A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM SCRIPPS NETWORKS INTERACTIVE

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CYNOPSISDIGITAL
03.11.16

 

Good morning. It’s Friday March 11, 2016, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.

 

Yahoo faces an uncertain future, and appears destined for a sale or merger. But in the meantime, the company is by no means closing up shop. About a week after launching a new eSports vertical, the company has now inked a deal with the NHL. Starting today, Yahoo Sports will begin live-streaming up to four NHL hockey games per week, delivering in-game highlights. Yahoo had some success with a one-off live-stream of an NFL game last year; no matter what struggles the company faces, it seems that its leadership remains confident that live sports are a safe bet. The NHL deal runs through the end of the 2016-2017 season. The live-streams, which will be free, are available to U.S. audiences.

Turner Sports is teaming up with Snapchat for a new multi-year content deal leveraging Snapchat’s Live Story product. For those not up on Snapchattian nomenclature, Live Stories is the section of the app that allow users to contribute unique videos and photos, or “Snaps,” which are then curated by Snapchat into one collective Story capturing scenes from an event. The deal will cover major sporting events, including year-round NCAA Championships, beginning with this year’s March Madness tournament. Snapchat users will have access to numerous official brand marks, imagery, and behind-the-scenes Snaps. Brands, meanwhile, will be able to make use Snapchat’s “3V” vertical video ads, which will be seen periodically throughout the Live Story experience.

 

Remember when Netflix just mailed you DVDs? How quaint those days seem. The streaming giant is closing in on securing the production rights to Bright, a cop thriller starting Will Smith. It’s said that the service will commit to a production budget of between $80 – $100 million. In fact, it’s likely that the company’s willingness to go all in on such a high price tag helped it beat out other suitors, including Sony and Warner Bros. David Ayer, the director of Suicide Squad, is attached to direct. No word yet on when production will start.

For SVOD services eyeing international expansion, German-speakers seem to be a coveted audience.  Both Netflix and Amazon have greenlit German-language shows in recent weeks. Now, the latter company is taking on its first feature-length German-language film. Bullyparade – Der Film, based on a German comedy series, will debut on Amazon Prime six months after it premieres theatrically. The theatrical release will be handled by Warner Bros. Germany. No release date has been set.

Netflix has acquired the global streaming rights to Rattle the Cage, a feature-length thriller from Image Nation Abu Dhabi. Studiocanal has nabbed the German and U.K. theatrical rights, while Vox will handle theatrical distribution in the Middle East. The film was directed by Emirati filmmaker Majid Al Ansari.

Integral Ad Science, a platform specializing in brand protection, ad verification, and viewability data, launched a new pre-bid viewability solution allowing advertisers to target specific viewability metrics for programmatic video ads. The pre-bid solution, the company says, allows bidding on video inventory that is likely to be seen, and provides refined controls for optimizing campaign viewability levels. MediaMath will be the first demand-side platform (DSP) to use the new pre-bid segments.

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A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

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Bernie Sanders stunned a lot of people when he defeated Hillary Clinton in the Michigan Democratic primary on March 8. Most polls had him losing by over 20 points. So how did Sanders defy expectations? Theories abound, but AOL and the mobile messaging company Revolution Messaging would like to take a bit of credit. With the help of Revolution Messaging, AOL ran mobile ads from March 3 all the way to the day of the primary. The ads targeted younger potential voters – a bloc that indeed comprised a larger segment of the electorate than expected. While there are likely multiple explanations for that, there’s no denying that advertising is a vital tool in reaching voters. And we’re in a mobile world now. “We literally are carrying these screens around all day long,” said Ariel Deitz, AOL’s Mobile Sales Director, in a conversation with Cynopsis Digital. “There’s no other other platform where you can potentially reach your voter that many times a day – and where you can highly engage with them in a real estate that’s not competitive, where they’re not being served multiple ads on a screen at the same time.” Next major primaries are on March 15; buckle up.

The New York Times announced that, later this year, it will launch Watching, a new programming guide and recommendation resource devoted to movies and TV. The site will debut in the coming weeks with a newsletter devoted to streaming content alerts. According to a release, Watching will feature tools to help guide users toward “the best streaming content distilled from among the hundreds of scripted shows now released each year.” Gilber Cruz, the Times’ TV editor, will oversee the vertical, while former Vulture writer Margaret Lyons will write the newsletter.

Stay up-to-date with the latest events, awards and industry information from Cynopsis, by following us on our social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. 

 

VR has already been monetized in various ways: Those include charging for app downloads, using VR experiences to strategically drive audiences to other content, and, of course, the hefty price tag of the gear itself. But one pillar of content monetization – in-program advertising – has been under-explored. Expect that to change: The VR advertising platform Immersv has unveiled a new VR ad platform that enables studios to insert video ads directly into VR experiences. (The startup launched its ad ex-change in a closed beta in December.)  Immersv says it already has over a dozen developers working with its technology.

Not too shabby: The sports-oriented digital media company Whistle Sports announced a $20 million Series C funding round. Whistle Sports has now raised over $60 million in funding. Series C investors included Tegna and NBC Sports Ventures.

VC funding has been pouring into VR startups right and left. The VR studio Penrose Studios announced that it has raised $8.5 million in seed funding.  The round was led by Accelerate-IT Ventures, with participation from 8 Angel, Suffolk Equity, and TransLink Capital.  Penrose was founded by Eugene Chung, a former executive at Oculus.

For a good number of American audiences, it can be easy to forget that soccer is ridiculously popular. fuboTV, a soccer-oriented SVOD service largely geared toward Latinos, is here to remind us: The service has raised $15 million in Series B funding. The round was led by 21st Century Fox and the U.K. satellite TV operator Sky. Other investors include DCM Ventures, LionTree Partners, Luminari Capital, and others. It’s easy to see why fuboTV is looking like a good bet: It has content partnerships in place with networks including Univision, Pivot, and Revolt, and is beginning to escalate its presence on Internet connected devices, recently launching on the Amazon Fire TV.

 

The ad tech company Unruly announced the launch of Unruly Pulse, a new dashboard that tracks the emotional trends of video advertising. The platform, Unruly says, can help advertisers make data-driven decisions to drive purchase intent and brand metrics, and to track how emotions seasonally ebb and flow over time. Among other things, the platform has found that:

– 41% of US viewers reported having a more favorable view of a brand after watching a video ad, compared with 28% in the UK and 26% in Germany.
– Purchase intent is also higher in the States at 40%, compared to 31% in the UK and Germany. The only consumers to have a stronger reaction to watching videos ads were viewers in South-East Asia and Brazil, highlighting the importance of video advertising for brands hoping to make it big in Rio this summer.
– Advertisers are failing to make people laugh, with hilarity one of the least common emotions worldwide, felt by 4% of respondents. Happiness is the most common emotion people felt while watching video content during the same period. It’s also the emotion most likely to cross national and cultural borders, making it perfect for sporting events like the Olympics.
– Our psychological responses change as we age and vary by gender. US males aged 25-34 are more likely to feel are happiness, inspiration and pride while watching video ads, while male Boomers are more likely to feel confusion and disgust. Meanwhile, women aged 25-34 in the US are more likely to feel happiness and inspiration, while with Boomers it’s warmth, surprise and confusion.
– The key drivers of video sharing differ greatly around the world. For example, in the US and Europe, emotions are the key drivers of video sharing, while in South-East Asia, Brazil and Turkey it’s more about giving consumers reasons to share content.

Digilant, a Boston-based programmatic advertising company, announced that it has hired Alan Osetek as its global CEO. He previously served as the Global President of Resolution Media, a digital marketing unit of Omnicom Media Group.

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A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE

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Our finalists are a vibrant group of engaged professionals who work hard and are committed to evolving the media industry, while giving back to the public through their profession. Join us on April 7th in NYC to celebrate their achievements.

Click to see the full list of finalists, and save your place at this year’s breakfast event: http://www.cynopsis.com/event/2016-sga-event/.

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Watch these six VR virgins get their first taste of the future. Check it out here.

See you Monday,
David Teich
03.11.16

Roberta Caploe: Associate Publisher @robertacaploe
Diane K Schwartz: Senior Vice President, Media Communications Group

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JOB OPENING: DIR, CORP COMMUNICATIONS/NBCU/NYC: Responsible for managing internal and external communications strategies in support of NBC Universal’s corporate functions. 5+ yrs experience in communications or media relations Full info/apply HERE (3/18)

JOB OPENING: COMP AND BENEFIT ANALYST/Crown Media Family Networks/LA: Analyze comp data, evaluate jobs classification/salary. Administer employee insurance and savings plans. 5 yrs exp in comp and benefits. Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience. Apply HERE (3/17)

JOB OPENING: DIGITAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR/The Franklin Institute/PHL: For leading US science ctr. Revolutionize online sci. comm & play lead role on digital team. Plan/dvlp/implement creative content across mult platforms. 6+ yrs dvlpg/mngng dig editorial exp. Full info/apply HERE (3/17) 

JOB OPENING: REGIONAL ACCOUNT DIRECTOR/NCM/Seattle: Maintain level of visibility in regional ad comm. Identify/source clients to advrts in NCM locations. 3 yrs of media sales exp’ pref’d. Ability to work efficiently/independent fast-paced environment. Full info/apply HERE (3/15)

JOB OPENING: ACCOUNT MGR/Digital Lion Marketing/Beverly Hills: Serve as day-to-day point of contact for assigned client accounts & provide support on other accts as needed 1-2 solid yrs exp, ideally in an agency environment. BA degree, detail oriented & orgnz’d a must. Resume HERE (3/15)

JOB OPENING: AD SALES DIR/MGR/Zliving Communications/NYC, LA, CHI, PHL: Work closely w/Ad Sales GM & SVP for brand activations assignments, qrtly projects as well as assigned clients. 5-7 yrs media-related exp w/sales mktg ideation & execution exp in TV ntwk sales & digital. Resume HERE (3/12)

JOB OPENING: CREATIVE DIR ON-AIR PROMOS/Crown Media Family Networks/LA: Manage the Creative Srvs team of Writer/Producers. Oversee execution and delivery of standout promo for Hallmark Channel and Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. 10 yrs exp in cable/ent and 5 yrs supervisory exp. Apply HERE (3/12)

JOB OPENING: MGR DIGITAL ANALYTICS/HBO/NYC: Mng analytic workflow for HBO GO & HBO NOW. Effectively communicate findings to support data driven bus. decisions. Supervisory exp & 5+ yrs using Adobe Analytics req’d. Media & ent exp pref’d & advanced excel skills req’d. Apply HERE (3/12)

JOB OPENING: SR SPECIALIST, CONTENT PROD/STORYTELLER/CMMB/NYC: Translate a strategy brief into powerful copy & stories to drive desired action. 5+ yrs pro writing/editorial exp pref for int’l non profit. BA/S or equivalent in related field req’d  Eng, journalism, or comms. Contract position. Resume HERE (3/12)

JOB OPENING: NATIONAL MEDIA BUYER/ICON International/Stamford CT downtown (convenient to Metro North): 3+ years’ Negotiate National Broadcast schedules, oversee maintenance/stewardship of multiple accounts, proficient in MS Office. Resume to: [email protected] (3/12)

JOB OPENING: SR LOCAL MEDIA BUYER/ICON International/Stamford CT downtown (convenient to Metro-North): 10+ years’ Local Buying experience, negotiate & steward schedules for several markets, proficient in MS Office. Resume to: [email protected] (3/12)

JOB OPENING: SALES PLANNER/NBCU/NYC: Responsible for developing all sales plans that meet both the advertiser & networks; needs. Lends support to the sales staff. 18+ months in media sales/buying needed. Apply HERE (3/12)

JOB OPENING: SALES MGR, DIGITAL AD SALES/NeuLion/NYC: Resp for identifying, contacting, & closing prospects. 1-2 yrs dig. ad sales-related exp, pref in B2B envir. Exp w/ high-vol prospecting thru email mktg & cold calling. Confident, assertive self-starter, orgnzd & goal driven. Resume: [email protected] (3/12)

CASTING CALL: Companies can showcase their casting notices/casting calls here. For information on rates and specs for posting a casting notice, please email Trish at [email protected]

EXPERT SERVICES ADS: These ads are for companies or people who offer an expertise in the field of media by way of production, voice over artistry, writing, set development, etc. For information on rates and specs for posting an Expertise Service ad email Trish at [email protected]

INTERNSHIPS – These positions are for credit only – nobody gets paid here. These ads are always posted for free, and students work for school credit only. For more information on the specs for posting an Internship ad, email Trish at [email protected].

SITUATION WANTED ADS, POSTED BY THOSE LOOKING TO BE HIRED… There is no charge for placing your Situation Wanted ad… for more information contact Trish Pihonak at trish@cynopsis.com

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