Digital Talent Agency

Comic-Con and the Rise of the Indi Superhero

Last year's Batman movie "Dark Knight" pulled in more than $1 billion. The Hulk has starred in two movies in the past six years. Columbia Pictures is now developing "Spider-Man 4."

The impressive film record shows that Hollywood never tires of superheroes. And that's a golden opportunity for comic-book writers like Bobby Rubio.

Mr. Rubio, a storyboard artist for Walt Disney Co.'s Pixar animation unit, developed his own line of independent comic books with titles including "Alcatraz High" and "Four Gun Conclusion." This weekend, at the Comic-Con convention in San Diego, he'll be encouraging producers to turn the books into movies.

With so many comic-book heroes already major film franchises, creators like Mr. Rubio say they are receiving more interest than ever. Studios "have to look for the new hot thing," says Mr. Rubio.

Now in its 40th year, the Comic-Con convention has grown from a small gathering of sci-fi fans to a mandatory stop for film and videogame producers, whose industries are increasingly marketing superhero characters and their stories.

Comic-book films have been among the most bankable properties in Hollywood in recent years. This year saw the release of the latest X-Men installment "Wolverine," as well as "The Watchmen." The sequel to 2008's highly successful "Iron Man" is due to hit theaters next year.

But all the well-known characters are already locked up by big studios. DC Comics, which has the rights to Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, among others, contracts with Warner Brothers. Marvel Comics, which has Iron Man, Wolverine, Spider-Man and the Hulk in its ranks, is signed with various major studios, including Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox Film and Universal Studios."

"There are only 10 or 12 superhero characters that everybody in the world knows, and they're all taken," says Jeff Gomez, president and chief executive of Starlight Runner Entertainment Inc., a New York production company that produces movies, videogames, comic books and graphic novels. "Now we have to find something that's new and fresh."

 

Comic-Con, says Mr. Gomez, has become the marketplace to scout for new talent.

Marc D. Evans, co-chief executive of Intrepid Pictures, says he was one of the few film producers who would head to the back of the convention space to check out the independent publishers. But last year, for the first time, he says he had to wait in line to talk to the creators.

"It has become such a high priority for every agent to jump on," he says. He now travels to other, less popular comic-book conventions so he can be the first to sign up-and-comers.

Mr. Evans's Los Angeles-based company specializes in movies for the under-30 crowd that cost less than $30 million to make. Most recently it co-produced the horror film "The Strangers," which took in $82 million at the box office.

he model of small-time comic making it big has been successful in the past. The Sony Pictures 1997 blockbuster "Men in Black," which took in $589 million world-wide, came from an independent comic creator. So did the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

Joe Casey, Steven Seagle, Duncan Rouleau and Joe Kelly -- who founded Man of Action Studios -- work with Marvel and DC Comics, the two mainstays of the industry, and they release works independently through Image Comics, which publishes their works while they retain ancillary rights.

After years when major comic companies' stories dominated film and comics, Mr. Seagle says the pendulum is swinging back to the little guy. "If you eat too many hamburgers," he says, "eventually you want a hot dog."

From Man of Action alone, the stories released at Comic-Con this year will include "Imperial," from Mr. Seagle, a romantic comedy about a superhero and a regular guy; "Doc Bizarre MD," from Mr. Casey, about a doctor for monsters, demons and ghosts who makes house calls; and "I Kill Giants," from Mr. Kelly, about a little girl who lives partly in the real world, partly in a fantasy world where she slays dragons.

Fans at Comic-Con used to seek out Mr. Casey and his colleagues for autographs because of their work with DC Comics and Marvel, Mr. Casey says. But this year, the group is shifting its focus to highlight its independent work more.

article by Sabrina Shankman for the Wall Street Journal.  Complete article here.

Hasbro's Hollywood Tie-Ins.

Toy maker Hasbro Inc. parlayed its Hollywood tie-ins to boost second-quarter earnings on slightly improved sales, bucking an industrywide slump.

Toy sales have been declining throughout the recession because of consumers' diminished spending and retailers' efforts to curb inventories. Mattel Inc., the leading toy maker, reported a 19% second-quarter sales decline last week.

But Hasbro's action figures and other toys linked to Paramount Pictures'"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen," a summer blockbuster, helped the company boost sales by 1% to $792.2 million. The company was also aided by toys already on the shelves linked to the release next month of "G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra," also from Paramount, a subsidiary of Viacom Inc.

Hasbro owns the property rights to Transformers and receives a small percentage of the movie's box-office receipts from Paramount. Under the agreement, it also gets to keep almost all of the toy and related sales. It has a similar arrangement for G.I. Joe. "Transformers," which made its debut last month, has rung up $772 million in box-office sales. Chris White, a Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst, called Hasbro's exposure to Hollywood "the big reason for its upbeat results."

Complete article here.

Top Social Media Sites of 2008 (Facebook Still Rising)

ComScore keeps a list of what it calls “social networking” sites, but these include blogging platforms and other social media sites as well. While the audience for blogs is still showing healthy growth overall, Facebook stands out as the social gorilla taking share from not only other social networks but blogs and other social media as well.

Here's the complete article.

by Erick Schinfeld for TechCrunch

Virtual Currencies 411

by Anu Shukla for Mashable

The word on the street is that social networks, as popular as they are, can’t make any real money. After all, who’s going to click on an ad while they’re in the midst of socializing with their friends?

While there’s a grain of truth to this rumor, it’s fast becoming an out-of-date perception. What’s changed? A new economy based on social web properties that use virtual currency to capture users’ imaginations.

By creating a demand for premium content such as virtual gifts or upgraded features, savvy social publishers are finding that at least a portion of their users will gladly fork over real cash in order to pay for, say, a pretend peony on (Lil) Green Patch or to buy the latest toys for their virtual babies on Make A Baby. Even better, plenty are willing to wade into the world of online surveys and advertising offers in exchange for these “must have” items in their games.

Though no one knows yet the exact size or potential of the market for virtual goods and services, conservative estimates put it at over $2 billion for this year alone. Not bad for a marketplace that barely existed a couple years ago. Even better, all signs indicate that the growth is just beginning.

As more and more social web publishers catch on to virtual currency as an incredibly effective way to not only monetize their traffic but also engage and motivate their users, the trend will only pick up steam. And as advertisers understand the channel better and realize that it is ideal for both performance-based campaigns as well as branding efforts, don’t be surprised if virtual currency becomes the most sought-after ad channel on the web.

 

Ever noticed the little gift icons on Facebook lately that urge you to send a present to a friend? Virtual gifting is a reportedly $50 - $60 million a year business for the company, and that doesn’t include any of the gifting that takes place on third party applications. But beyond Facebook’s own virtual gifting, it’s also built into a number of applications, offering revenue opportunities for the developers of these games.

irtual worlds and avatar-based communities have been charging people for decorative types of goods like fancy upgrades for their avatars or special backgrounds for their profile pages for some time now. AtWeeWorld, for example, where you can create your own personalized WeeMee and take it with you around the web, you can spend WeePoints to pimp out your avatar with just the right hair, right clothes and right accessories.

Virtual goods can also be more functional than decorative, such as the case when virtual currency is redeemed to unlock hidden features or advance within a gaming scenario. This type of virtual good is especially prevalent in MMOGs or other types of social games. For example, at Mobsters, the number one app on MySpace, users can redeem virtual currency to help them grow their mob and level up faster towards the top of this underground world.

By tapping into the user’s social activities and motivations—in this case, sending a virtual gift—advertisers’ offers essentially provide the fuel that enables consumers to interact with each other within an application. The key to success, from the advertiser’s point of view, is using all of the juicy demographic and behavioral data on hand in order to target their audience strategically. Do that, and they will generate new customers far more effectively than through any other channel

Here's the link.

Brands face challenges advertising in social networks.

by Randall Stross for the New York Times.

The core of social networks' success: friend referrals and introductions -- doesn't translate easily to traditional online marketing tactics.

"And when they try to take advantage of new “social advertising,” extending their commercial message to a member’s friends, their ads will be noticed, all right, but not necessarily favorably. Members are understandably reluctant to become shills. IDC, the technology research firm, published a study last month that reported that just 3 percent of Internet users in the United States would willingly let publishers use their friends for advertising."

It's hard to think users would become fans or join groups to products that aren't cult status
(i.e. vitamin water, mini cooper. etc).  In cases where they do, usually there is some sort of coercion
involved.

Here's the complete article.

 

Widgets: big marketing potential

by Bob Garfield for Ad Age

"Branded widgets are the refrigerator magnets of the Brave New World. These compact, portable little software apps -- from video players to countdown clocks to makeup simulators -- are inexpensive to distribute, free to the user and (often enough) distinctly useful. At a minimum, they carry an ad message wherever they go.

That's at a minimum. At a maximum, the widget is something like the magical connection between marketers and consumers, not only replacing the one-way messaging long dominated by media advertising but vastly outperforming it. Because online the link is literal and direct, and along its path, data of behavior, preference and intention are left at every step. "

"According to Alexa, Apple.com's page views per user are down 9%; Comcast.net is down 1%; Dell.com, down 22%; AT&T.com, down 18%; Xbox.com, down 9% and so on as corporate e-bastions begin to experience the same audience fragmentation that is killing old media. "As popular as your site may be," says Kennedy, the reality is that people are actually visiting Yahoo, MySpace, Google and Facebook thousands of times more than they're visiting you."

Tony Zito of MediaForge, which handles Steep and Cheap, calls this "the slow death of the destination website."

Full story here.

Hybrid firm combines Hollywood, digital media (last we checked)

from the Los Angeles Times

"Agency 3.0, will help companies, content providers and advertisers navigate the digital landscape by performing some of the traditional functions of an ad agency in addition to tackling technical areas such as user interfaces and product development."

William Morris’ decision to take an undisclosed equity stake in Agency 3.0 signals the talent agency’s desire to play a larger role in digital media.

This year it announced it was joining with Silicon Valley venture capital firms Accel Partners and Venrock, as well as telecommunications giant AT&T Inc., to invest in consumer technology and media start-ups.

Other talent agencies have taken different tacks when it comes to new media. Creative Artists Agency joined with Sequoia Capital to back Will Farrell’s online entertainment site, FunnyOrDie.com. And advertising agency Spot Runner and United Talent Agency helped start 60Frames Entertainment, which creates short-form online content."

Interesting concepts but perhaps a lack of direction as their blog hasn't been updated since July. Watch this space ;)

Complete article here.