Music labels and movie studios face a digital dilemma.
They want to give consumers easy access to products such as DVDs and downloadable music, but at the same time the companies must protect the intellectual property behind their content.
To meet the challenge head-on, public relations firm Edelman has formally expanded its digital entertainment, rights and technology practice in Los Angeles. The group’s title reflects its mission: to provide a PR strategy that strikes a “balance between protecting intellectual property, encouraging new technologies and meeting the evolving needs of global consumers.”
The practice already has more than a dozen accounts, thanks to Edelman’s previous work with digital clients. The firm handled the launch of MySpace.com and consumer-education campaigns on illegal downloads for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and the Motion Picture Association of America. The firm also guided Starbucks’ launch of its entertainment division and is helping Toshiba and its studio partners roll out their high-definition DVD format. Warner Bros., Avid, Xbox and CinemaNow are also on its client list.
“This is not digital PR; this is PR for digital clients,” said Gail Becker, general manager of Edelman’s Los Angeles office, who will serve as the practice’s global leader. She sees her firm as filling a need for firms trying to maintain the integrity of intellectual property in a market in which emerging delivery platforms are becoming more accessible and user-friendly.
“Now that consumers are becoming content creators in a rapidly expanding landscape of competing distribution technologies, the communications challenges are growing exponentially,” Becker said.
The recording industry campaign offers a case study of Edelman’s practice in action. When the academy wanted to tell consumers to avoid free illegal downloads of music, Edelman formed “What’s the Download Interactive Board,” a group of young music enthusiasts. The board met with recording celebrities and honchos as part of the academy’s Grammy ceremonies. Publicity surrounding that event and promotion online and in traditional media resulted in a spike in traffic at the academy’s Web site. behavior,” said Becker.
Ultramercial Clicks
The numbers are in for Honda’s online campaign and they look pretty good. Credit goes to Ultramercial, a word that signifies both a company and the advertising unit it developed.
An “ultramercial” is an online commercial that viewers choose to watch in return for access to premium content that would otherwise cost money. The arrangement seeks to cast the advertiser as a friend who gets the consumer in the door to see the really good stuff. Many Web users associate this model with Salon.com, a major client of Ultramercial LLC, the online marketing firm based in Palos Verdes Estates.
For Honda, Ultramercial arranged for the automaker’s ads to appear on five Web sites. Honda granted viewers a site pass at Salon.com, where a regular subscription costs $35 a year; a 14-day free trial at Rhapsody, usually $9.99 a month; access to Motor Trend’s future car section; a day pass for TheStreet’s premium RealMoney site, regularly $24.95 a month; and a one-time access into ABC.com’s exclusive “Lost” photo gallery.
“Our publisher partners bring the kind of compelling content for which viewers are very willing to provide their attention,” said Paul Grusche, senior vice-president at Ultramercial.
The Honda ads generated a click-through rate of 13.8 percent. The ads required 35 seconds of navigation time, but viewers spent an average of 50 seconds looking at them. In the industry that coined the phrase “Internet minute,” those 15 seconds of extra attention are extremely valuable.
Bogus B.O.
Hollywood types and “Titanic” director James Cameron, in particular have never been shy about trumpeting their triumphs. So the two-page ad spread for his film “Aquaman” in the June 19 edition of Daily Variety that celebrated the biggest box office weekend in history $116 million, topping the record set by “Spider-Man” in 2002 was hardly a surprise.
Except that the film doesn’t exist.
The ad was taken out by HBO to promote its showbiz spoof “Entourage.” A recent episode centered on the premiere of Cameron’s “Aquaman,” an action film based on the classic DC Comics super hero. The producers and the film’s star endured over-the-top tension as they monitored the box office numbers for the film’s opening weekend.
Cameron has appeared on the series several times, playing himself. The pricey ad likely costing between $30,000 and $40,000 provided a boost for the program and a laugh for insiders.
A few non-industry types may have been taken in. Web sites and blogs frequently crackle with “news” of projects undertaken by Cameron, and an “Aquaman” project was actually in development at Warner Bros. a few years back.
Staff reporter Joel Russell can be reached at
[email protected]
or (323) 549-5225, ext. 237.
