Q&AA: Dawn Ostroff Has Some Thoughts for Video Pivoters

In a year when publishers have been talking about the "pivot to video," Cond Nast has some hard-won lessons to impartfor example, success in video can have less to do with quick-hit food clips than TV and even movie-length fare. Today, Cond Nast Entertainment is garnering a billion monthly views on its digital videos, Emmy and Oscar nods for its expensive efforts in TV and movies and, since last year, actual profits to top it off.To be fair, it's taken a while to get here: TV veteran Dawn Ostroff was tapped to lead the newly created division as its president six years ago. Only this fall did it achieve wide theatrical release for a feature film, the firefighting movie "Only the Brave." The division has another 35 films in various stages of development, including "The Old Man and the Gun," which Robert Redford has said will be one of his final roles, and "King of the Jungle," set to star Johnny Depp. Other work includes "Last Chance U" on Netflix, "Vanity Fair Confidential" on Investigation Discovery and "Invisible," a supernatural series shot in VR.Ostroff, who had a hand in generation-defining TV hits like "Gossip Girl" when she was entertainment president at The CW, talked with Ad Age about the real value of video, the whims of Facebook, aging TV audiences and finding the next "Gossip Girl." Our conversation has been edited. Continue reading at AdAge.com Continue reading at 'Advertising Age'

[ Advertising Age | 2017-12-21 00:00:00 UTC ]
News tagged with: #feature film #work includes #gossip girl

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Warner Bros. to buy the rest of digital video company Machinima

Warner Bros. has signed a deal to buy the gamer-focused YouTube network Machinima in order to expand the movie and TV studio’s digital video business, the company said Thursday. Burbank-based Warner Bros., the studio behind film franchises like Harry Potter and DC Entertainment, was already a... Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2016-11-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Millennial-Focused Video Network Cheddar Looking for Brands to Sponsor Shows

Jon Steinberg, the former president of BuzzFeed, is moving quickly to expand the programming and distribution of Cheddar, the video network he launched earlier this year.In May, Cheddar, which streams on Facebook Live and Sling, added a new 30-minute show from female-focused publisher Bustle,... Continue reading at Advertising Age

[ Advertising Age | 2016-11-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Google Is Introducing Native Video Ads for Mobile Publishers

If Google's research is correct, more than half of all smartphone users give up trying to load mobile websites if it takes longer than three seconds. Because of that, Google is moving forward with several beta offerings to help publishers and advertisers make their mobile formats more... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-11-15 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Publishers brace for what happens if Facebook stops paying for live videos

Facebook has been paying media partners to produce a certain amount of live video content per month. Most of these deals run for 12 months. Partners are aware that Facebook, having already collected a lot of data around live video consumption, might stop funding content. This could spell trouble... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-11-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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‘No one’s making money on Facebook’: Video publishers share what’s on their minds

Monetizing Facebook, unsurprisingly, is a big concern for video publishers. Other concerns include competing with companies for a small pool of talent that understands social and digital; how Facebook’s algorithm has made it harder for publishers to differentiate while also chasing scale; and... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-11-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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These Fossil Ads Show How Tasty's Viral Cooking Videos Are Made

If you've ever wondered how BuzzFeed's popular Tasty videos come together, Fossil's new ads want to show you. As a follow-up to its recent twist on the viral "Instagram Husbands" clip, the watch brand's newest spot plays off of the success of the digital publisher's viral videos. Fossil worked... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-11-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Live video takes center stage on Election Day

Dozens of news publishers including ABC News, NowThis and the Washington Post plan to produce hours of live Facebook videos during Election Day. Most are focused on providing the latest election news from around the country. NowThis plans to counter-program by hosting a watch party on Facebook... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-11-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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How free city magazine publisher Shortlist Media is expanding into video

When news hit in May that a woman was sent home for wearing flat shoes, Shortlist Media scored a point for equality and filmed blokes going to work in heels. The result was a 23 million views across social media. The publisher's free magazines, Stylist and Shortlist, have a circulation of... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-11-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ghouls on film: the making of a prank video

Literary agent Peter Cox on the story behind a spooky Halloween video for Michelle Paver's Thin Air. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2016-11-01 00:00:00 UTC ]
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How Tasty's Addictive Cooking Videos Helped BuzzFeed Build a Food Empire

Alvin Zhou is not your typical video producer. On a recent fall afternoon, he's hovering over a table in a test kitchen cutting and prepping vegetables and meat that he'll later whip into an ersatz "fried rice" dish made with cauliflower. As I watch, I'm offered a hot chocolate chip cookie... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-10-31 00:00:00 UTC ]
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'Bookaboo' moves to Amazon Prime Video

Amazon UK and US is launching Bookaboo as its new original kids series on Prime Video. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2016-10-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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How MTVNews, Refinery29, Elite Daily and Thrillist move at the speed of social video

Publishers need social video to stay relevant on younger-skewing platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. But churning out multiple (good) 15-second videos a day is no simple task. Learn how top digital publishers are taming the social media mess using creative collaboration tools. Sponsored... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-10-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Thought Catalog CRO Alex Magnin on growing a profitable media business in 2016

Thought Catalog has seen its audience chopped in half thanks to the whims of the Facebook algorithm. But that's to a disciplined operating plan, the company has managed to remain profitable. The "new reality," according to Thought Catalog CRO Alex Magnin, is publishers need to operate far more... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-10-11 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Donald Trump's video apology goes out over Facebook, Twitter

Hours after the Washington Post published a video of Donald Trump in 2005 stating, among other things, that "And when you're a star, they let you do it...You can do anything. Grab them by the p---y," the candidate issued a video response that went ou... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2016-10-08 00:00:00 UTC ]
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YouTube and Facebook leave video platform pretenders in the dust

Verizon and Comcast are not the first to try and build streaming video platforms for the best short-form web content -- AOL and Yahoo have already failed at it. Unlike digital publishers that dip their toes into video, these companies are willing to spend serious money on content. But money... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-10-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Online video platform for children’s books launches

Sigalit Hart, a children’s storyteller and producer, has launched an online TV channel dedicated to children’s books. Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2016-10-04 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook’s video metrics screw-up, explained

Facebook miscalculated how it was measuring average watch time on its platform. Agencies claim it’s not affected how they conduct business because they trade based on performance metrics like impressions, 10-second views and completed views -- not average watch time. That said, agencies and... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-09-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Facebook Apologizes for Overstating Video Metrics

The social media network was leaving out videos viewed for less than three seconds, which greatly inflated the figures presented to advertisers and publishers. Continue reading at The New York Times

[ The New York Times | 2016-09-23 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Ad Tech Companies Are Testing New Formats Like Virtual Reality and 360 Video

Seventeen years ago, The Blair Witch Project revolutionized movie marketing by turning an indie horror film into a blockbuster with a low-budget viral campaign. Now, just ahead of the third installment of the franchise on Sept. 16, Lionsgate wants to conjure some of the same promotional magic... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2016-09-12 00:00:00 UTC ]
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How marketers are distributing 360-degree videos beyond YouTube and Facebook

In order to extend the reach of their VR content, brands like Google and Jack-In-The-Box are testing an approach of serving teaser content on a major publisher that directs viewers to their 360-degree video experience. And Agency Arnold Worldwide has been testing out the organic reach of new... Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2016-09-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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