F. Gary Gray to direct ‘Dog’

‘Italian’ director picks up thriller script for Gold Circle

F. Gary Gray is attached to direct the mystery thriller “Hair of the Dog” for Gold Circle.

Story centers on a successful executive who becomes the victim of a vicious blackmail scheme that threatens to destroy his family. But he discovers he is just a pawn in the midst of a much darker agenda.

Kirsten Elms penned the screenplay.

Paul Brooks will produce, and his Gold Circle partners Scott Niemeyer and Norm Waitt will exec produce.

Guy Danella and Jeremy Platt are onboard to co-produce.

Gray is coming off of the success of the Gerard Butler-Jamie Foxx starrer “Law Abiding Citizen,” which has earned $120 million worldwide.

Gray-helmed pics, which include “The Italian Job” and “The Negotiator,” are known for attracting top talent.

Brooks exec-produced “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”

His upcoming Gold Circle slate includes “Life as We Know It” starring Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel, and the docu “In the Land of the Free.”

Gray is repped by UTA and attorney Nina Shaw.

Elms is repped by Gersh and Generate.

If You Build a Web Series Around It, Will They Come?

For Some Brands, the Answer Is an Enthusiastic Yes; for Others, Not So Much

by Andrew Hampp
Published: August 09, 2010

LOS ANGELES (AdAge.com) — In the past three years, it seems “Make me a branded web series” has become the new “Make me a viral video” for marketers, with brands as varied as Ikea, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, Kraft Philadelphia Cream Cheese and even Poise incontinence pads all trying their hands at branded storytelling online. But as these webisodes clamor to find audiences in increasingly fragmented numbers, a larger metric for success pervades: Did they actually deliver on the hoped-for ROI for the brand?

For marketers, the typical web series consists of a half-dozen five-minute episodes costing an average of $100,000 to $1 million to create — a paltry sum considering a typical 30-second spot can cost more than three times the price the most expensive web show.

Yet the bar has been high ever since “In the Motherhood,” an online sitcom co-created by Mindshare Entertainment on behalf of clients Sprint and Unilever, became a massive hit on MSN, accumulating more than 16 million views by its second season and eventually becoming a sitcom for ABC. But its swift broadcast cancellation forced advertisers and producers alike to re-evaluate the ultimate metric for determining a web series’ long-term success: Instead of being picked up by a TV network, why isn’t re-investment by the brand the new barometer for success?

As the web matures as an original entertainment platform, so do the metrics for success. Ad Age took a look at the vast crop of web series from the past year to spotlight 10 that worked and three that did not.

“Buppies” and “My Black Is Beautiful”

The Premise: Procter & Gamble’s dedicated line of products targeted toward black women got the entertainment approach last fall when the country’s top marketer co-produced two web series with BET. “Buppies,” a scripted drama, featured presenting sponsorship and product integration for Cover Girl’s Queen Collection, while “My Black Is Beautiful” showcased the eponymous line of P&G products in makeover settings.

The Result: “Buppies,” BET’s first original web series, has attracted more than 2 million views online since launch, while “My Black Is Beautiful,” the TV series, drew an average 3.6 million viewers in its second season on BET. The My Black Is Beautiful collection has seen sales grow 20% in the first half of 2010, while dollar-share increases during second-quarter 2010 were seen by participating brands Pantene (up 14%), Cover Girl (4%) and Olay (up 3%).

“Easy to Assemble”

The Premise: Indie actress Illeana Douglas takes a job at an Ikea to escape the confines of Hollywood, only to find that a host of other actors (Justine Bateman, Tim Meadows, Ed Begley Jr., Tom Arnold, Cheri Oteri) are already working there. Ikea came onboard as an integrated sponsor to raise its profile among hip, cash-conscious furniture shoppers.

The Result: Produced for a shoestring mid-six-figure budget that includes a name cast, some location shooting in Burbank and no external media buys, “Easy to Assemble” is the little web series that could. During its second-season run from October 2009 to January 2010, the show accumulated 12 million video views, 5,000 iPhone-app downloads and more than 34,000 mentions on social media. The show returns for a third season this fall.

“In Gayle We Trust”

The Premise: Gayle Evans (“Clueless” star Elisa Donovan) is a small-town insurance agent who tries to be all things to all people in this branded sitcom for American Family Insurance, created for NBC’s Digital Studio. The series is part of a larger branded-entertainment program Mindshare Entertainment helped plan for AFI, including an MSN financial-advice video series and custom content for CBS Radio.

The Result: The first season attracted nearly 3 million views, enough for American Family Insurance to renew it for a just-launched second season (NBC Digital Studio’s first multiseason pickup). In aggregate, American Family Insurance’s branded-entertainment program yielded a 20% lift in quote starts and a 24% increase in purchase intent. Requests for an agent also got a measurable boost from the program’s microsites.

“The Real Women of Philadelphia”

The Premise: Kraft teamed with its Publicis agencies Kraft Content One and Digitas, as well as social-media entertainment company EQAL, for a video contest to promote its Paula Deen-hosted brand relaunch of Philadelphia Cream Cheese last September. Fans were asked to submit videos of consumer-generated recipes using the Philly staple, with a chance to win $25,000 and participate in a cook-off with Ms. Deen in Georgia.

The Result: More than 4,000 recipes were submitted to the contest’s microsite, which has logged more than 600,000 unique visitors since its March launch. Additionally, Paula Deen’s YouTube video for the contest has been viewed more than 10 million times, an indication of the campaign’s broader cultural awareness. As part of a multimillion-dollar relaunch for the brand, the contest has helped Philly Cream Cheese achieve a 6% increase in sales since last September.

“The Temp Life”

The Premise: Staffing and temping agency Spherion wanted to make students, recent grads and entry-level professionals aware of its job-finding services when it signed up to sponsor CJP Digital Media’s “The Temp Life” back in 2006. As the series evolved and the job market worsened, the “Temp Life” took on an almost meta-reality for the agency as its audience adopted the temp lifestyle portrayed by the series’ characters.

The Result: Recently renewed for a fifth season, “The Temp Life” has quietly become the longest-running branded series on the web, with each season adding an average of 85% more viewers, according to web-video measurement firm Tubefilter. Spherion Corp. CEO Roy Krause has publicly declared the series his company’s top marketing priority and a direct contributor to its rise in stock price.

Five more that worked

Why It Worked: Unilever’s reality series starring Marisa Tomei logged more than 40 million views across the web and boosted the Bertolli brand’s volume, unit share and dollar share compared to the 12-week period prior to the show’s launch.

Why It Worked: Another Unilever series, the microsite’s videos were viewed more than 600,000 times and helped the mayonnaise brand outperform the rest of Unilever’s otherwise flat spreads products during the first quarter it aired.

Why It Worked: Sprint’s custom content for the small-business owner was successful and sticky, with more than 7.7 million video views, 84,000 pieces of content shared and 58% of users watching at least one episode all the way through.

Why It Worked: The campaign, which starred Whoopi Goldberg, made light bladder leakage a hot topic (and the subject of an “SNL” skit), and helped the Kimberly-Clark pads achieve the highest share of the incontinence category’s sales in the brand’s history.

Why It Worked: Logging over 4.5 million total site visits, “Fit to Boom” saw 3 million video views at a 50% completion rate and boosted purchase intent among baby boomers by 12%.

Three that didn’t work

Why It Didn’t Work: Candace Bushnell’s first scripted web series attracted well-known actresses (Jennie Garth, Jennifer Esposito) and a smart partner (More magazine) but had poor distribution strategy. Available only on a Maybelline microsite, the series has logged a middling 433,000 views to date.

Why It Didn’t Work: YouTube’s splashy branded-entertainment debut had a familiar host (“Seinfeld” alum Mehlman) interviewing big-name athletes, but viewers didn’t latch on very quickly — the series banked less than 1 million total views. Sponsor Palm Pre didn’t have too good of a year either — sales plunged by 29% in first quarter 2010.

Why It Didn’t Work: Sony’s heavily hyped zombie series starring Jon Heder (“Napoleon Dynamite”) started out strong with 1.4 million views in 10 days, but quickly lost viewers with a 56% drop-off in its second week and an average 6.54% decline in the weeks after. Neither sponsor Kodak nor the busy cast has signed up for a second season.

Three to watch

It’s “Step Up” meets “X-Men,” as this new Paramount Digital series takes the medium to gravity-defying heights, courtesy of Puma. The show has routinely topped Hulu’s most-viewed series since its July debut.

Two amateur copy editors for a men’s magazine enlist their Samsung phones to check the most obscure facts about guest stars such as rocker Dave Navarro, supermodel Karolina Kurkova and “Jeopardy” host Alex Trebek.

“Big Brother” and “Amazing Race” alum Jeff Schroeder takes a consumer-generated trek across the globe paying not even as much of a dime for his travels, courtesy of transportation sponsor American Airlines and communications partner AT&T.

Commercials in ‘Mad Men’ Style, Created for the Series
By STUART ELLIOTT
August 3, 2010
Read the original article at NYTimes.com.

The fact that Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, the new agency on “Mad Men,” has landed the Pond’s cold cream account is not the only advertising news to come out of the television series this week. AMC, the cable channel that presents the show about the ad industry — and America — in the 1960s has made a deal with a giant marketer, Unilever, for a season-long sponsorship agreement.

The deal, for undisclosed terms, is centered on six commercials being created in the “Mad Men” vein for six Unilever products. Although brands like BMW, Canada Dry and Clorox have previously tailored commercials for the show, this is believed to be the first deal to involve multiple product lines from the same marketer.

The first Unilever brand in the spotlight is Dove, to be followed by Breyers, Hellmann’s, Klondike, Suave and Vaseline. All six vignette-style commercials are being produced by Mindshare Entertainment, part of the Mindshare media agency that is a division of the GroupM unit of WPP.

In addition to appearing during all 13 episodes of the current season of “Mad Men,” its fourth, the commercials will also be on a YouTube channel and Facebook, as well as on other Web sites.

The commercials are set at an ad agency named Smith Winter Mitchell, which, like Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, is a make-believe firm. The year is 1964, as it is in this season of “Mad Men,” which began on July 25.

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The fact that all six Unilever brands were around when “Mad Men” takes place is at the heart of the sponsorship, as it has been for other brands that tipped their hats to the past in commercials created especially for the series.

The goal was to “celebrate their heritage,” said Kathy O’Brien, vice president for marketing for Unilever’s personal care products, who is based in Englewood Cliffs, N.J., in a way that is “culturally and contextually relevant.”

Each commercial will take place at the imaginary 1964 agency, then be followed by a current spot for the product from its regular agency. Each commercial will feature two characters, a copywriter and an art director, trying to create an ad for each brand 46 years ago.

For instance, in the first commercial, the copywriter, Phil Smith, and the art director, Tad Winter, are stymied as they try to come up with an ad for Dove soap. A secretary comes over to tell them how her skin “feels soft and smooth and clean” after using Dove. Eureka! The creative teammates have their ad.

(The plot echoes a plot line from “Mad Men,” about how a secretary, Peggy Olson, became a copywriter.)

The Dove commercial depicts packages of Dove soap the way they appeared in 1964. That authentic period look will prevail throughout the six commercials, said Rob Master, North American media director for Unilever, who is also based in Englewood Cliffs.

The deal with AMC was part of what Unilever calls its “reverse upfront,” Mr. Master said, a system by which the company works with cable channels and broadcast networks to develop ideas before the start of the annual upfront ad sales market.

“Money follows ideas,” Mr. Master said approvingly.

Charlie Collier, president and general manager at AMC in New York, part of the Cablevision Systems Corporation, described Unilever as “a client of the network for years,” as well as a company that has been “a creative advertiser across multiple networks,” citing deals Unilever has made with other TV channels.

Unilever has also been active as a sponsor online, pairing with Mindshare Entertainment for episodic video series for brands like Bertolli and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

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Mr. Collier likened the “custom creative” being run during “Mad Men” by sponsors like Unilever to the special commercials that appear during big television events like the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards.

“It’s nice to see people invest in custom creative at AMC as well,” he added.

Pond’s, the new client of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce is, it turns out, also a product sold by Unilever. So, too, is Popsicle, a package of which was glimpsed fleetingly in another scene in the episode that ran on Sunday.

Mr. Collier and the Unilever executives said the appearances of those Unilever brands during the episode were not part of the sponsorship deal. They “fit his needs for story-telling,” Mr. Collier said, referring to Matthew Weiner, the creator of “Mad Men,” as part of his inclusion of many “an iconic brand that was around in the day” in plot lines of the series.

For example, the Lucky Strike cigarette brand has been a prominent part of the show since the first episode of the first season. And it returned to play a major role in the episode on Sunday. But the maker of Lucky Strike, Reynolds American, has “no involvement, formal or otherwise,” with “Mad Men” or AMC, a spokesman, Richard Smith, wrote in an e-mail.

Such involvement would be barred, he said, under an agreement in 1998 between tobacco companies and state attorneys general that limited cigarette marketing tactics. It is also the policy of Reynolds American to provide no assistance to anyone seeking to include cigarettes or cigarette ads in media like television and movies, Mr. Smith said.

Other real brands that appeared in the episode on Sunday, without the benefit of sponsor support, included Maalox antacid, in its period glass bottle, and Pontiac; print ads for the “wide track” models of the defunct car line could be glimpsed tacked to a bulletin board in Peggy’s office.

In Hollywood, Everybody’s a Digital Revolutionary
BROOKS BARNES
July 24, 2010
Read the original article at NYTimes.com.

Sherlock Holmes More Popular than Tom Cruise

By Mark Sweeny
Monday 26 July 2010 11.59 BST
Read the original article at The Guardian.

BBC1’s reinvention of Conan Doyle’s master sleuth pulls in more viewers than Hollywood star’s appearance on Top Gear.

The BBC’s reinvention of Conan Doyle’s master sleuth Sherlock Holmes was watched by more than 7 million viewers last night, according to unofficial overnight audience figures for Sunday 25 July.

The first outing of the new three-part BBC1 series, which has been described as a cross between Withnail and I and The Bourne Ultimatum , attracted an average of 7.05 million viewers.

The drama, penned by Doctor Who writers Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, peaked at 7.4 million viewers and took a 28.5% audience share between 9pm and 10.30pm.

Sherlock, which stars Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role and Martin Freeman as Watson, was the top-rating show of the night.

Sherlock beat the star power of Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, who appeared on BBC2’s Top Gear while in the UK promoting their new film Knight and Day, which managed an average of 5.8 million viewers and a 22% share in the 8pm slot. The show peaked at 6.6 million viewers.

Top Gear beat ITV1’s 8pm drama Heartbeat, the broadcaster’s biggest rating show of the evening, which drew 4.7 million viewers and a 17.9% share.

Channel 4’s highest-rating show was the first of a four-part series, Amish: World’s Squarest Teenagers, which attracted 2.7 million viewers and an 8.9% share in the 8pm slot.

Gold stays ghoul with third ‘Haunting’
Sean Hood set to write ‘New York’

By TATIANA SIEGEL
Read the original article at Variety.com.

Gold Circle Films is moving forward on a third installment in its “Haunting” franchise. Next stop is Gotham.

Company has hired Sean Hood to write “The Haunting in New York,” which follows on the heels of last year’s “The Haunting in Connecticut” and the soon-to-lense “The Haunting in Georgia.”

Gold Circle is keeping the logline of the latest installment under wraps but said it will be based on a true story like the other two films.

“Haunting in Connecticut” earned $77 million worldwide and spawned “Haunting in Georgia,” which Tom Elkins will begin helming in August. Gold Circle noted that neither “Georgia” nor “New York” are sequels to “Connecticut” and instead are self-contained films with unique characters.

Paul Brooks will produce “New York” and Scott Niemeyer and Norm Waitt will exec produce. Brad Kessell is overseeing development for Gold Circle.