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MARKETING NEWS WANDA FEATURE FASHION NEWS Why is Nike prepared Wanda Group's The value of beauty as to pay $500m to keep entertainment illustrated by the sale a basketball star's ambitions know no of P&G's cosmetics to endorsement? Ask bounds. Is Disney Coty, Inc. for $12.5bn LeBron James Full edition watching? Full edition In full edition MediaTainment (Abridged) Finance Issue 27 For decision-makers and strategists who value creativity and www.mediatainmentfinance.com appreciate the value creativity brings to business For decision-makers and strategists who appreciate the value creativity brings to business FILM FUNDING Investment in movies: the fun and frustration MTF visits the Berlin Film Festival and listens to experts debate Page 8 CREATIVE Q&A FEATURE OUT-OF-HOME NEWS INDIA FEATURE Instrumental has funds from Warner English football icon David There is more to the Asian Music Group to Beckham is ready to take on US superpower than Bollywood. It's build a hybrid TV- Major League Soccer now that he's growing so rapidly, its international record label YouTube found the ideal home for a team influence is not far behind In full network Page 4 In full edition edition Editor’s Note Inside Full Edition NEWS ights! Camera! Action! might be a clichéd phrase, but 3 Film p 9 Books/Print p motion pictures still grip 4 Television p 10 Ads & Marketing p attention as entertainment.The unpredictability of success must 5 Music p 11 Fashion/Luxury p also make movies the most volatile form of L 6 Out-Of-Home p 12 Architecture/Design p creativity to finance. 7 Sports p 13 Photography/Art p This prompted MTF to first visit this year’s 8 Games p 14 Copyright p Berlin Film Festival, then head to the UK's Pinewood Studios, where the James Bond, Star Wars and Harry Potter films are shot, to talk to its chairman Michael Grade. We also had a word with Philipp Kreuzer, co-founder of the REPORT FEATURE new German film funding firm Maze Pictures. COUNTRY PROFILE THE Q&A SESSIONS What we learned about funding's precarious challenges makes fascinating reading in our latest Creative Commentaries report on page 36. India Instrumental Our corporate profile reveals how mega Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group has included the filmed entertainment business in its diversification strategy. And Bollywood movies are captivating audiences at home and overseas, as we discover in the Country Profile on India. In full edition In full edition Also, check out the interview with Conrad Withey, the YouTube network impresario h h melding the business models of record labels and TV networks. And don’t forget the News sections on investments in the creative sectors. FEATURE FEATURE Until our next issue, it’s a wrap. CREATIVE CORPORATE CREATIVE COMMENTARIES Juliana Koranteng editor-in-chief Wanda Film email [email protected] Group Funding twitter @mediatainmentMT NAVIGATION Click on the p symbol to go directly to that page. Click on the S symbol to return to this page. In full edition In full edition SUBSCRIPTION h h To subscribe to the most enriching and enlightening aide to your media and entertainment business strategies, contact REGULARS [email protected] 17 MTF Diary p 18 About MTF p MediaTainment Finance 27 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 Instrumental Feature Creative Q&A Session: Instrumental Digital technology is enabling the emergence of a whole new way of doing business in the worlds of media, entertainment and creativity. Instrumental is using YouTube, Facebook, Vine, Periscope and other social media, plus apps to show record labels and TV networks how to reach today’s young, tomorrow’s adults. One solution is to introduce brand owners and advertisers to the 30 million registered devotees following its roster of artists The beauty of digital technology is creative studios that mentor young the freedom it gives creative talent to emerging media, entertainment and develop new intellectual property (IP) creative (MEC) talent. that traditional media organisations Many of them started by getting have been far too bloated to get their hold of affordable video cameras, heads around. converting their bedrooms into London-based Instrumental is amateur TV studios and uploading among the new wave of digital studios their amateur productions on to to have successfully adopted Google- YouTube, a video sharing platform owned video sharing goliath YouTube that reaches more than 1 billion to create a new type of entertainment people globally. business for the 21st century. Several now look set to become the The company describes itself superstars of tomorrow as research Instrumental CEO/Co-Founder as a social music network, but its shows they are more popular among Conrad Withey foundation is the multichannel teenagers weaned on the Internet, networks (MCN), a new form of compared to conventional movie, TV MediaTainment Finance 27 S P4 feature Instrumental and music celebrities. YouTube has lowered the entry barriers. And that has inspired a new wave of MEC impresarios, like Instrumental’s CEO/Co-Founder Conrad Withey, to build a next- generation entertainment venture that melds a record label, TV network, live theatre and talent management expertise into a new type of enterprise for the 21st century. Hybrid TV/labels model As Withey puts it: “The way we work with talent is similar to the music industry, but the way we finance them is similar to the TV networks.” Formerly called PopShack until the company realised that moniker restricted its image to one linked to only pop music, the name was changed to Instrumental in October Top and right: British singer Red 2015. It then hit the headlines when (real name Nicole Simpson) is Warner Music Group (WMG), the among the YouTube acts whose multinational record label, became a careers are being developed by Instrumental; she has more than major investor. 90,000 registered followers The endorsement of Bill Roedy, the man who almost singlehandedly turned iconic US music TV brand MTV into a global phenomenon, includes working in the music was also assured when he joined business (a former Warner Music Instrumental’s board of directors. Entertainment president) and the Instrumental is an IP harbour TV industry (a consultant serving in which reside 300 mostly music independent TV producers), reasons artists, each one of whom hosts his or that brand owners and advertisers her own YouTube channel where they will want to be associated with more than 10 million views. In an perform their own compositions or Instrumental’s creative assets and industry that traditionally needed cover versions of hits, or create their multitude of viewers. radio and TV commercials to boost own type of entertainment. their music artists’ profiles, Withey A myriad of mostly teenage points out how social media (another Millennials and young digital native YouTube celebrities digital tech) has made the artists adults get it, and hundreds of Among the artists on the at Instrumental and other MCNs thousands of them are subscribers to company’s roster is Elyar Fox, who independent entrepreneurs. each of the 300 channels. Combined, has been compared to Justin Bieber They know their fans and how to Instrumental as a platform reaches and whose YouTube channel boasts deploy social media dexterously to more than 30 million YouTube fans more than 294,000 subscribers. reach them round-the-clock. who watch their favourite artists’ Up-and-coming songstress Red has Elyar Fox, for example, has more channels billions and billions of times. more than 94,500 subscribers. The than 1.7 million Facebook fans, And that excludes the millions YouTube videos of colleague Matt almost 260,000 Twitter followers of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram DeFreitas (pictured on page 32), who and 135,000 Instagram devotees. In followers devoted to Instrumental’s received public attention when he addition to Facebook, Twitter and roster of artists. auditioned for singing contest The Instagram, artists like Fox are at So Withey, whose background X Factor in the UK, have nabbed MediaTainment Finance 27 S P5 feature Instrumental home using micro-video platform Vine and live video streaming app Periscope. The goal of Instrumental’s management is to combine Fox’s resources with those of his 299 colleagues to build a destination that not only marketers want to be associated with, but record labels and TV producers would also approach in their search for new talent. They are already liaising with WMG’s more than 180 record labels worldwide plus another 140-plus third party labels whose recordings are distributed by WMG. The 58-year-old WMG, which operates YouTube channels for many of its labels and artists like Charli XCX (1 million subscribers), Jason Derulo (4 million), Skrillex (12 million), Madonna (651,000), also hopes to learn from the new digital skills that the very young Instrumental brings. media channels, depending on the Instrumental’s roster of acts might Instrumental protégé Elyar Fox has already age group being targeted.” not be as huge as frontrunners like had a Top 5 hit in the UK, boasts more than 23 PewDiePie (more than 42 million “Vine is much more effective for million YouTube views and continues to retain YouTube subscribers). But while younger people. Older people prefer the loyalty of 295,000 YouTube subscribers, being a multi-million dollar megastar Facebook. YouTube sits in between. 134,000 Instagram and 258,000 Twitter followers is a nice goal to aim for, Withey insists So you tailor the content for the the business focuses on creators with platform.