Un-Branded Stunt

You Tube is 3 years old, but like Miley Cyrus seems much older. But like smiley Miley, should we be asking You Tube to pose near naked for Vanity Fair in order to satisfy I don’t know’s vanity? You Tube should just keep it’s clothes on despite what Annie Leibowtiz might say and stick with singing songs to tweens. I really mashed up the metaphors there, feel free to translate in the comments below.

note: we are unable to re-produce photos of Ms Cyrus for fear Annie will sue us.

The ‘how is You Tube going to make money?’ question is perhaps a little premature and I’d argue irrelevant.

It’s never going to make money, deal with it. UGC just ain’t compelling to advertisers and it’s increasingly becomming uncompelling to the viewers and frankly we the denizens of the web are better than that, so let’s push the UGC to one side and focus on creating some compelling entertainment.

‘But you can’t get a narrative across in 2 minutes which is as long as anyone will watch anything for’ so says the voice in my head that is not the voice I speak with, but often visits me at night to talk to my… er… other voice.

The iPlayer rather poops on that myth. Joost tried but failed to poop at all because it’s content mostly featured The Worlds Strongest Woman, but Joost is trying again and will unveil an iPlayer like web browser in September.

So on the one hand we have some Romanian kids jumping from a roof top in some sort of leg shattering peasant parkour stunt:

Romania-Zalau Backflip from 5.5m - Watch more free videos

It’s UGC, it’s short, it’s not funny but it’s a bit freaky, which is the new funny as funny has been done to death with all the funny sites out there competing for our piece of funny. As animal cruelty is severly frowned upon, human cruelty masquerading as fun will have to suffice.

On the other hand, in my case, my left hand we have Shane Meadow’s new film Somer’s Town, the brainchild of branded entertainment think tank Mother Vision, a revisionary division of uber ad agency Mother.

‘Somers Town has been screened at film festivals in New York, and will be shown next month in Sydney. Also, the film’s leading actors, Thomas Turgoose and Piotr Jagiello, won the joint best actor award at the Tribeca Film Festival.

The idea originated during the Eurostar pitch in 2006 that Mother eventually lost to Fallon. The pitch brief was to develop a campaign in preparation for Eurostar’s transfer from Waterloo to the new St Pancras. Despite eliminating Mother from the pitch, Nugent loved its proposal to create a series of short films around the regeneration of the area. And when Robert Saville, Mother’s creative partner, came back to him with a “more creative and potent idea”, he was sold.’ (brandrepublic)

Quality entertainment, wholly original business model, but same old distribution model. I can’t find out much more about the planned distribution of this film, but it seems to be following the traditional: festival, select cinema release, dvd pattern.

What if Somer’s Town was released in the cinemas, on dvd and on the iPlayer (or similar) at the same time? Innovation, adulation and total re-invention of the tired movie release formula. The studios are too big to change over night, too fixed to existing business model that though being eroded are still just about making money for them.

Innovators like Mother Vision are demonstrating with Somer’s Town their increasing importance in the evolution of entertainment.

‘Mother believes that brands are in a position - like never before - to connect or build relationships in more interesting ways. If we can tell genuinely entertaining stories that are authentic to the brand’s core values then its good news for everyone - brands find an audience, and that audience is entertained.’ (Contagious)

How entertainment is funded and found is radically changing. It had to.

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