11/14/2009

While Disney shuffles execs, cameras roll for comedy group Casual Mafia.

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Casual Mafia is going back into physical production this weekend, with some trend setters reporting cameras rolling as early as Friday the 13th. Marking the comedian’s 7th month in the public eye, their fans have come in droves and songs purchased on itunes. Three new music videos will be produced, directed by up-and-comer’s Paulie Fiore and Brian Loschiavo. The comedians just finished their first tour of LA comedy clubs, booking stand up gigs at the world famous comedy store and LIVE acoustic shows at the westside comedy theater on the promenade.

Their half hour comedy show, “The Casual Mafia Show,”  is scheduled to air in 2010 while the group’s exec producers, responsible for such viral hits as “In My Prius” and “The Douchebag Anthem,” still negotiate a US broadcaster. Coming off the Mad Men high, cable stations buff up their development  departments, seeking cutting edge comedy programming targeting middle america.

www.casualmafia.com

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09/25/2009

Director Brett Ratner actually had something intelligent to say

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Director’s consulting firm hired by Activision

Director Brett Ratner discussed the risky business of integrating brands into movies Thursday at an Advertising Week event focused on “consumer attention in a media-saturated world.” I must say, I was not a fan of Ratner’s and don’t think all the attention he gets is warranted. However, he is onto something. Not only has he started Brett Ratner Brands, he had a strong stance on product placement in movies: “…Ratner argued that forcing a soda bottle into a movie scene makes it seem like a prop and doesn’t have any branding effect because viewers will block it out. “It must be a character embedded in the story,” he said, recounting how he absolutely wanted a Porsche 928 as a younger man because it played a key role in “Risky Business.” (source: The Hollywood Reporter)

Ratner is also trying to find the right car for Eddy Murphy to drive in Paramount’s “Beverly Hills Cop”. He explained that just making a deal with a car company for $ and trying to fit the car into the story is not the right move. He is doing the opposite – making the product itself a character. I bet his agent, manager and Paramount execs are telling him to make a random deal so they can recoup budget costs, but Ratner is splashing the media with his “artistic” announcement saying that brands will come to him, not him to them. Regardless, I think he poses an interesting argument about masking product placement into movies as a character and that viewers will ultimately “buy into” the product organically.

Brett Ratner Brands has recently been hired by Activision to produce branded media for Guitar Hero with Mariah Carey and Miley Cyrus.

To read the full article click here.

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09/24/2009

MIPCOM: The Explanation

mipcomMIPCOM, the world’s entertainment content market
October 5-9, 2009
Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France

A lot of my friends in entertainment ask me what MIPCOM is and why I go every year. To set the record straight and to relate it back to the essence of this blog, which is branding, here is my take on MIPCOM:

MIPCOM along with MIPTV are the world’s largest entertainment market and trade events in the entertainment industry with over $10 billion in transactional business done between MIPCOM in October and MIPTV in April. (source: www.variety.com)

Normally lasting 5 days, it provides a networking forum and showcase for Film and TV production & distribution companies. There are approximately 13,000 registered delegates on any given year, although it has recently been increasing by double digits annually in both visitors and revenue. Not only the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès is used as a conferencing venue – many of the famous hotels on the Croisette are taken over and used, such names as the Intercontinental Carlton Hotel, the Martinez Hotel and the Majestic are commonly associated with the MIPCOM event too.

I have gone twice a year since ‘06 and have established relationships with the acquisition executives of channels in essentially every major country. Distribution is a vital part of our business, because at the end of the day that’s what it is: a business. This market brings together art and business, producers and distributors, distributors and broadcasters and Americans and the French. It is a place to see and to be seen. The famous Croisette (walkway along the French Riviera where luxurious clothing and jewlery storefronts align) serves as a runway for high powered executives such as NBC’s Bonnie Hammer or United Artist’s Paula Wagner ( I saw her strut her stuff last MIP). Executives tend to schedule their meetings in half hour slots, most times having 10-15 meetings a day (then drinks, dinners & parties).

Properly branding & packaging your television show at MIPCOM is imperative. Why? Because acquisition & development executives have an attention span of a 3 year old. Your one-sheets have to be slick, your pitches concise and suits dry cleaned. Lastly, if you bring a TV show that has been aired on a branded U.S. cable channel to MIPCOM, you can command a higher license fee per episode because the brand, like a SpikeTV, has value. I am bringing a slue of branded shows to MIP next week, such as “National Geographic’s First Ascent”, “Comcast-owned Versus’ Sports Fishing TV” and we are currently negotiating the rights to the MTV Paris Hilton doc, “Paris Not France”, which aired about 3 weeks ago.

Catch me at Cafe Roma sipping on a espresso. later.

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09/23/2009

Variety is the Staple of Entertainment News

variety-logo1Everyone in entertainment reads two trades: Variety and Hollywood Reporter. I chose to spotlight Variety today because they have remained consistent with their image, editorial, and logo since 1933 (Hollywood Reporter recently revamped their logo and website design – bad move).

The summer after I graduated from Penn State I lived at home in Boston for about 3 months looking for jobs. I was an east coaster, so I was naturally drawn to Variety to get the latest and greatest in entertainment news, not to mention access to all the job postings! I signed up for the Daily Variety. Hilarious….why? Due to the shipping delay, I would receive a Monday issue on say a Wednesday – so I was always reading yesterday’s news. My point in all of this is that I chose Variety over Hollywood Reporter. I was a consumer who made a conscious decision to buy into the brand Variety was selling over The Hollywood Reporter. It wasn’t because I thought the editors/reporters were better or that they had sexier images of Jennifer Aniston, it was simpler than that. When I thought of Variety and pictured its logo, I thought of Hollywood. Being a green film production major and eager to break into entertainment, subscribing to the Variety culture made me think and feel like I belonged to the industry. McDonalds. What do you think of? Answer: the golden arches. How about Christmas? Answer: Santa Claus. Successful brands trigger an immediate thought, feeling, or response when you think of it and more times than not it is positive. In my case, Variety meant Hollywood. Now, if only Variety would pick up my press releases faster…

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09/23/2009

The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

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John Campbell’s popular recognition followed his collaboration with Bill Moyers on the PBS series “The Power of Myth.” The series exposed his ideas concerning mythological, religious, and psychological archetypes to a wide audience, and captured the imagination of millions of viewers.  A companion book, “The Power of Myth”, containing expanded transcripts of their conversations, was released shortly after the original broadcast.

I liked this book because it gave great incite on storytelling and what fundamental characters and situations people relate to on a primal level. In the chapter, The Hero’s Adventure, Moyers and Campbell discuss George Lucas‘ claim that Campbell’s work directly influenced the creation of the Star Wars films. “Star Wars is an example of what Joseph Campbell called the Monomyth, which reaches a broader audience and is more enduring,” said Shanti Fader, editor of Parabola magazine, a publication of the Society for the Study of Myth and Tradition.

In classic mythology, the hero reluctantly leaves the homeland (in Luke’s case, the planet Tatooine) on a quest that takes him over a supernatural threshold into a strange land. A helper/co-hero such as space jockey Han Solo lends a hand through a series of ordeals. Comic relief is provided by tricksters such as the Greek muse Thalia or C3PO and R2-D2.

Lucas followed a formula. Hollywood follows a formula. Will you? Don’t over think your concepts/pitches. I suggest reading “The Power of Myth” to get a better idea of what ideologies have been “branded” into our subconscious. With this knowledge, your vision/pitch/underlying motives of your TV or movie character will become clearer.

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09/21/2009

A brand is more valuable then its assets

That’s right. It’s true. Google buys youtube for $1.65 billion, Disney buys marvel for $4 billion, and recently Kraft Foods offered $16.7 billion for British confectionery group, Cadbury (Cadbury rejected offer, but are still negotiating.) What the hell is going on you ask? All these billions of dollars, offers, and huge corporate takeovers. These companies are valuable because of the brand they built over time. Youtube became the staple of User Generated Video, Marvel with comics and Cadbury with chocolate. Each company has a strong brand identity and association every time you eat their product or see their logo. This is value.

A brand is more than a name, more than a logo, and more than most people realize. Rita Clifton, former CEO, author, and consultant calls a brand the “most important and sus­tainable asset of any organization.” When Disney bought Marvel, they didn’t just buy all its wonderful characters, imagery, and copyrights thereto. They bought a company with a built in audience from decades of marketing, advertising and editorial; a brand that draws thousands of fans to the theaters to see the next installment of “Wolverine”, “Spiderman”, and god forbid, another ill-fated attempt at “The Hulk”.

At the end of the day, successful brands generate residual income and residual income in entertainment is the surefire way to get ahead in elitist Hollywood. A brand is more valuable than its assets. Did Disney overpay for Marvel? Hell no. Go build a brand, call me in 10 years and tell me how much you sold it for…

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09/21/2009

Casual Mafia imagery: how it came to be

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Before you see a TV show hit the airwaves and wrapped nicely with channel branding and promotions, the creatives and executives of the show have labored over the development and production a year + in advance. When Casual Mafia creators Paulie Fiore and Josh Macuga sat down in August of ‘08 kicking around the idea of a new comedy team, we had a discussion on how to effectively brand the team to the public. How were we to propel a group of 6 unknown comedians into the mainstream public with little or no advertising budget? Since the group was comprised of young, sexy actors/comedians, sex appeal overtook the conversation. The thought of taking advantage of the backdrop of the city we were in (Los Angeles) coupled with the natural beauty of our talent made me push for the lifestyle comedy imagery you see today. We wanted our audience to notice how the comedians dressed, acted, and interacted. We wanted to create personas on and off the comedy stage, allowing our audience to follow their favorite comedian. HBO’s “Entourage” was one of our inspirations to this lifestyle comedy brand and, to this day, people come up to us saying we are the “Entourage of Comedy”. We finally agreed to promote the team under the slogan “Making funny sexy”. It worked. Why? What other comedians out there that you know are the combination of the two? Bob Saget doesn’t count. Causal Mafia had a niche, and when the imagery and videos were released on April 6th, 2009, our youtube page was named within the “Top 50 Most Subscribed Channels” that week.

Brands do have to alter their image depending on who you are selling, however. We pitched MTV a few months back on the “Casual Mafia TV Show”, a half hour late night comedy sketch show. The development executives came back and asked us to be “edgier” with our writing. So, to accompany our writer’s new scripts, we organized another photo shoot taking them out of the “making funny sexy” cocktail attire and dressed them down in street clothes. We shot in Venice, CA along graffiti murals and the vibrance that is the eclectic Venice. Here are the byproducts:

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09/20/2009

Branding: The Roots

We tend to think of branding as a modern day phenomenon.  Certainly, during the late 1990s and the early 2000s, branding emerged as a significant area of emphasis not only for companies and their products, but also for municipalities, universities, other non-profit organizations and even individuals.  Branding became ubiquitous.  Many of us also know that Proctor & Gamble and other consumer product companies began branding their products in earnest in the mid-to-late 1800s.  But more interesting to me is how far back in time branding goes.  For instance, companies that sold patented medicines and tobacco began branding their products as early as the early 1800s.  Around the same time, some fraternities and sororities branded their pledges (literally) during initiation rites as a form of identification and bonding, a practice that has long since been identified as hazing and therefore abandoned.  But that is still recent history — relatively.

Between the 1600s and 1800s, criminals were branded (again literally) as a form of punishment and identification.  For instance, in England, they branded an S on a person’s cheek, while in France, they branded a fleur de lis on the shoulder.  As repugnant as it may be to us today, slaves were also branded roughly during the same time period to connote ownership.  In the 1200s, England required bread makers, goldsmiths and silversmiths to put their marks on goods, primarily to insure honesty in measurement.  In the Medieval times, printers also used marks as did paper makers (watermarks) and various other craft guilds.

But branding goes back even further.  As far back as 1300 BC, potter’s marks were used on pottery and porcelain in China, Greece, Rome and India.  Branding of cattle and livestock go back as far as 2000 BC.  And archaeologists have found evidence of advertising among Babylonians dating back to 3000 BC.  So, how far back does branding go?  At least 5000 years.

What is more interesting to me are underlying needs from which branding originated: to insure honesty, provide quality assurance, identify source or ownership, hold producers responsible, differentiate, as a form of identification and to create emotional bonding.  Interestingly, people value brands for many of the same reasons today.  Clearly, history provides some insight and perspective on modern day branding.

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