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đŸ”„ Video + Popcorn = Eyeballs

Plus: Pokemon teams up with Le Creuset + AI-powered storybooks

Author

Oli Thomas
June 25, 2024

In the attention economy, competition is everywhere. Its about eyeballs, brain capacity, and staying power. Its about clickbait, algorithms and auto-plays. Its about likes, comments and ‘you might like’s’.

The doom scroll and the dopamine epidemic are real, and the competition is just about anything that will take your eyes off the screen.

This week we saw a number of new strategic plays to capture more attention.

First, the BBC rolled out vertical videos for news and sports content across its website and app. And further features to come such as “swiping” (short-form, vertical videos which can be swiped
sound familiar?).

Next up, the Daily Mail announced a new long-form video strategy with the ambition of getting itself right into the living room and onto the TV screens. In case this conjurs up the idea of Nigel Farage on your sofa - fear not - we’re told this is more about ‘celebrity lifestyles’ and sports science
with a slate of 20 shows planned over the next 12 months.

And finally, we have Netflix - fast becoming the Sam Smith of the streaming services with its attention-grabbing announcements - the latest being a new popcorn range: Now Popping. In fairness, if you deem sleep to be your ultimate competition, then launching a sugary range of snacks is a great way to counter it (+ get a load of attention outside of the screen time).

The point is - attention is a tough game. Competition is everywhere, and this is driving experimentation with formats, experimentation with content, and experimentation with new product lines.

Vamos 👍

The Yin and Yang of AI

This week we saw a great example of both the promise and the peril of AI: YouTube announced new tools to crack down on deepfakes of music artists whilst at the same time TikTok was announcing tools to help create AI avatars of real people.

The benefits of AI avatars are clear: creators can expand their reach through creating content in multiple languages and brands can produce content at lower cost through the use of ‘Stock Avatars’.

And at the same time, the qualities driving these opportunities are the same qualities that then pose challenges and risks through the use of deepfakes.

Read more here

BBC looks to vertical videos

Given that Gen Z is increasingly turning to TikTok for news, its no surprise that the BBC are looking to beef-up their short-form, vertical videos.

Breaking the news into shorter, bite-size, swipe-able chunks reflects the growing trends of content consumption and the need for the BBC to appeal to younger audiences.

Vertical vids at the BBC are not new, but having an in-house team expanding the range to cover core content lines across news and sport is a big show of intent.

Source: BBC

Read more here

Best of the Rest

TV: Another week, another leftfield brand collaboration - this time its Pokemon x Le Creuset. So if you’re into anime-inspired kitchenware, and have a couple of hundred dollars to spare, this is for you.

CREATORS: Webtoon, one of the largest platforms for short-form digital comics has filed for an IPO. The 20 year old company has 170M monthly active users and 55 million different titles in its online catalogue.

TV: Labour appeared to confirm that they will maintain all existing tax reliefs for the UK creative sector if/when they win the election. 

MUSIC: Sony Music acquired the Queen catalogue for ÂŁ1bn. The deal apparently excludes profits from future live tours.

Netflix 3.0 : the Experience

First came the DVDs through the letter box.

Then came the world-dominating streaming service.

And the next evolution of Netflix appears to be a move towards the more Disney-like 360 degree flywheel as it expands into consumer goods and experiences.

Two new ‘Netflix Houses’ have been announced and are set to launch in 2025, with the aim of enabling people to “explore your favourite Netflix stories and characters beyond the screen year-round”.

They’ve also announced a new line of Popcorn to ensure their American audiences can’t even stroll around the snack aisles in their local Walmart without seeing the red and white logo.

Source: Netflix

Read more here

Featured Start-up: Story Spark

Founders: Nima Amin and Iman Davoodian

Location: UK

Story Spark is an AI-powered story generator and reading platform, enabling parents and kids to build their own personalised stories whilst making use of innovative literacy tools.

Part of the TechStars ‘23 cohort, and with pre-seed funding secured, the company is already making solid progress, with over 80,000 users on the platform.

Right now, anything which is using AI and screen time to help improve kids literacy feels like an antidote to the bad rep its getting elsewhere 👍

Source: Story Spark

Read more here