Dove Tries Improving Self-Esteem With Snapchat

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Snapchat isn’t exactly the most well-embraced social site on the Internet when it comes to consumer brands, mainly due to some of the content that posts on the site – some of which revolves around “sexting” and other unfavorable content.  However, one company is looking to put it to good use. In fact, you could say that Dove is intending to, ahem, clean up.

The soap maker has launched a new program that works with Snapchat, in an effort to attempt to boost the image of young women. It’s part of a tie-in with the company’s annual Self-Esteem Weekend, allowing it to send themed Snap pictures to the site and also interact with replies.

“Having a public conversation about your self-esteem can be intimidating,” Unilever Marketing Director Jennifer Bremmer said in an e-mail to Adage. “Our goal was to leverage the ephemeral nature of Snapchat to establish genuine personal connections in a space that feels safe to girls and women. Dove has invited them to share their insecurities via Snaps, and as these Snaps disappear, they can make room for positive thoughts.”

With the snaps, Dove and “ambassadors” of the program will respond with “real-time advice and feedback” that will help out interested parties. And it’s a program that could work out for the better with both parties, according to Bremmer. “We want to speak to them in ways and places that are organic to them,” she explained. “What made the platform most appealing was the ability to engage with women and girls in a personal, one-to-one manner.”

Dove recently hosted the first series of two-hour sessions on the subject across Snapchat, where women could speak with a child psychologist and educator to answer questions revolving around self-esteem. The results were pretty high, with 75 conversations in all, and 130,000 views on the Snap pictures that were posted by the company.

“Given that this marks our fist initiative on Snapchat, we will be looking at many metrics,” Ms. Bremmer said. “Overall, we will look at the conversation and engagement we sparked on this platform individually with girls and women, and seek to understand the value of that connection to users on the platform.”

Other companies are trying out Snapchat as well, including Coty’s cK One, which recently generated a million views with its campaign, and generated over 6,700 followers on the site.

Your Most Crucial Weekend #MustReads: October 10

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We sort through quite a bit of the fluff out there on the Internet on a daily basis and we’ve found what we think are the most crucial before you head off for your weekend.

Have something else to share? Feel free to comment with your contribution below.

Gaming Insiders Summit Preview: Don’t leave home without it!

Vine Shows That Video Created for Mobile Gets Higher Engagement: What is created for mobile does well on mobile.

Teens Not So Interested in Wearables After All: Turns out, it’s hard to convince young folks who’ve never worn watches to wear one now.

‘Move 10 to 25 Percent of TV Dollars to Online Video’ Says Omnicom CEO: The digital shift is quickening.

Data Suggests ‘Second Screen’ Might Be A Misnomer: TV is becoming just another screen and is no longer the main content portal propped up by secondary screens.

Why Gaming’s Explosive Growth Continues: Mobile is clearly the best overall growth market for games on a global basis, and any major game company is going to want to have a piece of that action.

Why The Gold Rush for Video Game Kickstarters is Over: Have we moved into a new era of crowd-sourced funding

Are These The 12 Types of Millennials : Since we’re already stereotyping, let’s dig a little deeper.

What Is Gamergate, and Why Is Intel So Afraid Of It : Eric Johnson of Re/Code condenses “Gamergate” into one article.

Microsoft Research Invents A Stylus That Can Read Your Mind: You read that right.

Animation MCN Mondo Media Teams With ‘Simpsons’ Producer On Three New Movies

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by Sahil Patel

Mondo Media, an animation-focused multi-channel network on YouTube, plans to produce three movies based on its most popular shows, “Happy Tree Friends,” “Dick Figures,” and “Deep Space 69.”

The slate will kick-off with the release of a movie based on the company’s flagship property “Happy Tree Friends.” A flash-animated series about a bunch of forest friends who inevitably get into ultra-violent trouble, “Happy Tree Friends” has generated more than 2 billion views on and off YouTube, with 70 percent of those views coming from outside of North America, according to Mondo.

Following that will be “Dick Figures 2,” a sequel to “Dick Figures: The Movie,” which raised more than $300,000 on Kickstarter and was profitable within three months of its release, said Mondo. The property focuses on the exploits of two friends named Red and Blue, and has amassed nearly half a billion views online.

“Deep Space 69,” Mondo’s newest series, will round out the package.

Mondo has also hired Emmy-winning animation veteran Bill Schultz (“The Simpsons,” “King of the Hill”) to executive produce the slate alongside John Evershed, Aaron Simpson, and Brendan Burch.

The movies will be financed by Mondo with a “combination of equity and collaboration” from distribution partners as well as pre-sales. These partners, which will serve as co-producers on the films, will be announced shortly.

Mondo is making the announcement ahead of next week’s MIPCOM in Cannes, where it expects to finalize “several key windows and territories” for the slate, the company said. The films will be distributed digitally or on traditional platforms depending on the territory.

This article was originally posted on VideoInk and is reposted on [a]listdaily via a partnership with the news publication, which is the online video industry’s go-to source for breaking news, features, and industry analysis. Follow VideoInk on Twitter @VideoInkNews, or subscribe via thevideoink.com for the latest news and stories, delivered right to your inbox.

This Week in People: October 10

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Here are some of the top personnel moves in marketing last week. Our congratulations to these people taking on new challenges!

  • Bravo Media has promoted Robert Mancini to vice president of content for the company’s digital division. Read more about it here.
  • Nancy Tellem, former president of CBS Network Television Entertainment Group and currently winding down her role as president of Microsoft’s Xbox Studios, has joined the board of directors of e-commerce content startup Dot & Bo, co-founded by former CBS Interactive exec Anthony Soohoo. Find out more here.
  • StyleHaul, the multichannel network focused on young female audiences, has hired former AOL ad exec Rob DeChiaro to run the newly created StyleHaul Studios. Find out more here.
  • Former Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia CEO Lisa Gersh has been tapped as the new CEO of goop, a lifestyle and ecommerce company founded by actress Gwyneth Paltrow in 2008. Find out more here.
  • Former chief digital officer for NBC News Vivian Schiller, head of news and journalism partnerships at Twitter, is moving on after less than a year on the job. Find out more here.
  • Storm8 today announced the hiring of two industry veterans, both most recently at Zynga, in new roles at the mobile social company. Tim LeTourneau will serve as Chief Creative Officer while Steve Parkis will lead as President of Games and Network. Find out more here.

If you have a submission for this weekly feature, send info to pr@ayzenberg.com or fill out our Suggest a Story form.

Gaming Insiders Summit 2014 Preview

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The Gaming Insiders Summit is being held on October 15 at the Winery on Treasure Island in San Francisco. The venue is compelling, with a tremendous view of the San Francisco Bay when you step outside and look around. Similarly, the array of speakers and sessions lined up for the Gaming Insiders Summit should provide a tremendous view of the current and future state of the game industry. The [a]listdaily takes a look at some of the highlights of the schedule, and gets Gaming Insiders CEO David Kaye’s insights on the summit.

The Gaming Insiders Summit is only one day long, but it’s packed with a number of interesting sessions, various sponsors available to discuss their products and services, and of course plenty of networking opportunities. What follows are some of the highlights of the program, and you can find the full program along with details on the speakers and the venue at the Gaming Insiders web site.

The speakers begin at 9:30, and Alex Seropian and Tim Harris, co-founders of Industrial Toys begin with a talk entitled Casual, Core and More: The Myth of Rules in Mobile Gaming. Seropian is well known as the founder of Bungie Studios, and the Industrial Toys insight on mobile gaming should be very interesting coming from some console and PC veterans.

Later in the day there’s a “fireside chat” with Chris Heatherly, the SVP/GM of Disney Interactive, where attendees can hear about Disney’s strategy for bringing its massively successful film and television properties to interactive media. Following that will be a similar fireside chat with Chris DeWolfe, the CEO of SGN, who perhaps will shed some light on SGN’s strategy for dealing with similar transmedia properties, as SGN is currently bringing the animated feature The Book of Life: Sugar Smash to mobile games.

There will also be panels on the business aspects of the gaming business, including AppLovin’s co-founder and CEO Adam Foroughi talking about player acqusition, and inMobi, TinyCo, Gree and Crowdstar talking about the increasingly complex strategies for mobile games.

The CEO of Twitch, Emmet Shear, will be talking about Twitch’s next 60 million users, which should be a very interesting talk given the increasing importance of livestreaming to games marketing. Google’s Bob Meese, head of business development for Google Play, will discuss how the company is helping developers reach the global mobile audience.

Later in the day, there’s also a chat with Tencent’s VP of business development Dan Brody, and to wind things up there’s a talk by Valve developer Chet Faliszek.

There are even more presentations scheduled, along with a full panoply of businesses that serve the game industry, and the always-important cocktail party at the end where new business connections can be forged. The [a]listdaily will be there to take in the information and serve up a piping-hot summary afterwards for those of you who are unable to attend.

David Kaye

David Kaye, CEO of Gaming Insiders, took the time from his busy pre-show schedule to answer some questions for the [a]listdaily.

[a]listdaily: How did the Gaming Insiders Summit begin, and how has it developed over time?

David Kaye: Gaming Insiders started as an invite-only online community for game company founders, and our first event was a dinner for ten people in a San Francisco Chinese restaurant. This is our second conference and we’re expecting about 450 attendees from all over the world, so it’s safe to say we’ve grown a bit.

[a]listdaily: What should participants expect to learn at the Gaming Insiders Summit?

David Kaye: We’re trying to answer one question: where are today’s blue ocean opportunities? We see those opportunities in a lot of places — here are a few:

1) Bringing big genres to new platforms: Halo co-creator Alex Seropian and Tim Harris from Industrial Toys will be talking about their approach to building their mobile FPS, Midnight Star.

2) Breaking into new markets: Asia is our focus this year — speakers from Tencent, Kabam and FunPlus will be addressing this from a number of angles.

3) Virtual Reality: We continue to believe VR is going to be huge. Chet Faliszek will be talking about Valve’s unique approach to the platform.

[a]listdaily: What are the most important trends in the game industry today, in your view?

David Kaye: I think that the three trends I mentioned before — big genres coming to new platforms, the expansion of the Asian market, and VR’s growing importance — are the biggest forces we’ll see in the coming year, but I’d love to see the indie renaissance we’re seeing on PC have a bigger impact in mobile, where there’s still a little less creative diversity than I would like.

[a]listdaily: What holds the potential to be the biggest surprise for the gaming industry in the next year?

David Kaye: The great thing about this industry is that massively influential things can come from unexpected places. If you had asked me this question last year, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have said “a ludicrously hard endless runner from an unknown Vietnamese developer with no marketing will become an overnight sensation with more than 50 million downloads,” and yet we all saw what happened with Flappy Bird.

Indies are still the ones making all the really bold moves. Keep an eye on smaller studios like Campo Santo and Hello Games.

[a]listdaily: Any other thoughts on the Gaming Insiders Summit?

David Kaye: The atmosphere of our event is really unique — if you haven’t come before, I’d love to see you there.

WarGaming Teams Up With ‘Fury’ For Museum Exhibit

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Fury is running into a huge buzz leading into its release in theaters next week. The film, featuring Brad Pitt, focuses on a true World War II tale of a U.S. tank squadron holding off a Nazi armada, facing impossible odds.

As part of its tie-in, Wargaming, the company behind various free-to-play games, have stepped up to help promote the film in its own special way. The publisher has announced that not only will it feature the Fury tank as premium content in its highly popular World of Tanks game, but it will also sponsor a special exhibit at the Tank Museum in Bovington.

The exhibit will feature two primary exhibits, including the only working Tiger 131 tank and the Fury Sherman M4 Tank, both of which were used in the film. Uniforms worn by Pitt and other actors, along with other props, will also be featured in the exhibit.

“Wargaming has a long history of collaboration with The Bovington Tank Museum, we sponsored the building of a classroom in the museum, we also contributed to the restoration of the museum’s collections and now we are extremely proud to be working with the museum again, sponsoring the making of this new exciting Fury exhibition, which is a perfect match to our game World of Tanks,” said Rinaldo Andreolli, General Manager Wargaming Europe.

David Willey, Curator of The Tank Museum, said, “Being a part of making this film was a remarkable opportunity for the Museum and we want to share that experience with our visitors. This exhibition will give an insight in to how The Tank Museum was involved in the Fury film, the issues we faced when working to safely use some of our historic collection and what it was like for staff on set of a Hollywood movie.”

Attendees will also be able to play World of Tanks on several kiosks that will featured at the Fury exhibition. Those who can’t attend, though, will still be able to get a piece of the action with the Sherman Tank, which is now available in the World of Tanks game as a premium purchase. “It made sense,” says chief executive officer at Wargaming, Victor Kislyi, speaking with the Associated Press. “Both audiences are interested in historical accuracy, so why don’t we do something together We didn’t want to overdo it. We appreciate the opportunity, but our audience wants appropriateness.”

Kislyi also believes fans of the game will flock to the film. “I believe that this movie could have a significant extra audience because of the millions and millions of World of Tanks gamers,” he said. “The movie is the movie. The game is the game. However, how can you not want to go and watch this movie if you play this game, if you are someone who is hooked on German and American tank combat You’ll have to see it.”

The Sherman Tank bundle, which includes a tank controller based on Pitt’s Wardaddy character, also features various missions inspired by the movie. It goes for $30 on Xbox 360 and PC, and $15 on iOS.

How TV Networks Traditionally Market Shows Won’t Work On YouTube

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Finding a new audience for a TV show can be a difficult task, as the right angle needs to be found in terms of advertising. However, one medium that a lot of networks seem to be using as of late is Google’s YouTube channel, which is an ideal spot for a secondary programming angle that could easily appeal to possible viewers for its shows, says Adage.

Google actually invited ABC into workshops that help provide such details as to how YouTube could be utilized to draw in viewers, especially younger ones who consistently use cell phones and tablets for entertainment.

“Our overall digital strategy was to make things from scratch, not reuse promos,” said Ben Blatt, exec director-digital strategy, ABC Entertainment. “It requires more money and more time, but we did this for every show. Every piece of content was custom.”

There’s a trick to it, though. TV requires advertising, and YouTube utilizes a system in some cases where an ad can be skipped in around five seconds to get to the desired video – something ABC wants to resolve. “Just putting a TV spot on YouTube won’t work,” said Rebecca Mall, head of industry at Google, who serves as a consultant for the network. “The way TV networks typically market shows on traditional platforms doesn’t necessarily work on YouTube.”

As a result, ABC did some reconfiguring for certain tie-ins with shows, some of which can be seen below.

 

 

For the show How To Get Away With Murder, quick introductions of each of the characters is put into the first few seconds of the clip, including such types as “doucheface,” “idealist” and “the puppy,” amongst others. It’s an ideal way to get to know the characters better – even “doucheface.”

 

The comedy show Selfie focuses on a woman trying to develop a social life outside of digital means, but the YouTube tie-in actually encourages people to “tag” selfies that relate to the show.

 

As part of its work on Selfie, ABC even went as far as to utilize YouTube stars, like CutiePieMarzia, to take part in the “selfie” promotion.

The campaign has been a bit of a success, with Black-ish gaining 200 percent lift with the campaign, and How To Get Away With Murder showing a 170 percent lift. As a result, both campaigns have managed to land in the top five percent of all TV and movie campaigns, as YouTube reported.

“I expect we will see at least three out of the five broadcasters do similar approaches next season based on what ABC did this year,” said Mall.