entertained or engaged they will leave. We find it very important to listen to the kids, teens and tweens on what they are discussing on the sites, what games they are playing, and what articles they are most interested in reading. This gives us knowledge to relay to brands and helps us create campaigns that are impactful and will resonate with the youth. It's not about staying ahead as much as it keeping a pulse on youth.
Is everybody at Youthology really young?Our employees reflect the Youthology brand and range from 2-17 years old. Just kidding! Youthology employs a staff that ranges in age from early 20s to 40s. However, we do actually work with sites that were started by youth. Either way, working in the youth market keeps everyone very young at heart.
What have you learned from your own kids and their friends that has influenced how you or your clients are reaching their target audiences?I've learned that if kids find something engaging, then they will really immerse themselves with it and spend a ton of time interacting with it (a toy, a game, an activity, etc.). The flipside of that is that, it is often very difficult to predict what they will find engaging. When I look at some of the toys, games or other things that capture my kids attention, I am baffled. If someone told me that Puffles, a part of Club Penguin, would be so huge, I would have laughed. How wrong I was.
What are the educational applications of what Youthology does and is there anything new on that front?We do have a number of educational sites and education/college based social networks that offer free notes, outlines, vocabulary terms, study guides, practice exams, as well as college only social nets. We are not currently seeking out any additional educational sites but I do think we will work in more educational integrations and campaigns in 2012.
What new youth project are you most excited about?One of the things that I am really excited about is SPIL's Social Gaming. In a social game a user will be able to earn virtual currency in exchange for interacting with an advertisement. This allows players to connect with, and share a brand's message within their gaming environment, where they are already the most engaged. SPIL is one of the largest gaming sites in the world with a localized global network of sites in 19 languages. Currently they reach over 140 million unique users worldwide per month.
I understand you are an electric mountain biker. How did you get involved with the sport and is it a competitive sport?It's not exactly competitive. I've always loved the feeling of speeding down the side of a mountain or navigating a rocky creek bed, but as time cranked on, climbing up that mountain got harder and more and more treacherous! So I found a way to manipulate that a bit to my advantage. Now I can peddle downhill for as fast as my heart desires! I've found away to please the 22-year-old guy inside of me without putting to much wear and tear on my 42 year old body.
Gorilla Nation had been involved in the kid and teen world for some time, what happened or changed to make you decide that you needed a specific company, Youthology, specifically for the youth market? Was it one area that drove the decision specifically kids, tweens or teens?GNKids and Teens was the starting point for us in the youth world and we were hugely successful. The deeper we got into this vertical we discovered brands really wanting to reach tweens specifically. Therefore we added more tween specific sites to our offering in order cater to this growing demand. The Youthology vertical encompasses kids, teens and tweens allowing us to present brands with a more specific audience, with ad products and media programs custom tailored to engage said audience.
What is the main difference between the way adults and kids, tweens and teens use digital media?There are some parallels between digital use of adults and youth in the fact they are on the web for 3 things- research information, entertainment and to socialize. The difference is in the content. Tweens and Teens are researching information they might need for school projects as well as info about music, movies, sports, and video games. Adults tend to search for information about how-to's, travel, local events, etc. When it comes to entertainment, games are HUGE for kids, teens, tweens and this really spans all ages of youths. We have found one of the best ways for a brand to engage with youth is through a branded game. Adults enjoy entertainment through games as well but also watch videos and visit humorous sites.
And specifically social media?I think it goes without saying that the main source of social media for adults is Facebook and Twitter. Given the age minimum for Facebook is 13, younger youth are not even able to participate. Youth tend to socialize on sites surrounding content where they share common interests and are able strike up conversations about those topics. We have been very impressed and somewhat surprised about how mature and well spoken some of the youth are on our social sites. We often see them talking about politics and world affairs. They are very in tune with current events and quite vocal about them on our message boards. Recognizing that market opportunity, our publishing division AtomicOnline purchased TeenSpot.com, one of the Web's largest teen community sites, allowing Youthology to offer to marketers media programs that are far more integrated than what we customarily can execute reliably on sites that are merely affiliates.
Have the current economic challenges changed how you are partnering and developing new relationships in marketing, branded entertainment and custom video production and distribution?Over the last 2 years we have been diligent in delivering branded entertainment and other highly custom executions at constantly improving price points. At the same time we have ensured that our represented sites are able to seamlessly and effortless integrate these custom elements. These dual focuses provide advertisers with price effective high impact scalable executions and our publishers access to advertising dollars previously out of their reach.
Do you think that kids, tweens and teens are as fickle, unpredictable, unreliable, etc., as industry folks like to think they are or is that just an excuse?I wouldn't say they're fickle; they just know what they like and what they don't like. Through our community of youth websites we've noticed that if something doesn't grab kids' attention immediately, they'll move on without hesitation, it's easy to do since so much is being thrown at them. So for us, it's important to capture their interest as soon as they click onto our sites it's how we keep our readers coming back.
How hard is it to keep up with kids, tweens and teens or a step ahead of them to make sure you can reach them the way you need to reach them?This question kind of goes hand and hand with the previous question. Youth are very busy on the web surfing around different sites and if they are not entertained or engaged they will leave. We find it very important to listen to the kids, teens and tweens on what they are discussing on the sites, what games they are playing, and what articles they are most interested in reading. This gives us knowledge to relay to brands and helps us create campaigns that are impactful and will resonate with the youth. It's not about staying ahead as much as it keeping a pulse on youth.
Is everybody at Youthology really young?Our employees reflect the Youthology brand and range from 2-17 years old. Just kidding! Youthology employs a staff that ranges in age from early 20s to 40s. However, we do actually work with sites that were started by youth. Either way, working in the youth market keeps everyone very young at heart.
What have you learned from your own kids and their friends that has influenced how you or your clients are reaching their target audiences?I've learned that if kids find something engaging, then they will really immerse themselves with it and spend a ton of time interacting with it (a toy, a game, an activity, etc.). The flipside of that is that, it is often very difficult to predict what they will find engaging. When I look at some of the toys, games or other things that capture my kids attention, I am baffled. If someone told me that Puffles, a part of Club Penguin, would be so huge, I would have laughed. How wrong I was.
What are the educational applications of what Youthology does and is there anything new on that front?We do have a number of educational sites and education/college based social networks that offer free notes, outlines, vocabulary terms, study guides, practice exams, as well as college only social nets. We are not currently seeking out any additional educational sites but I do think we will work in more educational integrations and campaigns in 2012.
What new youth project are you most excited about?One of the things that I am really excited about is SPIL's Social Gaming. In a social game a user will be able to earn virtual currency in exchange for interacting with an advertisement. This allows players to connect with, and share a brand's message within their gaming environment, where they are already the most engaged. SPIL is one of the largest gaming sites in the world with a localized global network of sites in 19 languages. Currently they reach over 140 million unique users worldwide per month.
I understand you are an electric mountain biker. How did you get involved with the sport and is it a competitive sport?It's not exactly competitive. I've always loved the feeling of speeding down the side of a mountain or navigating a rocky creek bed, but as time cranked on, climbing up that mountain got harder and more and more treacherous! So I found a way to manipulate that a bit to my advantage. Now I can peddle downhill for as fast as my heart desires! I've found away to please the 22-year-old guy inside of me without putting to much wear and tear on my 42 year old body.
Disney-ABC Testing New Production Strategies for Companion Web Programming for ABC, Disney, ABC Family Shows
by Daisy Whitney
Friday, December 2, 2011 9:13 AM
Disney-ABC Television Group has been expanding its work in original video programming to now include companion content for ABC Family and Disney Channel shows in addition to ABC primetime programs.
The company’s digital media studios group has also been experimenting with new production processes for online video in support of an upcoming ABC Family pilot in 2012. If successful, the new process could become a blueprint for how the development of complementary online video content can be integrated into the production of a show.
To date, the digital media studios group has been tasked with producing behind-the-scenes material, interviews, and derivative Web programming for ABC shows such as “Lost” and “Cougartown,” and recently began supporting the other networks, said Chris Thomes, VP digital media studios at Disney-ABC TV Group.
Currently, his team is developing complementary Web programming for an ABC Family pilot slated for a 2012 release. The work could serve as a proving ground for best practices for Web production. “We want to get in early, work with the show runner and the production company and make sure we have a digital strategy for that show so we’re not playing catch up,” he said.
Starting earlier can also help the digital media studios group better support marketing and sales, he said. “What it can do is show to our sales department that we can create entertainment that is interesting for the brands, show to marketing that it can do some of the lifting they need, and it can extend our stories earlier in the process whereby everybody can get behind it and it can be woven into the fabric of a show’s production. We can be proactive.”
Thomes said the sales team sells inventory in original online video year-round, but will also be making a concerted push to include integrated packages with online video programming in the upfront.
Answering a few of our questions this week is Nate Ball
Answering a few of our questions this week is Nate Ball, TV host, inventor, entrepreneur, athlete, and musician and an engineer. In addition to hosting the PBS series Design Squad from by WGBH, which he continues to be involved with, Ball is actively involved with a range of youth-targeted programs including National Engineers Week Foundation and Future City Competition, which are designed to get kids/tweens/teens interested in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines and choosing a career in those fields. Ball, who I might add is only in his late 20s, began building things as a young kid, holds two degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT, and has worked on a number of breakthrough scientific efforts, including a needle-free vaccine delivery device, as well as co-founding a company, Atlas Devices, and co-inventing a powered rope ascender (think Batman), among other inventions. Ball's other interests include beatboxing, jazz piano, and parkour; oh and he's a pole-vaulter too. Raise your hand if you think you would have been a much better science/math student had he been around to get us jazzed about the subject when you were a kid. Yeah, me too though I doubt I would have been a better pole-vaulter.
When and why did you get interested in combining your expertise in engineering with getting kids/tweens/teens interested in the field and learning to create and problem solve?
I've always found myself really excited to share things I love with other people. It started young, like when I was four years old and would immediately greet guests at our house with "want to see me breakdance?!" And engineering is at the top of my list to help get others excited about - kids and adults alike, in fact. I began to get really passionate about sharing my love of engineering at the beginning of my involvement with Design Squad in 2003, when I was sophomore in mechanical engineering. It was the same time I realized that I could do what I loved most - building cool stuff - as a profession! And that's what I wanted to share. Creating and problem solving for me are a way of life, and that's what makes engineering as a career feel like play. When you help younger students make that connection too, you're hooked.
How did you get involved with WGBH and Design Squad?
When I was a sophomore at MIT in 2003, WGBH came to a design class of mine, asking if my section could help brainstorm ideas for what would be cool to do on a kid's TV show about engineering. I had grown up building a lot of projects like kayaks, hovercraft, catapults, and even a Tesla coil, and my ideas resonated with their mission to show what exciting and practical places STEM education can lead to.
Can you describe how the Design Squad series works?
It's included a few iterations now, but my favorite was the raw, fast-paced reality show format. Each week two teams of teenagers received an engineering challenge from a client, and they had to build a real, functional solution in only two days! We had everything from machines that rapidly cooked and flipped pancakes at the touch of a button to soccer ball launching machines that were tested on the field with a real MLS team. At the end, the winning contestant got a $10,000 scholarship.
Can you tell us about the content you are working for the show's website and when it will roll out?
I'm pretty excited about the videos I'm helping to create. My part of the new website content will be short videos that feature really cool little engineering tidbits, tips, and mini-projects. What I love highlighting in this format is how empowering an engineering education can be. You just think about the world differently, and I want to show what exciting things you can build, think about, and solve problems around just with some basic concepts from where the STEM education hits the road.
In addition to Design Squad you are very involved in The National Engineers Week and its Future City Competition. What is the best way to encourage kids/tweens/teens to get interested and excited about engineering?
I think it's by helping facilitate experiences for them that exemplify what engineering is all about. Putting them in teams where they get to use their own skills and knowledge to solve problems that they care about is about the best thing I can imagine! When you begin to see how your own skills and understanding enable you to become a capable problem solver, you begin to imagine entirely new ways you can have an effect on the world around you, and that's extremely empowering and self-reinforcing.
Tell us about the Future City Competition and why you are involved.
The Future City Competition does all the things I just mentioned that build students' interest in engineering, and they do it so well in a competitive format. When you get all these high energy creative kids together, sharing ideas and seeing each other's teamwork, it's a great event. And I'm so impressed with the breadth of challenges they have to face in the designs of their cities of the future. It's a real full-package design problem.
Do you ever talk to students about what your interest in beatboxing, parkour and jazz?
Yes, I absolutely talk about my interests with kids, including the beatboxing, parkour, and jazz, and even pole vaulting. All of these things include aspects of engineering that I love - creativity, working within interesting sets of constraints, and finding and pushing the limits. I like finding out what hobbies students are excited about, and then discovering with them areas where engineering overlaps.
We continue to read that American kids are falling behind in the STEM areas. Is that true?
Yes, as I understand it as well. At least I read the same reports. It's certainly discouraging, but whenever I connect directly with students, I feel strong affirmation that there's incredible passion and potential all over the place. The kids out there are sharp - just watch them solve a hands-on problem that they're interested in. I'm impressed all the time!
What is the best moment when you are working with a kid or group of kids on a project?
One of my favorite things was actually just something that I overheard a young boy discussing with his dad at an event. I'm guessing he was about seven years old, and I didn't even know what they were talking about, but the dad asked "Do you think that would be possible?" and the boy answered "Maybe, but you'd need a completely different set of materials." I was so impressed! He clearly had and understanding of what the proposed idea would need to perform, and he also understood the limitations of whatever materials were in question to begin with, and he knew it wouldn't work. That's some pretty advanced thinking in my opinion, especially for somebody so young. I love it when stuff like that happens.
You have invented some super cool things (that's technical language, of course) and hold a number of patents. when did your interest in engineering begin?
Thanks! I'll put "engineering" in quotes, because I didn't really know that what I loved to do was related to engineering until I was in college. I've always loved making things, being creative, and solving problems. And like countless other kids, I've been doing it since I was really young. I started with blocks (how can I make this structure not fall down?) moved to Legos, built forts, and used my imagination all the time. So being creative and solving problems really feels more like a way of life to me, and engineering is the profession I get to do where those activities can make me a good living!
Can you tell us about your kitchen experiment gone wrong?
The "rocket fuel incident..." oh yes. In high school I read the book October Sky, and made the connection that the "rocket boys" featured in the book were mixing up concoctions for their rocket fuel that I also knew how to make based on what I'd been learning in advanced chemistry class. Cool! Now there's some STEM-application opportunities for you. I designed an experiment where I could test the potency of those mixtures against the ones you could buy at the store, and set to work mixing up some of the ingredients over the stove. As you can imagine, it's not a perfect process, and some of it... and then suddenly a lot of it... caught fire. And the whole thing about rocket fuel is that it contains its own oxidizer bound up with the combustible part, so a fire extinguisher designed to deprive a fire of oxygen from the air doesn't do anything! It eventually burned itself out, along with a good portion of the family kitchen. Whoops.
What exactly did your parents and other family members say to you afterwards? Did the police or fire department want to have a word with you?
My parents were incredible. They showed their true colors in their unfailing dedication to hands-on education in that they never raised a voice, and simply said, "well, we were going to remodel either the kitchen or the bathroom. And it's clearly going to be the kitchen!"
And I did have a visit from the fire department. Our longtime neighbor from two doors down was actually the fire chief, and I suspect that after having watched me grow up building all kinds of crazy contraptions, he was kind of expecting something like this to happen. He calmly turned on the lights to his fire chief's vehicle still parked in his driveway, and walked up to our house shaking his head and smiling as I ran out of the smoking house yelling "it's out! It's all under control!" And then began the remodel with me assisting my dad. I learned a lot during that process too, but that's a story for another time.
When and why did you get interested in combining your expertise in engineering with getting kids/tweens/teens interested in the field and learning to create and problem solve?
I've always found myself really excited to share things I love with other people. It started young, like when I was four years old and would immediately greet guests at our house with "want to see me breakdance?!" And engineering is at the top of my list to help get others excited about - kids and adults alike, in fact. I began to get really passionate about sharing my love of engineering at the beginning of my involvement with Design Squad in 2003, when I was sophomore in mechanical engineering. It was the same time I realized that I could do what I loved most - building cool stuff - as a profession! And that's what I wanted to share. Creating and problem solving for me are a way of life, and that's what makes engineering as a career feel like play. When you help younger students make that connection too, you're hooked.
How did you get involved with WGBH and Design Squad?
When I was a sophomore at MIT in 2003, WGBH came to a design class of mine, asking if my section could help brainstorm ideas for what would be cool to do on a kid's TV show about engineering. I had grown up building a lot of projects like kayaks, hovercraft, catapults, and even a Tesla coil, and my ideas resonated with their mission to show what exciting and practical places STEM education can lead to.
Can you describe how the Design Squad series works?
It's included a few iterations now, but my favorite was the raw, fast-paced reality show format. Each week two teams of teenagers received an engineering challenge from a client, and they had to build a real, functional solution in only two days! We had everything from machines that rapidly cooked and flipped pancakes at the touch of a button to soccer ball launching machines that were tested on the field with a real MLS team. At the end, the winning contestant got a $10,000 scholarship.
Can you tell us about the content you are working for the show's website and when it will roll out?
I'm pretty excited about the videos I'm helping to create. My part of the new website content will be short videos that feature really cool little engineering tidbits, tips, and mini-projects. What I love highlighting in this format is how empowering an engineering education can be. You just think about the world differently, and I want to show what exciting things you can build, think about, and solve problems around just with some basic concepts from where the STEM education hits the road.
In addition to Design Squad you are very involved in The National Engineers Week and its Future City Competition. What is the best way to encourage kids/tweens/teens to get interested and excited about engineering?
I think it's by helping facilitate experiences for them that exemplify what engineering is all about. Putting them in teams where they get to use their own skills and knowledge to solve problems that they care about is about the best thing I can imagine! When you begin to see how your own skills and understanding enable you to become a capable problem solver, you begin to imagine entirely new ways you can have an effect on the world around you, and that's extremely empowering and self-reinforcing.
Tell us about the Future City Competition and why you are involved.
The Future City Competition does all the things I just mentioned that build students' interest in engineering, and they do it so well in a competitive format. When you get all these high energy creative kids together, sharing ideas and seeing each other's teamwork, it's a great event. And I'm so impressed with the breadth of challenges they have to face in the designs of their cities of the future. It's a real full-package design problem.
Do you ever talk to students about what your interest in beatboxing, parkour and jazz?
Yes, I absolutely talk about my interests with kids, including the beatboxing, parkour, and jazz, and even pole vaulting. All of these things include aspects of engineering that I love - creativity, working within interesting sets of constraints, and finding and pushing the limits. I like finding out what hobbies students are excited about, and then discovering with them areas where engineering overlaps.
We continue to read that American kids are falling behind in the STEM areas. Is that true?
Yes, as I understand it as well. At least I read the same reports. It's certainly discouraging, but whenever I connect directly with students, I feel strong affirmation that there's incredible passion and potential all over the place. The kids out there are sharp - just watch them solve a hands-on problem that they're interested in. I'm impressed all the time!
What is the best moment when you are working with a kid or group of kids on a project?
One of my favorite things was actually just something that I overheard a young boy discussing with his dad at an event. I'm guessing he was about seven years old, and I didn't even know what they were talking about, but the dad asked "Do you think that would be possible?" and the boy answered "Maybe, but you'd need a completely different set of materials." I was so impressed! He clearly had and understanding of what the proposed idea would need to perform, and he also understood the limitations of whatever materials were in question to begin with, and he knew it wouldn't work. That's some pretty advanced thinking in my opinion, especially for somebody so young. I love it when stuff like that happens.
You have invented some super cool things (that's technical language, of course) and hold a number of patents. when did your interest in engineering begin?
Thanks! I'll put "engineering" in quotes, because I didn't really know that what I loved to do was related to engineering until I was in college. I've always loved making things, being creative, and solving problems. And like countless other kids, I've been doing it since I was really young. I started with blocks (how can I make this structure not fall down?) moved to Legos, built forts, and used my imagination all the time. So being creative and solving problems really feels more like a way of life to me, and engineering is the profession I get to do where those activities can make me a good living!
Can you tell us about your kitchen experiment gone wrong?
The "rocket fuel incident..." oh yes. In high school I read the book October Sky, and made the connection that the "rocket boys" featured in the book were mixing up concoctions for their rocket fuel that I also knew how to make based on what I'd been learning in advanced chemistry class. Cool! Now there's some STEM-application opportunities for you. I designed an experiment where I could test the potency of those mixtures against the ones you could buy at the store, and set to work mixing up some of the ingredients over the stove. As you can imagine, it's not a perfect process, and some of it... and then suddenly a lot of it... caught fire. And the whole thing about rocket fuel is that it contains its own oxidizer bound up with the combustible part, so a fire extinguisher designed to deprive a fire of oxygen from the air doesn't do anything! It eventually burned itself out, along with a good portion of the family kitchen. Whoops.
What exactly did your parents and other family members say to you afterwards? Did the police or fire department want to have a word with you?
My parents were incredible. They showed their true colors in their unfailing dedication to hands-on education in that they never raised a voice, and simply said, "well, we were going to remodel either the kitchen or the bathroom. And it's clearly going to be the kitchen!"
And I did have a visit from the fire department. Our longtime neighbor from two doors down was actually the fire chief, and I suspect that after having watched me grow up building all kinds of crazy contraptions, he was kind of expecting something like this to happen. He calmly turned on the lights to his fire chief's vehicle still parked in his driveway, and walked up to our house shaking his head and smiling as I ran out of the smoking house yelling "it's out! It's all under control!" And then began the remodel with me assisting my dad. I learned a lot during that process too, but that's a story for another time.
15 Resolutions For Vendors
by David Berkowitz , Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011
I can’t do my job without great vendor relationships, but I could do my job a lot better if vendors focused on building relationships first and selling later.
Over the course of a year, I’ll get about a thousand pitches from vendors. The great ones lead to vendors becoming partners. The bad pitches get deleted. The worst get forwarded around.
In light of that, here’s my wish list for vendors. Vendors that follow the list will win more business. Granted, the best vendors don’t need this list at all, but most can use at least a few reminders.
BEFORE THE MEETING
1) Do your homework. Google whom you’re meeting with. Find shared connections on LinkedIn. Look at recent agency news.
2) Be personal. A one-line description of what you do is so much more effective than a form letter.
3) Ask questions. It’s in my best interest to make the meeting as productive as possible, so if I can help with that in any way, I will.
4) Listen. I may tell you that just because I have the word “media” in my title doesn’t mean I’m a media buyer. That’s probably an indication that you shouldn’t keep telling me about your CPMs. This is just one of the more egregious and oft-repeated examples.
5) Confirm meetings. The element of surprise is vastly overrated.
DURING THE VISIT
6) Show up five minutes early. If you’re on time, you’re late, given the time it usually takes to set up.
7) BYOD: Bring your own dongle.
8) Show, don’t sell. Share live demos of the site or app whenever possible. Make it interactive.
9) Get to your examples early. I love the meetings where the vendor says, “You guys are really well ahead of the curve, so you don’t need our 20 slides on making the case for social media,” and then they spend the next half hour on those 20 slides. Cut the set-up and get right to what you’re doing.
10) Co-create. Often, the best meetings I’m in involve impromptu brainstorms. You’re the product experts; we’re the experts on our clients’ needs and plans. Seize the opportunity to bring the two together.
11) Food helps. In his bestselling book “Influence,” Robert Cialdini wrote, “Using what [psychologist Gregory Razran] termed the ‘luncheon technique,’ he found that his subjects became fonder of the people and things they experienced while they were eating.” And then there’s the illustrious Jenna from “30 Rock,” who timelessly said, “Me want food!” Both apply equally well.
FOLLOWING UP & ONGOING COMMUNICATION
12) Send follow-up collateral in a timely manner. The same day is preferred. If it’s a week later, you risk losing any interest from the initial meeting.
13) Attach small files. Whenever possible, do what you can to make your attachments smaller. I’ve begged and bribed my IT department enough to be able to accept 10MB files, but I can’t quickly forward those to anyone else.
14) Ask before subscribing people to your newsletter. If you’re worried about the response, maybe you don’t need a newsletter. I can’t tell you how often I unsubscribe to these. You know why I don’t need to read newsletters? Because great vendors keep me current with personal updates.
15) Respond fast. If two days go by without a response, I may not remember why I reached out in the first place. Agencies suffer from chronic attention deficit disorder. If you’ll be tied up, send a note saying when a full response will come, or forward the inquiry to someone with more bandwidth.
16) Send case studies. At a Social Times conference years ago, I was on a panel where the last question asked was, “What advice would you give the vendors in the room?” I answered, “Three words: send case studies.” I meant and still mean this in the broad sense. Send live examples. Send results with the client’s name omitted if there are privacy concerns.
Send a great idea you pitched someone else and want to repurpose until you find a buyer. Whatever it is, this is the most important kind of message you can send. When they’re especially interesting, I forward these updates to anyone working on relevant clients’ accounts.
These are starting points. As my CEO would say, they’re table stakes. Practicing these will eliminate a lot of pain points for agencies. Fortunately my job involves far more pleasure than pain.
To the hundreds of vendors I actively work with, I can’t do my job without you. I admire your entrepreneurialism, vision, responsiveness, creativity, showmanship, support, and, in the best cases, friendship. I’m excited to create great experiences together in the year ahead and beyond.
I can’t do my job without great vendor relationships, but I could do my job a lot better if vendors focused on building relationships first and selling later.
Over the course of a year, I’ll get about a thousand pitches from vendors. The great ones lead to vendors becoming partners. The bad pitches get deleted. The worst get forwarded around.
In light of that, here’s my wish list for vendors. Vendors that follow the list will win more business. Granted, the best vendors don’t need this list at all, but most can use at least a few reminders.
BEFORE THE MEETING
1) Do your homework. Google whom you’re meeting with. Find shared connections on LinkedIn. Look at recent agency news.
2) Be personal. A one-line description of what you do is so much more effective than a form letter.
3) Ask questions. It’s in my best interest to make the meeting as productive as possible, so if I can help with that in any way, I will.
4) Listen. I may tell you that just because I have the word “media” in my title doesn’t mean I’m a media buyer. That’s probably an indication that you shouldn’t keep telling me about your CPMs. This is just one of the more egregious and oft-repeated examples.
5) Confirm meetings. The element of surprise is vastly overrated.
DURING THE VISIT
6) Show up five minutes early. If you’re on time, you’re late, given the time it usually takes to set up.
7) BYOD: Bring your own dongle.
8) Show, don’t sell. Share live demos of the site or app whenever possible. Make it interactive.
9) Get to your examples early. I love the meetings where the vendor says, “You guys are really well ahead of the curve, so you don’t need our 20 slides on making the case for social media,” and then they spend the next half hour on those 20 slides. Cut the set-up and get right to what you’re doing.
10) Co-create. Often, the best meetings I’m in involve impromptu brainstorms. You’re the product experts; we’re the experts on our clients’ needs and plans. Seize the opportunity to bring the two together.
11) Food helps. In his bestselling book “Influence,” Robert Cialdini wrote, “Using what [psychologist Gregory Razran] termed the ‘luncheon technique,’ he found that his subjects became fonder of the people and things they experienced while they were eating.” And then there’s the illustrious Jenna from “30 Rock,” who timelessly said, “Me want food!” Both apply equally well.
FOLLOWING UP & ONGOING COMMUNICATION
12) Send follow-up collateral in a timely manner. The same day is preferred. If it’s a week later, you risk losing any interest from the initial meeting.
13) Attach small files. Whenever possible, do what you can to make your attachments smaller. I’ve begged and bribed my IT department enough to be able to accept 10MB files, but I can’t quickly forward those to anyone else.
14) Ask before subscribing people to your newsletter. If you’re worried about the response, maybe you don’t need a newsletter. I can’t tell you how often I unsubscribe to these. You know why I don’t need to read newsletters? Because great vendors keep me current with personal updates.
15) Respond fast. If two days go by without a response, I may not remember why I reached out in the first place. Agencies suffer from chronic attention deficit disorder. If you’ll be tied up, send a note saying when a full response will come, or forward the inquiry to someone with more bandwidth.
16) Send case studies. At a Social Times conference years ago, I was on a panel where the last question asked was, “What advice would you give the vendors in the room?” I answered, “Three words: send case studies.” I meant and still mean this in the broad sense. Send live examples. Send results with the client’s name omitted if there are privacy concerns.
Send a great idea you pitched someone else and want to repurpose until you find a buyer. Whatever it is, this is the most important kind of message you can send. When they’re especially interesting, I forward these updates to anyone working on relevant clients’ accounts.
These are starting points. As my CEO would say, they’re table stakes. Practicing these will eliminate a lot of pain points for agencies. Fortunately my job involves far more pleasure than pain.
To the hundreds of vendors I actively work with, I can’t do my job without you. I admire your entrepreneurialism, vision, responsiveness, creativity, showmanship, support, and, in the best cases, friendship. I’m excited to create great experiences together in the year ahead and beyond.
Believe Entertainment Group Believes in the Power of Celebrity Web Hits
by Daisy Whitney, Tuesday, December 13, 2011 9:52 AM
Finding success in the Web series business is not that different from traditional Hollywood at times. Star power helps a lot.
That’s what digital studio Believe Entertainment Group has been banking on. Believe is the studio behind Web hits like The LeBrons, The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers, Mommycast and Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. Next up, Believe plans to launch shows with popular DJ Tiesto, an icon of electronic dance music and one of Billboard’s most successful touring acts, and superstar Jennifer Lopez early in 2012. The studio's founders say they’ll look to the success of this past year’s The LeBrons as a framework. That show earned more than 50 million views across YouTube, iTunes, Digital Broadcasting Group and the star’s social channels during its three-month run, a nice performance for the show and for its advertisers, including HP, Intel, Spite, Nike and Bing.
Indeed, celebrity sells.
That may sound obvious, but it’s a fact of the entertainment business that Web producers have shied away from for years and are now returning to. In recent months, the Web publisher SheKnows.com has partnered with celebs like Kate Walsh and Melissa Rivers, while distributors like AOL have said their most popular lifestyle video usually feature famous faces, and even
YouTube is leaning on the world’s brightest stars like Madonna and Jay-Z for its new content initiative.
Believe, too, is choosing to partner with established talent because they bring their own audiences and built-in social distribution to the table when it comes to the Web. “We are not in the business of trying to find the next YouTube star. We try to take marketable talent today and develop shows with A-list talent,” said Bill Masterson, one of the co-founders of Believe.
The company finances most of its shows internally and then reaches out to brands and distributors once a show is already in production. Believe earns revenue from advertising, international licensing and even album deals from its shows, in some cases. Given its recent success with the LeBrons, I asked Masterson and Goodman to share three lessons learned for Web video production.
1. Talent and great content drive audiences, partners, and advertisers, said Dan Goodman, also a co-founder of Believe. “There is no substitute for a tremendous talent,” Goodman said. That’s why the company has chosen to finance its own productions — so it can find the talent it wants to work with.
2. Don’t tie yourself to one distributor. Experiment with YouTube Hulu, Netflix, AOL, Yahoo, MSN and others. These companies are changing shapes and strategies regularly, so it makes sense not to be tethered too closely to one distributor, Goodman said. “We never own the distribution. We don’t ask the distributors for financial support or to finance a show either.” Let the distributors do just that — distribute.
3. Don’t bet on branded entertainment. Start with a show, rather than a brand. “We came to Sprite on the LeBrons after we started production and built ads around the show rather than brainstorming a Sprite show,” Masterson said.
2012: The Year Of The Video View Standard
by Paul Kontonis , Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011
How do you define a video view? The answer varies depending on who you ask. Is it once the video starts playing? Does it need to buffer? Does a certain amount of the video need to be played before a view is counted?
There is currently no transparency in the measurement of a video view. Despite the rapid growth of the online video industry, right now you can’t accurately compare video views between two programs, even if they are on the same platform. Your 35 million views may not be any better than someone else's 500,000 views.
Why we need a video view standard
The industry needs to ensure that advertisers get what they pay for and that content creators get credit for their audiences. But the current metrics used to measure video views are confusing and misleading. They’re not helpful to measuring success or determining content value. Currently a view can be any type of “play start.”
That means that what people are counting as video views could have absolutely no user intent -- the video could be set to autoplay, with the sound off and the player embedded below the fold in a 300x250 ad unit. We have all seen videos playing like this on the Web.
In addition, the current measurement for a video view has no duration component. That means that watching five seconds of a five-minute video is counted the same as watching 10 minutes of a 12-minute video.
All of this leads to a view metric that can be easily hijacked by black-hat behavior from unscrupulous publishers, creators and video distributors. We owe it to the industry to prevent that sort of foul play, because view counts can lead to real money for content creators and publishers.
The kind of standard we need
There’s several things we need to look at when determining a video view standard. First, we need to recognize that auto play does have a certain value to it. Much of online video advertising is always set to auto play and then pushed in front of the consumer –- that kind of view does have value.
But the second thing we need to recognize is that a user-initiated view is more valuable. This is where things can get tricky, because of the varying definition of user initiated.
The most obvious example is when someone presses play on a video player and the video starts to play. But how about when someone clicks on a video thumbnail that then takes them to a page where a video player is set to auto-play (with the sound on)? The prime example would be a YouTube video page. These are video views that should be counted as user-initiated.
So here’s what the industry should do. Start with the current metric, where a video view is defined as a play start of any kind. Then go to the number of views that are user initiated, based on a clear definition of user initiated that does its best to limit foul play. (Note: this will definitely cause quite a stir with any company that urgently offers a penny per user-initiated view -- watch how fast they change their offerings).
I would then layer video duration to know how many user-initiated viewers made it through a meaningful length of the video (the 10 out of 12 minutes versus five seconds out of five minutes). The percentages can be debated, but most advertisers certainly want to know how many completed views a video gets if they are considering brand integration.
So the standard could look something like this:
Series 1: Views = 5MM, User Initiated Views = 1MM, Completed UI Views= 50K
Series 2: Views = 1MM, User Initiated Views = 800K, Completed UI Views= 500K
In this example, let’s assume that the length of each video is the same and reaches the same audience. Which show would you consider better to advertise in? Series 1 may be better for a pre-roll buy, and Series 2 would definitely better for brand integration.
So when I chase the dragon and let my mind travel into 2012, I see a video view standard that gets us closer to identifying value in Web video. And ultimately, doing so will help advertisers move more of their budgets to online video. I’ll see you there!
There is currently no transparency in the measurement of a video view. Despite the rapid growth of the online video industry, right now you can’t accurately compare video views between two programs, even if they are on the same platform. Your 35 million views may not be any better than someone else's 500,000 views.
Why we need a video view standard
The industry needs to ensure that advertisers get what they pay for and that content creators get credit for their audiences. But the current metrics used to measure video views are confusing and misleading. They’re not helpful to measuring success or determining content value. Currently a view can be any type of “play start.”
That means that what people are counting as video views could have absolutely no user intent -- the video could be set to autoplay, with the sound off and the player embedded below the fold in a 300x250 ad unit. We have all seen videos playing like this on the Web.
In addition, the current measurement for a video view has no duration component. That means that watching five seconds of a five-minute video is counted the same as watching 10 minutes of a 12-minute video.
All of this leads to a view metric that can be easily hijacked by black-hat behavior from unscrupulous publishers, creators and video distributors. We owe it to the industry to prevent that sort of foul play, because view counts can lead to real money for content creators and publishers.
The kind of standard we need
There’s several things we need to look at when determining a video view standard. First, we need to recognize that auto play does have a certain value to it. Much of online video advertising is always set to auto play and then pushed in front of the consumer –- that kind of view does have value.
But the second thing we need to recognize is that a user-initiated view is more valuable. This is where things can get tricky, because of the varying definition of user initiated.
The most obvious example is when someone presses play on a video player and the video starts to play. But how about when someone clicks on a video thumbnail that then takes them to a page where a video player is set to auto-play (with the sound on)? The prime example would be a YouTube video page. These are video views that should be counted as user-initiated.
So here’s what the industry should do. Start with the current metric, where a video view is defined as a play start of any kind. Then go to the number of views that are user initiated, based on a clear definition of user initiated that does its best to limit foul play. (Note: this will definitely cause quite a stir with any company that urgently offers a penny per user-initiated view -- watch how fast they change their offerings).
I would then layer video duration to know how many user-initiated viewers made it through a meaningful length of the video (the 10 out of 12 minutes versus five seconds out of five minutes). The percentages can be debated, but most advertisers certainly want to know how many completed views a video gets if they are considering brand integration.
So the standard could look something like this:
Series 1: Views = 5MM, User Initiated Views = 1MM, Completed UI Views= 50K
Series 2: Views = 1MM, User Initiated Views = 800K, Completed UI Views= 500K
In this example, let’s assume that the length of each video is the same and reaches the same audience. Which show would you consider better to advertise in? Series 1 may be better for a pre-roll buy, and Series 2 would definitely better for brand integration.
So when I chase the dragon and let my mind travel into 2012, I see a video view standard that gets us closer to identifying value in Web video. And ultimately, doing so will help advertisers move more of their budgets to online video. I’ll see you there!
The Digital RFP Is A Frustrating Mess
Monday, Dec. 12, 2011
By Matt Straz
By Matt Straz
Recent research tells us what we already know: planning and buying digital media can be highly inefficient. Google opines that 28% of a media buy is soaked up by transactional costs beyond the cost of the media itself.
Ad tech firm Nextmark believes that the labor to execute a digital buy comprises 8% of the cost of media.
Regardless of the exact amount of inefficiency, most agree that the current process is not optimal.
In fact, one of the biggest time sinks in the media buying process is the request for proposal, or RFP. If you talk to people on both the buy side and sell side of this business, you will hear that the RFP is often the bane of their existence.
People who work at agencies are frustrated because RFPs are still largely managed through email. A single RFP sent to a dozen publishers can result in hundreds of emails going back and forth among the parties. Think about that! For a large agency that sends out, say, a thousand digital RFPs each year that means that teams are dealing with over 100,000 emails a year -- just about RFPs.
Most RFPs include Excel files that are attached to the emails. Publishers will often change the format of these files (adding or deleting columns) when they respond to the RFP. Publishers may also change the details in a response -- for example, the agency is looking for women 18-25 but the publisher replies with women 18-29. Unfortunately, this leads to media planners having to reformat all the submissions, which takes even more time.
Because the whole RFP process is manual, different teams within an agency cannot easily see what types of rates the other teams are getting from the same publisher. Compounding this problem is the fact that publishers will often call their product different names depending on the client they are working with. The result is limited pricing transparency across an agency, which makes the RFP process less efficient.
Dealing with RFPs is also no picnic on the publisher side. Sometimes a digital RFP is used as a way for an agency to outsource creativity. “Give us something that has never been done before,” the RFP will ask. So teams will scramble to come up with something that the agency hasn’t seen before.
People on the sell side also struggle with the RFP because the process is not integrated into Salesforce, the sales pipeline management tool that most publishers rely on. With a connection to Salesforce, potential deals must be manually updated each time a deal size changes. This happens a lot in digital media because campaigns can be canceled at any time -- even in the middle of a campaign.
You would think that people would have tried to fix these problems -- and you’d be right. When Donovan Data Systems, the software provider that many agencies use to manage the media purchasing process, recently introduced a new RFP tool in its iDesk product, many people had high hopes. Unfortunately, the tool proved to be unstable for everyday use. As a result, most agencies today still rely on email and attachments to manage the RFP process.
The pending merger of Donovan and MediaBank offers a ray of hope for everyone in media struggling with RFPS. The new company, MediaOcean, would give the business the scale it needs to tackle the industry’s biggest process issues, including RFPs.
While billions of dollars have been invested in creating new forms of consumer media, very little has been spent on the industry’s infrastructure. Hopefully, the Department of Justice will approve this merger soon so that MediaOcean can build the operating system that we all need.
In the meantime, everyone working in the trenches of the media industry deserves our understanding and support. With every new web site, targeting capability or other technology that gets introduced, it is these people that ultimately have to implement the RFP process with tools that are decades old.
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