Confessions of an Executive Producer

how i learned to stop worrying and love branded entertainment

A vivid childhood memory recently came back to me. It was of my Dad tuning into the live radio broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera. It was religious. Every Saturday afternoon without fail no matter if it was coming from the car radio, home stereo or a transistor while crabbing off the docks of the Chesapeake Bay. I remember hearing the rumbling of the crowd stirring as they waited for the orchestra to end their warm up and cue the onset of the performance. Right before the curtain went up, the radio announcer quietly but firmly said, “Texaco is proud to present La Boheme”. They would broadcast the entire first act uninterrupted. At intermission, they’d play a Texaco radio spot followed by a quick discussion of the performance. The crowd would hush again and they would continue with the, again uninterrupted, second act. When the performance ended the announcer would speak one last time “Please join us next week as Texaco presents Aida“ They’d play one more plug then proceed with the next regularly scheduled show.

Near where I grew up in Bethesda, Maryland was a shopping mall. At the far corner of the mall were two gas stations directly next to each other. Oddly enough, they shared the same entrance. One station was an Exxon and the other was a Texaco. One time we stopped for gas. There was a line at the Texaco but a couple empty pumps at the Exxon. My dad pulled into the Texaco. I asked him why he didn’t just go to Exxon. There was no wait. My dad responded without hesitation and said, “Because I want to keep getting the opera.”

     EQUALS    

What brought on this memory was a series of discussions we were having with Kirt Gunn. The discussions entailed Epoch partnering with Kirt to form a new brand entertainment entity that eventually became Dandelion. I had been skeptical about the entire trend. I saw it either as product placement or a narrative killer. Kirt showed us his case studies. He explained his business model. He talked about the strategy. He was very persuasive but I wasn’t completely convinced. Then he said something that struck. He said (and I paraphrase), brands want to connect with their customers they need to stop interrupting the experience and start providing the experience.

My dad understood this concept innately. Back in the day so did brands. Somewhere along the way they stopped trying to earn loyalty and started buying it. Today’s generation and the next have too many tools and too many options at their disposal to avoid unwanted messaging. The only messages that will get through are the ones that provide real value. You give me something (entertainment) and I’ll give you something (time/loyalty). It’s a fair value proposition.


Brand content is in its infancy so I cannot predict in what dominant form it will be but I can say with certainty that history repeats itself. So give the audience a good web series they can pass around to their Twitter followers and they may just opt for the longer line.

media companies and food preservation

I wrote a post a week ago titled, “Please Don’t Jump” in response to people expressing their deep concern, understandably so, about the future of our business. I wanted to convey a positive message as oppose to perpetual doom. My intent was to encourage innovation and the belief that uncertainty creates opportunity. On this topic, Marc Rigaux commented providing an insightful correlation. I thought it was worth sharing:

“If you made iceboxes during the turn of the century, you were out of business when someone invented the fridge. But if you were in the business of "food preservation", then you were not only working on the fridge, you were also likely working on the portable cooler, tupperware, and a host of other ancillary revenue streams.”

        

This comment resonated with me. It was analogous to the recent transformation of Epoch Films. For those of you who don’t know, Epoch Films is a commercial production company. Over our 20 year history, we built ourselves into a top production house. We have been able to maintain long term relevance in a business built on 30 second attention spans and the never ending quest for “new and improved”.

Our business model was not complicated and certainly not revolutionary. It was similar to many of our competitors. Build and maintain a roster of talented directors. Remain creatively and financially competitive. Nurture agency relationships. Keep overhead low. Spend less on the production than the contracted price while not compromising the quality. What separated us from our competitors was our taste level, our ethics and our culture. We viewed ourselves primarily as TV commercials producers (i.e. iceboxes). It was comfortable and profitable. Then someone invented the fridge (i.e. the internet/dvr) and the tide shifted.

As I mentioned yesterday, we need to broaden our perspective of who we are and what we do. In Epoch's case, we wanted to evolve our business from a vendor based production service model into a media company.  We made this shift through a lot of painstaking work and conversation. The first part was reworking our partnership and each our roles. From there we were able to complete a series of  deals. We created an affiliation for US representation with Rattling Stick, one of the top European production companies. This deal was followed up by the acquisition of Kirt Gunn and Associates to form Dandelion, our branded content company. After that we invested in a new production entity, Imperial Woodpecker, headed by one of our top directors and a long standing executive producer. Compile these changes with the production of our second feature film “Gigantic” and moving into a new office space in NY.

 

This all took place in the last 12 months. These deals and alliances changed the direction of Epoch. The most rewarding personally has been our ability to change our "hands on" management style. We empowered the people who worked for us in production, sales and accounting. We gave them more responsibility. Held them to higher standard and included them in our strategy. I learned that no matter the scale of our vision it will not succeed without the support and management of the people who do the work.

Believe me this transformation is very much a work in progress. Unexpectedly, our greatest challenge has been timing. We opted to leverage a 20 year brand by investing in a new business model during the worse economy any of us may ever know. We can only control what we can control.  We still believe it was the right thing to do. After all we'd rather be in food preservation than making iceboxes.

ad age conference / theme of the week

On Tuesday morning Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist, is giving a keynote speech at the Ad Age Digital Conference to open the two-day event.

      

If you don’t know about Fred you should. He is the founder/partner of Union Square Ventures in NYC. Over his 20 year career he has dedicated himself to discovering the next tech breakthrough, determining a company's viability and deciding whether to invest. He has a long history of success and the quintessential resume for this arena, MIT undergrad in engineering and Wharton Business School. The perfect blend of technology and commerce. You may ask yourself what the hell does this have to do with advertising? Nothing and everything.

Whether you are in the creative department or post production or account services or manage a production company and anything in between, we need to realize what happen in the world, in particular in technology communications, impacts our business. Living in a bubble is no longer an option. Everything is converging TV, films, PR, talent management, social networking, etc. They overlap one another and are racing toward a similar finish line.To remain relevant, we need to view our careers, our business and ourselves in the broadest possible terms. Defining (or re-defining) what we do and who we are is my THEME OF THE WEEK. How does this specifically relate to Fred?

As mentioned above Fred is a VC investing in a variety of tech firms. Two of his companies are Twitter and Boxee. These two companies may significantly alter (if they have not already) the way we send and receive messaging and content. As communicators, it is imperative we understand the technology, the business models and the impact it has on our culture.

                 

Fred’s topic is officially titled, “Bridging the Gap: How Venture Capitalists and Marketers can Create Meaningful Relationships and Innovation”. Truthfully, I have no idea what that means. What I do know are two things:

1) Fred will focus will be on the rise of earned media and the ebb of paid media. This is a significant trend that will effect all of us in communications.

2) If you have tickets to the conference don’t oversleep figuring no need to catch the first speaker. If you don’t have tickets, I'm sure someone on twitter can find you a transcript or you can download it on boxee.

earn it

There is much debate going on about media. I've been reading about it from a variety of point of views. Albert Wenger, a venture capitalist, posted recently about brand advertising. The Ad Contrarian claimed the reports of the death of TV are exaggerated. Tech Crunch explained why web based advertising is failing. On the surface these posts are unrelated but have everything to do with one another. The unifying theme is what the future relationships between brands and consumers will look like.

Despite differing points of view I hope we can all agree on one thing, the way consumers send and receive media has changed dramatically and will continue to do so. The traditional mode of reaching consumers isn't adapting quick enough to keep up. We must accept consumer attention can no longer simply be purchased. There are too many options and unwanted messaging is easily avoidable.

If I were a CMO today I'd long for the day when my strategy consisted of buying time on M*A*S*H* and taking out a full page spread in Time magazine. It was a one stop shopping formula to reaching a mass spectrum of consumers. Today, the opportunities to capture a devout and attentive audience are rare with the exception of the occasional event program (Superbowl, Oscars, American Idol Finale). This doesn't mean the consumer is elusive. In fact, the irony is consumers have never been easier to find but never harder to reach

As I see it brand/consumer relationship is analogous to that of a married man to his mistress. For years the affair was a simple proposition. He wined and dined her. Bought her jewelery. Paid her rent. In return he got laid and left guilt free at the end of the evening. After years of this pattern, the mistress begins to feel used and unsatisfied. She desires more than material goods. She wants conversation. She wants to be listened to. She wants to be in a relationship. Much to the displeasure of the adulterer, sex can no longer be bought. It has to be earned. I believe the same thing is happening today with the brand/consumer relationship. Brands must earn consumers time not simply purchase it. The problem is they don't know how and don't seem eager to learn.

The first step is to stop the monologue and begin a dialogue. Start listening and responding. Marketers understand TV, radio and print. They remain effective but no longer as dominant. No need to abandon them. However, brands need to become equally adept at mastering the language of social networking, blogging and online content. This begins with investment in new business models. Accept more will fail than succeed. Unfortunately the only method of determining the ones that work is by putting the resources and will behind them. The brands that invest in unlocking the code will develop genuine relationships with their customers, as well they should. They earned it.

teen tales

My closet friend David, who is such a good friend he not only read my blog but also posted a comment, asked what my observations about teens. So here you go...

I posted a comment on Facebook and Twitter a couple weeks ago. It said…

“watching my kids watching American Idol on DVR. They are loving it as I silently freak out as they fast forward through commercials”. I received a lot of comments. They were very sympathetic. They understood my anxiety, more importantly they knew it was justifiable. The media revolution is unavoidable.

My friend Jamie told me a story about her 15 year old daughter who when realizing she forgot to DVR “The Apprentice” wasn’t even slightly flustered. She grabbed her laptop, went to her room and logged on to Hulu. Problem solved.

I have spent the last week with my teenage nephew and nieces. They are gamers, bloggers, and web surfers. They are married to technology. They like brands but not commercials. My niece Jessica expressed concern for my future.

A few months back I drove a babysitter home. I asked if she DVR TV shows or watched live. She predominantly DVR’s. Too much homework. I followed up “Do you ever stop for the commercials?”.

She thought for a moment, being sure not to offend me “Sometimes, I guess”.

“Which ones?” I asked. Again, she paused. “The good ones”

I have a lot of these tales. It tells me kids are content junkies. They crave it from whatever source they can get it. They want it to be quality. They want it shareable. And mostly they want to immediate and uninterrupted. They respond to effective branding be it Shaquille O’Neal or Coca Cola. Effective branding to me is giving the viewer/consumer something of value in return for their time. Providing this fair value proposition will earn loyalties. As content providers and filmmakers we need persuade our clients to fund more relevant branding to remain relevant.

a very scientific survey

Whenever I talk to teens I can’t help but bombard them with questions. What do they watch? How much time do they spend on the net versus TV? Do they use DVR? If so, do they ever watch the commercials? As any sociologist will tell you mine is a very scientific survey.

And, then today I read an article in the NY Times about an independent report conducted by Nielsen.

I’ve read similar pieces in the trades. The common thread is the re-enforcement of the belief that TV commercials remain the most effective means to reach consumers. Maybe it is simply because there isn’t anything at the moment that is better. A win by default.

I liken these articles to when Bush told us a year ago the economy was strong. We were in for a soft landing. Recession would be avoided. The administration economists and leading indicators all pointed to this conclusion. Did anyone of these experts bother to talk to a business owner or go to the grocery store or fill up their car for gas? Stop analyzing and interpeting data to fit a predetermined conclusion and start accepting and understanding the major culture shift we are experiencing.

I'm the last to advocate the death of commercials. I believe audio-visuals to sell brands and products is wildly powerful if not downright ubiquitous. What I'm saying is, if we spent as much time developing new and effective platforms as we do justifying our existing systems, we’d have solved the problem by now. Maybe we need to pay more attention to our kids.

FYI – the Nielsen survey neglected to include anyone under the age of 18.