July 2012

Disney, Nick, Netflix, No?

Animation /

This is an interesting story, an analyst called Todd Juenger has come out with a report about children’s programming, and one of the key points he makes, is that both Disney and Viacom (owner of Nickelodeon) should limit the amount of programming they give to Netflix. The problem as he sees it is that Netlfix, which is sans ads and allows users to cherry pick what they watch. is a threat to both companies’ existing business models:

 His advice for entertainment companies is to be cautious about how much kids programming they make available to the online video streaming provider and in which windows. “We remain firm in our belief Viacom and Walt Disney should limit their content availability on Netflix,” Juenger wrote.

As big a no-brainer as it is, it’s still amazing to see this kind of recommendation being made. Yes, it is a threat to the existing business model, but it also represents opportunities for new revenue streams, or even attracting new audiences to existing properties. I can tell you right now that if Avatar: The Last Airbender wasn’t on Netflix, there is only a slim chance that I would have even tried to watch it. Now that I have, I plan on buying all the DVDs. Yay new revenue for Viacom!

Instead we get a recommendation to partition content into individual companies’ services, not unlike Disney’s Keychest. Hardly a practical solution. I’m old enough to know that the internet didn’t really start firing on all cylinders until people discovered a world outside the walled garden that was AOL. Online viewing should not be going in the opposite direction.

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Is The BBC Olympics Ad A Rip-Off?

Animation /

To use the tired old quote, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. However the line where it turns from imitation to blatant plagiarism is a blurry one that is often whipped out when two pieces of content appear to be eerily similar.

Witness the latest in the pantheon of “he copied me” accusations. British bank Lloyds TSB ran an ad last year that began the build-up to the Olympic games. It looks like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mc9yKO-OCAc

Meanwhile, the BBC has launched the trailer for their coverage of the games, which has some crying foul. Here it is for comparison:

Never mind the fact that both films were created by the same ad agency, does the BBC one rip-off the Lloyds one?

Hardly. There is a similarity to be sure in terms of the look and feel of the spots, but that is only part of the story. Both spots have very different storylines and both have very different messages; the former selling a bank’s social connections, the latter selling an explicit product.

The likely truth is that someone at the BBC like the Lloyds ads and requested the ad agency, Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe Y&R to create something similar.

Both videos should further illustrate that similarity does not necessarily mean stolen content.

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Animated Albums Brings Covers To Life

Animation /

Despite being near ubiquitous at this point, it’s still fun to come across a Tumblelog that pushed the artistic envelope just a wee but further. Enter Animated Albums, which takes actual album covers and, well, animates them!

Although they’re not the most graceful in the world, there is nonetheless a sense of satisfaction to be gleaned from the unquestionable Terry Gilliam feel to it all. Below are a few example and be sure to check out the archive too as the site sadly ends at November 2011.

 

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