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ADVERTISING CREATIVITY FEATURE FILM NEWS OOH NEWS Creativity in advertising is Disney, the world’s Theme-park group Merlin dead. Ad agencies and biggest entertainment Entertainments is slowly their clients couldn’t group, wants to swallow conquering China, soon to disagree more. We listen to up rival 21st Century Fox be the attractions sector’s their reasons Page 9 for $66bn In full edition biggest market In full edition MediaTainment (Abridged) Finance Issue 30 For decision-makers and strategists who value creativity and www.mediatainmentfinance.com appreciate the value creativity brings to business 21ST CENTURY ADVERTISING CREATIVITY A concoction of advance tech, science and, even, modern-day witchcraft MTF talks to avant-garde ad production firm UNIT9 Pages 4-8 TELEVISION NEWS SPORTS NEWS PRINT MEDIA NEWS From online book store to a $1bn Few people outside of The end of an era as TV adaptation of Tolkien, Amazon Canada know how to Time Inc is sold to rival keeps amazing us as it makes one play lacrosse, but it is Meredith Corp. in $2.8bn of the biggest investments in getting big foreign deal In full edition screen entertainment In full edition investors In full edition Editor’s Note Contents NEWS or this issue, we fell in love with advertising and cared enough to ask, 3 Film p 9 Books/Print p what ails the sector? Viewers keep 4 Television p 10 Ads & Marketing p finding ways to avoid TV commercials, ad-blockingF has become an online pastime, 5 Music p 11 Fashion/Luxury p programmatic advertising sounds soulless, 6 Out-Of-Home p 12 Architecture/Design p while illegal content and hate crime have made the already tight-budgeted advertisers wary of 7 Sports p 13 Photography/Art p contemporary digital marketing. 8 Games p 14 Copyright p But, check out our Creative Commentaries report on Next-Gen Advertising Creativity (page 7) for a glimpse of why tech-centric marketing does not spell the death knell of the ad creatives. NEWS FEATURE And to top that up, we interview Yifei Chai at TELEVISION THE Q&A SESSIONS ground-breaking media-production company UNIT9. It is one of those ventures that actually make the creative ads we see on TV, online, on Tolkien on UNIT9 mobile and, soon, on any platform powered by emerging tech. Amazon We think you’ll be fascinated by why the words “Frankenstein” and “witchcraft” pop up in our conversation with him. In the news section, big money continues to exchange hands: Meredith Corp. spends US$2.8bn on Time Inc.; Amazon is pouring In full edition US$1bn into a TV adaptation of Lord of the Rings; Disney is chasing Rupert Murdoch’s Fox h 4 h for $66bn. The creative sector still rocks. Juliana Koranteng FEATURE FEATURE editor-in-chief email CREATIVE INTERVIEW [email protected] COMMENTARIES twitter @mediatainmentMT Next-Gen Tom Kelshaw ads @ Wavemaker NAVIGATION Click on the p symbol to go directly to that page. Click on the S symbol to return to this page. h h SUBSCRIPTION 9 14 To subscribe to the most enriching and enlightening aide to your media and entertainment business strategies, contact REGULARS [email protected] 16 MTF Diary p 17 About MTF p MediaTainment Finance 30 S P2 U V technology + innovation x human ingenuity = creativity2 U V count on techmutiny for the latest stories on technology impacting the creative industries… and more U V techmutiny.net V feature UNIT9 Feature Creative Q&A Session: UNIT9 Amid the hype surrounding tech innovation, ad agencies rely on media-production companies to use Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence and other new tech in inventive ways to send brands’ messages to digital natives. Innovation Architect Yifei Chai, at maverick production company UNIT9, explores the use of tech, the groundbreaking influence of robotics and even the possible application of witchcraft in brand communications. It is so tempting to think of Yifei Chai Disney Company, Google and Stella as the 21st-century embodiment of Artois to Nissan, Adidas and charity the fabled Frankenstein (as in Mary organisation RSPCA. Shelley’s overreaching fictional However, let us start with one of scientist, not the monster). his preoccupations, The Pretender, a The Innovation Architect at mind-blowing project that triggered London-headquartered international the earlier Frankenstein analogy. media-production agency UNIT9 is Still a work in progress, this is how a charming and disarming individual he describes it: “It is a digital device who also happens to be a creative that allows one person to enter and director and product designer there. control another living person’s body, Additionally, Chai is behind and that includes a dead body with some of the most striking creative healthy muscles and body fluids.” Yifei Chai , Innovation Architect, campaigns at the award-winning He explains: “I could wake up and creative director and product firm, which boasts a roster of become someone else for a day.” designer at UNIT9 clients that range from The Walt He was inspired to enter this MediaTainment Finance 30 S P4 feature UNIT9 unknown territory, at least to the creative industries, during his studies. His training includes a product design degree from London’s celebrated arts college Central Saint Martins, and a double Master’s Degree in Innovation Design Engineering (IDE) at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London only a few years ago. IDE puts a spell on you “At college, I wanted to explore the threshold between engineering and design. I wanted to create a digital experience that evokes emotion, so I chose witchcraft for my graduation project.” He says he is intrigued by the notion of witchcraft because it is provocative and, in fiction and Hollywood movies, entertaining. Yet, it remains an ancient belief that is still not classified as a religion. “I want to use technology and science to engage in something that The Snow Drawings (above), could be read as far as two miles is truly abstract and mythical,” Chai UNIT9's work for the 2017 Alpine Ski away. Championships featuring fans' tweets Instead of sculpting the messages says. “The Pretender recreates the sculpted with robot-powered snow concept of possessing somebody blowers with spades and shovels (which else’s body the way witchcraft claims would have taken forever and hence to. If I could use real technology to been impractical), UNIT9 used create a sensation that is only seen He talks about the “emotional customised robot-operated Honda in movies, would I make people alchemy” that mixes technology with snow blowers that featured the tech feel safer, now that technology is emotional intelligence to help brands inside self-driving cars. achieving the same thing? Think of connect with today’s tech-savvy The snow blowers had pre- the way that Stone Age humans used consumers. installed GPS coordinates controlled to be afraid of fire, but now we are Examples of UNIT9-created by satellites to write out the not scared of it.” campaigns:- messages. And that remarkable feat The Pretender project is a long- was completed in a couple of days. term undertaking that Chai says has The Snow Drawings campaign Even then, other challenges received some government funding. was commissioned by the ad agency cropped up. “We were at the mercy Heimat Berlin for Switzerland-based of nature, especially if it snowed Tech marketing magic telecoms group Swisscom, which because you needed the sun to In the meantime, he applies his wanted to enable fans to send special cast shadows for people to see the resourceful lateral thinking to messages to the athletes participating drawings.” spearhead awe-inspiring marketing in the 2017 Alpine Ski Championships Other UNIT9 innovative campaigns that centre on innovation, in St Moritz. campaigns include Water Made Active engineering and product design. With its own bespoke letterings for the energy-boosting water G His type of storytelling creates and typeface, UNIT9 literally carved Active, which belongs to US brand experiences that utilise the emerging out the tweets, drawings and owner Gatorade (part of PepsiCo), consumer technologies, including portraits sent by 3,500 fans via a and ad agency TBWA\Chiat\Day. Artificial Intelligence (AI), Virtual dedicated app into a colossal snow- The video starred what is believed Reality (VR), Augmented Reality covered piece of land that was at to be the first-ever animated (AR), animation and a variety of least 500 metres in diameter or about running, jumping and kickboxing video special effects. 16 football pitches. The inscriptions human figure made from nothing but MediaTainment Finance 30 S P5 feature UNIT9 Water Made Active: UNIT9 extreme cyclist’s total commitment ad-agency clients up to date with creates life for beverage brand to his craft. It was part of Lexus’ what can and cannot be done with Gatorade with a kickboxer made sponsorship of cycling events. AR, VR, AI and any other emerging from nothing but water droplets consumer-tech. Unique experiences That is why Chai feels his degrees These examples show how marketers in IDE prepared him for a career in are moving on from selling goods advertising that he had not originally drops of water. It required motion- and services with the traditional planned. capture animation and at least half a 30-second TV commercial featuring “The course was designed to give tonne of water. an Oscar awards-standard narrative students a foot in the disciplines of Via live streaming on Facebook, and cinematography. They want engineering and design. You want UNIT9’s work on Dia de los Muertos campaigns that also offer unique engineers who can dream and (Day of the Dead) for Mexican experiences. designers who know what they are brewery Grupo Modelo and ad “We handle the production side talking about.