Fresh from its announcement of signing on with Google Preferred, DigitasLBi presented its NewFront yesterday at the Skylight Modern. The theme of the afternoon was “fearlessness” (see Digital Spotlight below) and how to lead a brand to greatness. Plenty of people were on hand to support the message, including Linked In’s Dan Roth, Puma’s Remi Carlioz, Upworthy’s Eli Pariser, and more. The agency’s major announcements were:

–       A “BuzzFeed-in-residence program” in which members of the BF brand team will collaborate on-site with DigitasLBi to create brand strategies and content.

–       A 24-month first-look arrangement with Epic Digital on their stories of the amazing and the extraordinary. Epic currently has material in development with HBO, Fox Studio, and Warner Bros.

–       The NewFront Brand Content Index, a tool to standardize success measurements, co-developed by DigitasLBi and SimpleReach to provide a real-time and historical view of how any piece of content performs against both industry-specific and overall content benchmarks (page views, shares, time spent, Uniques, and more).