At its NewFront presentation at the PlayStation Theater in New York’s Times Square, Millennial-oriented digital media company Defy Media announced its upcoming content slate. But first, it had some barbs for the traditional media industry. Defy President Keith Richman told the crowd that traditional media lacks the youth and diversity to know how to reach younger audiences. (To hammer home the point, the company even used a visual aid: a huge composite image of the white, male, and middle-aged-or-older CEOS of companies like CBS, Time Warner, and Fox.) Traditional media “perpetuates and rewards sameness,” Richman said. Still, Defy was happy to highlight its own most popular brands. The company’s 2017 content slate includes a ton of new content from the comedy team Smosh, including Operation: Open World, a travel-heavy series from Smosh Games’ Jovenshire and Mari Takahashi, and Not Quite Cancelled, a new scripted series (only the second in Smosh’s history) that features all of the comedy group’s members. Among other projects, ScreenJunkies is currently producing Galaxy Quest: A ScreenJunkies Documentary, an original doc about the making of the titular 1999 sci-fi comedy film. And the female-oriented news and lifestyle brand Clevver will be out with programs such as It Got Real, a new docu-series about the lives of Clevver’s hosts. (In the show’s premiere season, Erin Robinson documents her struggles after being diagnosed with fibroid tumors. Spoiler: She’s okay now.) Returning events include Prank It FWD, starring talent from SMOSH, Clevver, and Smosh’s AWE Me brand, and ScreenJunkies Central, a live event to be staged at this year’s San Diego Comic Con. One other notable element of the company’s pitch to advertisers: The company’s leadership announced plans to more heavily emphasize that Defy is a singular brand, not just a disconnected group of media properties. But that effort is more about the advertisers than the audience, according to Chief Marketing Officer Andy Tu. “Of foremost importance on the Defy branding project was to make sure that our partners, our advertisers, the B2B brand, felt as strong and as vibrant as the consumer brands,” he told Cynopsis Digital. “Our goal on day one is not to have Defy be a consumer-facing brand. Our plan today is not to cross-pollinate brands like Clevver, ScreenJunkies and Smosh. But those brands are special, and they mean something, and we knew we needed to invest in Defy having that same level of importance and uniqueness.”
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