Video Games outsell DVDs and CDs

Video games are expected to outsell music and other video products this year for the first time, research by retail experts said on Wednesday. Verdict Research UK, predicts that the video games market would grow by 1.37 billion pounds or 42 percent in 2008, outstripping music and video sales which were expected to stagnate.

Machinima Secures Funding

Machinima.com has secured a $3.85 million investment from MK Capital and other private investors. The funds will support future development and business expansion plans for its advertising network that provides film making, animation and video game technologies for companies like EA, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Paramount, Sega, Universal Studios and Warner Bros.

David Lynch's Digital WebTV Show

David Lynch is developing a Web series based on his most recent book Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness and Creativity (published in December 2006 by Tarcher) for On Networks. Lynch recently unveiled a new visual installation for Cartier,"Diamonds, Gold and Dreams," in Miami.

TwoFour 54 Studio Hub

TwoFour 54 a new tax-free media zone launched in the United Arab Emirates last week is set become one of the world's leading media centres, midway between Hollywood and Bollywood, comprising regional and international companies operating in various media sectors, such as film, broadcasting, publishing, digital technologies and music.

Spielberg heads for Bollywood

Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks and Twentieth Century Fox are the latest Hollywood studios to jump onto the Bollywood bandwagon. They follow Sony (Saawariya), Warner Bros (Saas Bahu aur Sensex) and Disney (Roadside Romeo) who have already made forays into Bollywood.

One Show Entertainment 2008 kicks off

Gold, Silver and Bronze Pencils will be awarded for the best branded entertainment created during 2008 at next month's One Show Entertainment awards ceremony in Los Angeles. The ceremony will be held October 7, 2008 at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills, California. The launch signals the first time any part of the One Show has been held outside New York.

LG15 Sequel Premieres September 20

The Resistance, like its predecessor, will rely on brand integrations as well as advertising. The re-branded "LG15" production company EQAL, helmed by Greg Goodfried and Miles Beckett, unveiled their third series, after Lonelygirl15 and British derivative KateModern, which found a home on social network Bebo. The Resistance will have its "home" and surrounding community discussions at LG15.com, but it will be syndicated on MySpaceTV, Veoh, Hulu, YouTube, and Imeem.

Italy OKs Paid Product Placement

The Italian government will put current European rules on television content into effect today, officially making commercial product placements on the small screen legal. The practice has been allowed in most other European Union member states for years, but Italy officially resisted the move until now. Though the site of brand names in Italian television programs is not unheard of, it was previously illegal to place brands in productions for a fee.

Generation Y Prefer Brands in Content

Some 9 percent of young U.S. adults surveyed said they are most interested in advertising being delivered via non-traditional media such as product placement in video games, movies and TV shows a recent MRI study “Ads on Emerging Media Vehicles” has found. Consumers who prefer advertising messages delivered through their mobile devices and through product placement tend to be younger, pro-innovation, pro-celebrity and pro-fashion,” said Anne Marie Kelly, VP of marketing and strategic planning at MRI.

Google's In-Game Advertising Play

Speculation over Google's in-game ad play with testing of its Adsense for Games technology is a buzz. James Grant Hay provided Digital Ministry with his recent analysis earlier in the day.

TiVo's Remote Product Purchase

TiVo's Product Purchase feature in partnership with Amazon will enable users to click on watermark links in-programs to purchase products like CDs, DVDs and books promoted on talk shows like Oprah all from the touch of the remote control. TiVo's separate deal with YouTube last month also signals the importance of being a channel partner on YouTube for branded content. Telescopic advertising, combined with clickable hypervideo ushers in the future of in-video advertising.

UK Gov to Consult on Product Placement

As part of the consultation on how the UK should implement the European Union's Audio Visual Media Services (AVMS) Directive, the Government is considering whether to allow product placement in certain circumstances. The DCMS consultation closes 31 October. The EU Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS) directive came into force on 19 December 2007. The UK has until 19 December 2009 to implement it.

Branded Content hits Cannes Lions 2008

MindShare's Breaking The Mould: New Models For Branded Entertainment just kicked off in Cannes. MindShare Entertainment President David Lang will reveal a tell all in-depth case study on agency clients Unilever and Sprint, which last year created the branded entertainment smash, ‘In the Motherhood’, a ground-breaking, multi-platform, online comedy series. David will be joined by Unilever’s VP of Global Media, Laura Klauberg and Sprint’s VP of Media and Digital Marketing, Anita Newton. If you miss this seminar, make sure you attend 60 Frames sponsored event on Tuesday Hollywood + The Internet: Creating More Engaging Branded Entertainment.

STB Data System Proving Ad Efficient

Make no mistake, set-top-box (STB) data will prove to be a godsend for the future of media buying decisions in television that will ultimately make it easier for brands to buy, use and measure advanced advertising product, such as addressable and interactive ads. Google has access to STB data from EchoStar, and DirecTV is working with TNS. STBs provide the necessary "click-through" data stream for broadcast and cable TV that online media has enjoyed entirely on its own up until now. The resulting analytics are expected to be a potential goldmine for content distributors.

ITV's Product Placement Strategy

Since his ITV board appointment in September last year as MD of Brand and Commercial, Rupert Howell has been quick to seize on the EU's recent dergulation of product placement under the Broadcast Directive by lobbying local UK broadcast regular Ofcom (namely the Department of Culture, Media & Sport) to loosen its restrictions governing product placement in Britain. Such a move by Howell and ITV will greatly position the broadcaster to tap new branded content and advertiser-funded programming revenues at a time in which U.S. broadcasters such as Fox TV are shortening the ad breaks increasingly through the use of monetising ad-inventory in programming.

Visible Measures Analytics of Online Video

If you're looking for the gold standard in online video metrics, look no further than Visible Measures. Visible Measures works with online video sites and services as well as with advertisers to track interaction with videos virally across the Internet.

Branded Apps InShot at Facebook Garage II

The interest in branded virtual goods applications on Facebook has been steadily rising since Stanford University hosted the first Virtual Goods Summit in Palo Alto, California last year. At last week's Melbourne Facebook Garage II, James Grant Hay of InShot talked to developers about the increasing importance of applications that also sell branded products in the real world, such as Slide's branded SuperPokes for Estee Lauder. James also talked about the need to measure the efficacy of these applications through the use of companies such as Sometrics.

Content Monetisation Gets Busy

Evaluating ad-inventory in-content just got busier. It's now estimated that up to 20 different brand integrations over 40 minutes of program content — or around one placement every two minutes would need to occur every night for every scripted TV show in order to replicate the current financial TV model in the U.S, where there are 10 minutes of national TV commercial messages per hour of prime-time programming — plus two more minutes for local advertising time, as well as additional minutes per hour of network promotion time.

EQAL hooks up with CBS

EQAL, has hooked up with CBS to push network content onto the web and mobile phones via interactive featurettes. The deal is a nonexclusive partnership that gives CBS a first look at any new concepts EQAL creates that could be utilized on a combination of TV, Internet and mobile. In addition, EQAL can either partner or consult with producers of CBS programs to help them build out online extensions to their series.

Endemol hires Marco Di Gioacchino

Marco Di Gioacchino, will spearhead Endemol Group's newly created branded entertainment division. Di Gioacchino, based in London, will work with Endemol’s operating companies around the world finding sponsors for the entertainment giant’s shows.

Ikea The Sims 2 Campaign

Ikea has inked a deal with "The Sims 2" to provide an online content package, The Sims 2 Ikea Home Stuff, will allow players to buy all their favorite Swedish-made furniture, virtually. H&M, which signed on with the game last year to provide The Sims 2 H&M Fashion Stuff, is pushing its partnership from virtual world to real world, as is now the case for many reversals. EA ships The Sims 2 Ikea Home Stuff June 23.

Sony Ericsson W62S in MGS4

We've got some nice screen grabs of Sony Ericsson's W62S in Metal Gear Solid 4, the upcoming stealth action video game directed by Hideo Kojima for the PS3. The game will be released worldwide on Thursday, June 12, 2008.

ICM Names Branded Entertainment Chief

Former Mercedes-Benz USA marketing exec, Carol Goll will head International Creative Management's global branded entertainment division. The move reaffirms ICMs continued commitment to matching stars with brands. Goll will be based at ICM's Los Angeles headquarters.

TBA Global Delves Deep

TBA Global has formalized its branded entertainment activities through the creation of TBA Digital Entertainment Engagement Programming, or simply: TBA DEEP. Brian Murphy, evp, helms the unit.

Product Placement in Online Video 2.0

Digital Hollywood: As online video content producers of WebTV shows like LG15 seek an even greater audience share online, monetising their content through product mentions and placements integrated into their shows is a big talking point here in Los Angeles this week as part of Digital Hollywood. Since advertising around online video is still in its infancy and most ads don't travel well in viral videos, making ads part of the content is rapidly becoming part of the solution.

Golddigga Rocks Sofia's Diary

Hot urban label Golddigga is the first official fashion sponsor of Sofia’s Diary (Sure Girl by Unilever was brokered earlier by MindShare Performance and Interaction) on Bebo. Golddigga will help in “shaping the imaginative storylines” and aims to open up a dialogue with the Bebo audience by offering the opportunity to “befriend” the brand via its profile page and enter competitions to win clothing.

Mercedes GLK Gets Sex And The City

Head of Mercedes-Benz Entertainment Liason Office in Los Angeles, Ferdinand Froning has sonar senses when it comes to proofing Hollywood scripts for product placement opportunities on behalf of the marque. So it was when Stuttgart gave Froning and the producers of next month's must see Sex And The City feature, the all clear to position the new SUV GLK in the film and to reproduce all its product banners for a special New York Fashion Show tie-in scene. The film opens 23 May girls.

Lights, Camera, Action at Edelman Studios

The cat's now well and truly out of the bag with PR giant Edelman readying the launch of Edelman Studios, a virtual studio that will link emerging talent and professional talent with brands such as Burger King Corp., Butterball, Expedia and Kraft's Philadelphia Cream Cheese to name a few. Whether it's client money underwriting the costs of production or in the case of WPP's GroupM actually staking the content themselves via multimillion dollar investment funds to co-develop programs with the TV networks, the appetite for content creation and ownership has only just begun.

Animax Unplugs Branded Content

Animax Unplugged, a joint venture studio for developing branded digital content for the desktop and mobile Web plans to produce interactive campaigns and original content that includes casual games, Facebook and iPhone applications and widgets.

Puma Opens L.A. Offices

Fashion athletic company Puma said that it will open a new office dedicated to entertainment marketing next month in Los Angeles. The West Coast office will be geared at increasing the company's partnerships and product interaction with music and film celebrities.

Omnicom Taps Product Placement Online

Omnicom Media Group Digital has entered into a strategic partnership with NBC Universal's Digital Studio division with ambitious plans for scripted brand integration opportunities for its clients in digital programming. At least one production, “Gemini Division,” is scheduled for the summer with the first brands to be involved in the series are Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, United Parcel Service and the Acura TSX sold by American Honda Motor.

The move positions Omnicom and it's new digital CEO Matt Spiegel over its rival WPP, who only last year created some branded television content of its own, co-producing the drama series October Road with Touchstone Television. That move took Group M, the media planning and buying division of WPP, into a role that traditionally is held by a production company, using its own finances to invest in the production.

Last week, Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive of WPP, spoke of his group's plans to work more closely with Hollywood stars and media companies to help finance films and television series in a bid to promote its clients’ products.

All things being EQAL

Lonelgirl15’s creators, Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried have formed EQAL, an interactive media company that will continue producing the Lonelygirl15 and KateModern series among others to come. The new company has raised $5 million in Series A from Spark Capital and individuals such as Conrad Riggs, Ron Conway, Marc Andreesen, and Georges Harik.

Sorrell on Owning Branded Content

WPP chief Sir Martin Sorrell said in Italy this week that agency groups must work harder to crack the key opportunity of owning and producing branded content by tapping the intellectual property talent houses of William Morris and alike. Sorrell is right, the taps do need to be turned on. But for fear of technology innovation overtaking his group's worldwide creativity revenues, WPP must also begin to make significant media technology investments of its own. That includes owning 24/7 Real Media and adding Yahoo! to its radar watch.

MySpace takes a Shine to Web-to-TV

International Web-to-TV might actually be a viable aftermarket for Web shows. Michael Eisner just sold "Prom Queen" into several international markets, including France and Japan and not long after her MIPTV keynote address on "creativity without borders" in Cannes last week, CEO of Shine Group Elisabeth Murdoch has been tapped by MySpace TV to license "Quarterlife" and Roommates" abroad or create localised versions of the shows.

Branded Virtual Goods

The great thing about branded virtual goods is that, the objects themselves (take Dr Pepper on Facebook) identically resemble products consumers use in the real world. The objects just also happen to be the ad unit, something we find just tantilising in our own little part of the development world on Facebook.

Product Placement Continues Skywards

In a growing sign of things to come, more advertisers are turning to product placement. Nielsen's product placement service showed a 13 percent increase to 25,950 in the number of placement occurrences in prime-time broadcast network programming in the US last year. By contrast, Internet ad spending was up 19%, while all other media categories continued to decline with the top spot-TV markets down 5%.

FYI Raises + $1 milllion in Seed Capital

New York-based online media company For Your Imagination (FYI) has raised an additional $1 million in seed capital, from CensensusOne Ventures, LLC, and will also be partnering with the firm in order to raise a Series A round of capital. For Your Imagination is a company that develops and markets quality content for Internet television and web video series. So far it’s produced DadLabs and Break a Leg, among other projects.

Mercedes Shifts to Web Show

Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz has launched its own music show on its own Internet-based television station. The drive away from print and TV towards the Internet -- a move that BMW AG tried successfully with their series of film shorts, now sees Mercedes using the Web to shift attention away from individual cars, and instead draw attention to the brand itself.

Stream wins Häagen Dazs

TBWA/Stream, the brand entertainment arm of TBWA-London, last month won the UK branded content business for premium ice cream brand Häagen Dazs, following a three way pitch.

Repucom Appoints Shahid Zainudeen

Our friends at Repucom, global broadcast analysis service provider in branded content have appointed Shahid Zainudeen as Senior Vice President to oversee Business Development in India. Headquartered in Sydney, Repucom provide our clients with actionable information and insights for planning, buying and post-analysing media investments within branded content environments.

Kodak Focuses on Products In Shot

Jeff Hayzlett, Kodak's US chief business development officer has indicated the brand will continue to sponsor NBC's The Celebrity Apprentice, including this week's season finale. The company saw "unbelievable success" when its products were the centerpiece of a Jan. 17 episode, with sales doubling the following week and the company getting mentions in such places as ABC talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live and Rollingstone.com. Such product placement tie- ins range from $500,000 to $2.5 million.

Content 360 Kicks Off Cannes

Over 100 submissions were received in the branded-content category "Using the Power of the Brand for the Power of Good," in next month's International Content 360 festival competition set to kick off at MIPTV market in Cannes. Winners in each category will be announced April 10 during Ray Cokes' "Zapping Show" and take home prize money totaling 113,000 euros ($176,827) in development financing.

Chrysler Saluts The All-For-Nots

Lead sponsors for Michael Eisner's new Webisode The All-For-Nots are Chrysler and Expedia.com, and both will have distinct product placement within the series. The show will feature Chrysler's 2008 Dodge Nitro and Expedia.com's online tools for making travel arrangements.

Tourism NZ, Hyatt, Avis Turn to Video

The 100% Pure New Zealand channel on YouTube has been viewed over 800,000 times and received over 1,200 comments within six months. Also in the travel sector, Hyatt Hotels, which uploaded its Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort video onto YouTube has been viewed over 3,000 times in the past year. Avis is considering providing instructional videos on how to drive a Prius and other new hybrid autos in the fleet.

Contagious Viral Video Blends

Since Blendtec's golf ball crunching viral videos debuted on YouTube last year, retail sales of the company's blenders have grown fivefold, to an estimated $10 million, up from $2 million in 2006. The original run of five videos cost only $50 to produce and has been viewed more than 35 million times on YouTube. Watch the Will it Blend videos here..

Babelgum Digital Studio Fund

Silvio Scaglia’s IPTV network Babelgum, has created a e10 million ($15.4 million) fund to invest in original and exclusive content, putting it in the enviable position of transforming itself into the first "digital media studio" of its kind. The Dublin headquartered company, recently opened its online film festival by making more than 1,000 shorts available for public viewing and voting.

YouTube Live TV

YouTube's live TV expansion, which will enable marketers to reach millions of internet users worldwide through branded web TV channels and full-length ad-funded programmes, is one of the reasons why we started branding InShotTV early last year. As Goggle's InVideo ad platform opens up, so many brands are going to need a helping hand to create, script and navigate this space.

Floating Film Funds Splash

Charter Pacific Corporation (ASX code: CHF), Cinevistaas, and a group of Bollywood financiers, are continuing to float film funds to finance productions or buy film rights, to capitalise on the boom in Indian film-making. Charter Pacific Corporation, is expected to form a fund to make Indian movies. CPC is expected to float next month with a fund worth AUD$ 20 million to release 5-8 films a year. The films could be in Hindi, English or any regional language. With the producer off-set now in place, at least 40 per cent of the film will have to be made in Australia in order for investors to receive the tax benefit. Films could either be shot in India or make use of post-production facilities in Australia. More..

IGA Battle Looms for Sony PS3

An all out in-game advertising battle is expected this week, after PS3 video game console maker Sony reportedly announced its intention to open its video game platform to third party in-game ad serving networks, sparking a fierce battle for the ad space.

Sony reportedly will offer an open platform, meaning all three in-game-ad-serving companies Double Fusion, IGA and Google-owned AdScape all will be able to sell ads in games that run on PS3. A fourth company, Massive Inc, owned by Microsoft exclusively brokers deals on the Xbox 360. All three companies will need to strike deals with the major game publishers creating PS3 games, such as Electronic Arts, Activision and Ubisoft as soon as possible.

Let the games begin.

KateModern Signs Toyota

Producers of the online hit Webisode series KateModern have done it again, this time signing a branded entertainment deal with Toyota. Toyota's Aygo Platinum will make a cameo appearance in the February 25 episode of the show. KateModern's cast and crew will also drive Toyota cars as they film in the coming weeks.

Toyota ranks highest in retaining new-vehicle buyers, potentially because successful online advertising efforts have made Toyota a gateway brand for Gen Y. KateModern's fanbase shares it roots on UK-based social networking site Bebo. The show averages 1.5 million views per episode and has generated 35 million views to date.