In July, vlogger Connor Franta announced the launch of Heard Well, a music label featuring digital stars. At first, Heard Well merely served as a home for Franta’s threecompilationalbums, which showcase rising artists who have caught his attention. Now, another digital star is planning his own Heard Well release: Lohanthony. The 16-year-old vlogger, who self-describes himself as a “teenage drama queen,” will debut a compilation album called Landscapes.
Lohanthony, whose real name is Anthony Quintal, has more than 1.5 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. Landscapes will feature 12 tracks from emerging musicians in the pop, electronic, and alternative genres.
“Music has always been a deep part of my identity and something my viewers have been asking for more access to,” said Lohanthony in a press release. “Heard Well is a great way for me to share the music I love with my fans, give more access into my personal tastes and help promote musicians I love.”
Landscapesisavailable for pre-order beginning on August 21st. The pre-order version of the album retails for $14.99 and comes with a poster signed by Lohanthony. A standard version, without the poster, will be available from iTunes and Google Play beginning on September 4th and will cost $9.99. The album will be available to stream on Spotify a week after that.
Given the size of Lohanthony’s fanbase, Landscapes should drive some significant movement on the charts. The last Heard Well release, Franta’s Common Culture Vol. 3, reached the top ten on Billboard’s chart of best-selling compilation albums. It’s not a stretch to imagine Lohanthony’s album generating some strong sales figures of its own.
Fox is taking a bold step forward and breaking the traditional advertising model on on-demand video content. From August 19 to September 13, 2015, the broadcasting network will let users choose to watch just one 60-second ad before episodes of MasterChef Junior on its digital outlets.
Viewers of MasterChef Junior, a cooking show hosted by Gordon Ramsay starring kid contestants, will be able to watch a one-minute ad sponsored by the California Milk Advisory Board before full episodes of the show run without interruption. If audiences decline, Fox will serve up the traditional ten-minute aggregate ad loads during those 45 minutes of show time. Episodes of MasterChef Junior will be available on the Fox Now mobile and internet platforms, just in time for the show’s fourth season premiere on November 4.
Fox’s singular opt-in ad strategy was created in conjunction with 21st Century Fox-owned startup true[X], which was founded by Fox Networks’ President of Advanced Advertising Products Joe Marchese. The network has used true[X] technology before to allow online viewers the choice of which one ad (instead of several) to watch during breaks, and Hulu (backed in part by Fox) has also used the tech to allow viewers ad selections. But Varietynotes the MasterChef Junior campaign is the first time a brand has invested in just one spot on an entire episode.
“If advertising is going to survive, it’s got to be something consumers accept,” Marchese explained. “The interruptive ad model needs to evolve.”
Marchese also told Variety the goal with the MasterChef Junior opt-in ad campaign is to improve the financial value and efficiency of ads overall. The executive didn’t reveal any specific numbers, but said the cost-per-thousand (CPM) for opt-in ads on Fox are roughly ten times higher than regular video ads the network delivers.
Additionally, Fox claims the true[X]-powered adss which require viewer interaction result in 83% opt-in and 12% click-through rates, numbers Marchese thinks will only rise for the MasterChef Junior campaign. “It’s the difference between someone shouting a message at you as you walk by, versus someone saying, ‘OK, I’m going to choose to watch this,’” he said.
Fox’s stance on the reach and efficacy of more targeted (and less) advertising is backed by at least one recent finding on consumer interactions with ads based on opt-in requirements. While viewers generally dislike the number of ads on video content (Variety quotes a Strata Marketing survey where 43% of 18-29-year-olds call online video ads annoying), FreeWheel discovered completion rates on 15- to 30-second video ads in front of content behind authentication walls (like pay-TV providers) hit 90% overall. This proves consumers are willing to sit through ads to access their favorite programming, the exact same belief driving Fox’s opt-in campaign on MasterChef Junior.
Variety reports Fox will sell more engagement-only ad campaigns in the future on more of the network’s content, as part of the company’s overall efforts to combat declining TV ad revenue and bump up its digital advertising income.
Hulu will add another title to its burgeoning original series library. The streaming video platform has ordered the pilot for a dystopian comedy series called Future Man from actor Seth Rogen and producer-director Evan Goldberg.
Future Man tells the story of a janitor, who’s a world-ranked video gamer at night, and his quest to save the human race after visitors from the future tell him he’s the only one who can stop an impending super-race invasion. Deadline notes Matt TolmachProductions originally purchased the script for Future Man as a movie. Tolmach brought on Rogen and Goldberg, who have frequently collaborated on together on projects like This Is the End and the The Interview (which was digitally released after terrorists threatened to bomb theaters showing the movie). Eventually, the three Hollywood creators decided Future Man’s story was better suited for TV.
In addition to Tolmach’s production company, Future Man also comes to Hulu from Sony Pictures Television and Rogen’s Point Grey Pictures. James Weaver, Kyle Hunter, Ariel Schaffir, and Tolmach will executive produce the series alongside Rogen and Goldberg, who are also directing the pilot. Hunter and Schaffir are responsible for penning the script.
No release date has been announced as of yet for Future Man.
Netflix continues to up its ambitions in the original programming world. The streaming video platform has announced the title and cast for Stranger Things, a supernatural series set to premiere in 2016.
Stranger Things, which comes from creators Matt and Ross Duffer, was first announced in April, but not under same title; instead, it was known as Montauk. Winona Ryder joined the project in June, when it was changed to “untitled supernatural series.” Now, it has received its new name, and the rest of its cast has been revealed. Young actor Finn Wolfhard will co-star as the friend of a missing boy, and Millie Brown will portray a mysterious girl with supernatural abilities. The show’s plot description, which teases “top secret experiments, terrifying supernatural forces, and one very strange little girl,” has a definite Twin Peaks vibe to it, though a press release bills the show as “a love letter to the ‘80s classics that captivated a generation.”
The first season of Stranger Things will contain eight hour-long episodes. No specific release date for the series has been announced as of yet.
Twitter is providing some powerful new advertising options to marketers. The social media company is renaming its Publisher Network to Twitter Audience Platform (TAP), and giving marketers the ability to serve up promoted tweets and videos as ads on mobile apps.
In September 2013, Twitter purchased the mobile advertising networkMoPub for $350 million and launched the Twitter Publisher Network. The program let marketers buy mobile app-install and app-engagement ads on Twitter or on any of the thousands of apps in the MoPub network. Now, this re-worked, extended version of the Publisher Network dubbed TAP means marketers have the opportunity to run their Twitter-based promoted tweets and content as ads on any of the apps within MoPub.
Advertisers in the TAP network can push their promoted tweets and video campaigns using ad formats beyond just app-install versions; as noted by AdAge, Twitter is giving marketers the option of new ad formats like native ads, banners, interstitials, and video. Advertisers will be able to bid on promoted tweet and video ad inventory through MoPub.
“Today when our clients run ads on Twitter they can reach an audience of 300 million monthly active users,” said Ameet Randive, Twitter’s Senior Director of Revenue Products. But with TAP, Randive claims marketers will be able to reach more than double that number, around 700 million people. “We’re helping them with this trend where consumers are spending much more time on mobile, and spending more time within apps,” Randive explained.
Another benefit to Twitter’s new Audience Platform is the ad versions of Twitter’s promoted tweets and videos running on TAP through MoPub will have retweet and favoriting options. The promoted tweet and video ads will also have a customizable call-to-action button. This means marketers can essentially drive direct engagement with their promoted tweets and videos, even though they’re formatted as ads on a mobile app.
The engagement element of the new TAP network is key, especially considering brands who have benefited from Twitter’s video ads would likely want to carry over the interactive ability to ads on MoPub apps. Sony, for example, credits auto-play Twitter video ads for its recent success in promoting the upcoming horror-comedy film Goosebumps. In an interview with Adweek, Sony’s EVP of Digital Marketing Elias Plishner said his company gained a three-fold lift in earned media from the Twitter video campaign, which also included sending custom video responses to users who tweeted with the hashtag #UnlockGoosebumps to “unlock” the official trailer.
“The idea behind sending personalized video recordings direct to Twitter users who participated in the trailer launch was to keep the conversation going as long as possible,” Plishner explained. “In addition to our first-day numbers, our first-week numbers well exceed our internal benchmarks in terms of trailer views and discussion volume.”
Twitter’s decision to keep the retweet and favorite options on the promoted tweet and video ads within the new TAP network will only help companies like Sony further improve engagement in campaigns. And many companies using TAP have already seen similar success; before TAP was available to all advertisers, Twitter worked with select brands like Samsung Mobile in the UK to test the extended ad network offerings.
“When video on the Twitter Audience Platform launched, we were keen to be the first U.K. advertiser to make use of this functionality,” said Graeme Winston of Starcom Mediavest Group, which works with Samsung in the UK. “We saw a 365% increase in video views on the Twitter Audience Platform and [cost per views] saw an 84% decrease.”
In addition to the promoted tweet and video ad options within the expanded TAP network, Twitter said the program will also eventually include more parameters and features like the ability to track website conversions and clicks.
Welcome to YouTube Millionaires, where we profile channels that have recently crossed the one million subscriber mark. There are channels crossing this threshold every week, and each has a story to tell about YouTube success. Read previous installments of YouTube Millionaires here.
YouTube is filled with great channels that are appropriate for all ages. Flashgitz, however, is not one of those channels. Instead, it is a canvas through which creators Tom Hinchliffe and Don Greger can share their gleefully profane animated videos. Flashgitz’s animations are usually about video games, and they’re always crammed with the sort of immature jokes you would expect to find in a middle school student’s notebook. The ultimate in Flashgitz entertainment is “Racist Mario,” which has been viewed more than 70 million times and is, without any doubt, NSFW.
Hinchliffe and Greger don’t just accept their sophomoric label; they embrace it. As they explained to us, their videos are lowbrow, and they wouldn’t have it any other way. Here, see for yourself:
Tubefilter: How does it feel to have one million subscribers? What do you have to say to your fans?
Flashgitz: Feels like societal decay, scrumptious! As for our fans, if we drew a picture of a giant middle finger, would you embed it?
TF: Why did you guys start making animations, and how did you end up working together?
FG: We met about 7 years ago on an animation website called Newgrounds, this awesome creative cauldron where artists of all stripes would come to throw their dick-joke cartoons into the pot, and then the best/veiniest among them would bubble to the surface.
Then there were droves of starry-eyed youngsters like us, learning and collaborating to animate our own dick-jokes and get noticed. There were big themed “collab” projects where kids would gather around a topic or genre they loved and work together to create one long cartoon. You’d form this band of brothers in the hopes of reaching the site’s front page and winning untold glory/bragging rights.
And that’s how we became best buds, one pasty shut-in to another. After seeing each others work we decided we’d run our own collab. It was a huge, impossible undertaking – a couple 15 year olds coordinating a team of 7 or 8 people internationally across several time zones – but to us we were a ragtag team of fighter pilots off to destroy the goddamn Death Star. It was a mess, kids burning out, computers catching fire – anything that could go wrong, did go wrong – but we made it through and got posted to front page! It was exhilarating and soul destroying and we knew then we wanted to make cartoons forever. Plus, let’s be honest, we were never making it in STEM.
TF: How long does it take to make a video from start to finish?
FG: Literally about three times as long as we think it’ll take, every time.
TF: On a similar note, do you guys maintain a posting schedule, or do you only create new videos as ideas pop into your heads?
FG: We’re always working on a cartoon! As soon as we manage to squeeze one of our fat babies out we are pregnant with another. Animation just takes a long ass time, so our posting schedule can look a bit erratic. The reality is we are always working!
TF: You guys take your videos to the extreme. Would you say you’re making a concerted effort to be as profane as possible, or is it something that comes naturally?
FG: It’s unfortunately just a side effect of being immature man-children. We never set out to create something profane for the sake of it and profanity is never the goal, we just write what makes us laugh. It would almost be better if we could say we had these big evil villain mustaches that we twirled as we decided how best to offend new niches of people, but really we’re just offensive in general.
TF: Do you envision a scenario where you could take a video “too far”? Is that something you ever worry about?
FG: “Too far” is such a subjective thing, and that’s the beauty of comedy – it can exist in any subject, no matter how taboo, and ironically, those darker subjects are often where you’ll achieve the biggest laughs.
But it’s all about context. A joke – no matter how dark – can work if the structure and context surrounding it are coherent and set it up properly. We try to keep each other honest as we write, always questioning whether a joke fits.
TF: Are there any videos you’ve come up with that you’ve ultimately deemed unfeasible for whatever reason?
FG: Something that plagues us (aside from boyish good looks) is content creep. The YouTube format kind of demands very short form content, so it’s super easy to start a cartoon and be like “okay! Two minute cartoon, go!” But then the ideas just keep expanding because you have these narratives you want to tell and jokes you love and can’t bring yourself to cut but have to for the sake of do-ability and your own sanity. Almost every cartoon we’ve done is the result of something starting out feasible before mutating into some big beautiful monster that had to be wrestled back down.
TF: You guys must receive your fair share of hate mail. Any fun stories related to that?
RG: I think someone threatened to rape our families because we absentmindedly gave Sonic the Hedgehog the wrong colored arms in one of our cartoons, which, I mean, is pretty understandable.
TF: What’s next for your channel? Any fun plans?
FG: Original content! Making video game cartoons is really fun because we get to riff on some of our favorite characters and worlds, but ultimately as creators we want to carve out a universe or place to call entirely our own. The overarching goal has always been finding our way to SVOD or TV with our own series.
Alternatively, we’re gonna start doing lipstick and foundation tutorials. 10 million subs ain’t gonna reach itself!
Kinloch will become FBE’s VP of Business Development. In that role, she will seek out new branded partnership opportunities for the studio and explore new avenues of distribution for the company’s videos. She acquired plenty of relevant experience at AOL, where she worked with high-profile creators on original series like Nicole Richie’s #CandidlyNicole, Steve Buscemi’s Park Bench, and James Franco’s Making a Scene.
“We continually work to innovate this emerging transmedia landscape with the help of our incredibly growing team,” said Benny and Rafi Fine in a press release. “Both Andrea & Matt’s experience speak for themselves, and we are thrilled to be moving into our next chapter with them.”
Fine Brothers Entertainment’s network of digital channels scores more than 140 million views each month.
There’s been a big shakeup at the top of a prominent multi-channel network. Will Keenan, who has served as the President of Endemol Beyond since 2013, has announced his departure, with COO Adrian Sexton taking over the network’s top executive position.
Keenan revealed his decision in a statement reported by Variety. “These last two years as president of Endemol Beyond USA have been monumental for me,” he said. “I’m extremely proud to have spearheaded the creation of, and laid the foundation for, one of the fastest-growing and most award-winning digital networks in North America.”
“Clearly, we are all going to miss Will, and we truly appreciate everything that he has done to successfully launch Endemol Beyond here in the U.S,” added Vivi Ziegler, president of digital, brand and audience development for Endemol Shine North America.
Keenan, who previously worked at Maker Studios, joined forces with Endemol Beyond in 2013, during the venture’s early stages. His experience in the web video industry paid dividends; under his watch, Endemol Beyond partnered with several high-profile content creators, including YouTube beauty queen Michelle Phan.
In his statement, Keenan did not specify where he will go next, though he did say he is “very excited to soon announce my next adventure.” Whenever he spills the beans on his future plans, we’ll be sure to pass the information along to you.
Welcome to the Fund This column! Each week, we’ll look at a planned web series or other online video project currently in search of funding on crowdfunding sites. We’ll tell you what the series is all about and explain why it is worth your money. Do you have a project that’s currently being crowdfunded? Contact us to let us know and we may feature it in upcoming installments and check out previous installments righthere.
Description: After Class is taking its viewers back to school. It will focus on a group of college freshmen at the fictitious Chicago College Chicago, which seems to be based, at least in some degree, on the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Creators Darren Buiand Alex Polingwill use a mockumentary style to follow these freshmen as they navigate a series of typical college-age hurdles. There will be romantic flings, there will be comically-exaggerated reactions to drugs, and (of course) there will be vomit. The foibles of the After Class ensemble are on full display in the project’s pitch video:
Creator Bio: “What do all these names have in common?” asks the After Class Kickstarter page, referring to its cast and crew. “You have never heard of any of them!” It’s true. The team in charge of After Class is still in college, so the experiences they will be depicting should be fresh on their minds.
Best Perk:Backers who kick in at least $100 will receive a nice haul of After Class swag, including an actual acceptance letter to Chicago College Chicago. Finally, an easy way to fake your enrollment at an institute of higher education!
Why You Should Fund It:Its hard to tell, based solely on the footage available in the After Class pitch video, what kind of web series it will be. It might be a smart, incisive mockmentary filled with plenty of self-depreciation from its college-age filmmakers. On the other hand, it could be more of a fun, lowbrow series that doesn’t take itself to seriously and entertains its viewers with a handful of over-the-top collegiate scenarios.
Whatever route the After Class team chooses, their vision deserves to be realized. As I’ve written before, there is a dearth of web series related to life in college. It makes sense if you think about it: College students have less urgency to establish their careers in the arts, and so they have less incentive to create web content that puts their names out in the open. That doesn’t mean, though, that the college comedy isn’t a worthwhile genre. In fact, it’s quite a fun one–so let’s see what the After Class team can cook up.
Got a crowdfunding campaign you’d like to see featured in Fund This? Be sure to contact us here.
As if the Republican Party’s Presidential race wasn’t crazy enough already, the Bad Lip Reading guy has blessed it with his own little touch of insanity. The anonymous content creator, whose web series has consistently served as one of the funniest and most popular shows on the Internet, has offered up a bad lip reading of the first Republican debate of the primary season.
The debate in question, which took place on August 6th in Cleveland, featured a number of memorable lines, particularly out of the mouth of inescapable headline-maker Donald Trump. In the Bad Lip Reading version of the debate, Trump suffers from some serious gastrointestinal trouble, Ben Carson does a puzzle, and all the candidates sing their nonsensical arguments. It’s fine work from a fine web series.
The Republican debate woke Bad Lip Reading from a three-month slumber; the channel’s second-most recent video came in May. Many of BLR’s best videos come from the political arena, so as the Presidential race heats up, we’ll be ready for more gibbering interpretations of forthcoming debates.
British YouTube and digital celebrities may need to start being more careful about the way they talk about brands and sponsors in their content. The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) published an article on its site about situations in which vloggers, bloggers, and other editorially-minded creators online in the UK need to state if and when their content is sponsored by a brand or created as part of a branded initiative.
CAP’s article is accompanied by a clear notice that its advice is not legally-binding and how the organization knows there is nothing inherently wrong with digital creators entering into brand and sponsor relationships. But what is wrong is “if consumers are misled.” CAP clarifies how, in normal circumstances, mentions of brands and companies are considered an “independent decision” of the behalf of the creator. Those mentions that happen in regular circumstances are obviously okay. It’s when that mention is also tied to a monetary or business relationship of some kind that a vlogger must state the connection forthrightly to audiences.
“A key rule under the CAP Code is that if the content is controlled by the marketer, not the vlogger, and is written in exchange for payment (which could be a monetary payment or free items) then it is an advertisement feature and must be labelled as such,” CAP writes on its site.
CAP then proceeds to outline a long, but by no means exhaustive, list of scenarios vloggers could find themselves in that would constitute a required disclaimer. For example, CAP says that if a creator works with a brand to create a vlog with that brand’s products, and the resulting content is shared on the brand’s YouTube and social media channels only, the video would not need to be labeled as an ad. However, if that same vlogger took money from, or let a brand direct the content for a video on their individual channel, the vlogger would need to label the video as an “advertorial.”
Since launching earlier this year, Vessel has devoted much of its manpower and resources toward partnerships. The online video platform’s big draw is the strong payouts it offers creators who post their videos on Vessel 72 hours before releasing them anywhere else, As a result, Vessel has thrown out a lot of pitches to find partners who wish to make use of this early-access service.
The latest company to take Vessel up on its offer is Endemol Beyond. The multi-channel network, which is itself partnered with a handful of new media stars and traditional media celebs looking to break into the digital world, will post videos on Vessel before they arrive anywhere else.
The Endemol Beyond deal will initially cover more than 800 videos, which will be available to stream on Vessel. Future releases from the network will make use of the early-access window. A big part of the network’s presence on Vessel will come from Michelle Phan’s Icon Network, which launched this past March. Other creators who will be highlighted by the partnership include Pitbull and Brittany Furlan.
“As we grow out our premium brands like ICON and Smasher networks, we are also always looking for new premium distribution partners,” said Adrian Sexton, COO of Endemol Beyond USA. “Vessel’s user experiences for both advertising and subscription models make them a perfect fit.”
For viewers, access to Vessel’s early window requires a $2.99 monthly subscription. The rest of the site’s library of streaming content is available in an ad-supported format for all users.
