For Your Imagination's distribution play

FYI increases advertising and sponsorship revenue for Web video by 34%

Spring 2009 Upfront - For Your Imagination Reel - Nov2008

Digital media and web video studio For Your Imagination has been successful in defining itself as a leader in online video. In a market still unsure of revenue models, FYI has demonstrated year-over-year revenue growth of 34% in sponsored and branded entertainment implemented of a leveraged distribution network and delivered strong advertiser video solutions. Their 2008 highlights have been on expansive reach, powerful advertising solutions, a focus on vertical video networks and sponsored and branded entertainment and on agency partnerships. They recently held a Spring 2009 Upfront event as a preview of upcoming web shows and verticals launching in 2009. FYI has held these in the past and they've been successful in building interest with advertisers and brand sponsors. The night's theme was “Who’s Watching?” and Tilzy.tv and Tubefilter both covered the Upfront here:

Tilzy.TV » Blog Archive » For Your Imagination's Upfront

For Your Imagination's Web Video Upfront Tonight, Launching New Web Series Verticals - Tubefilter News

I spoke with FYI CEO Paul Kontonis about the Upfront event and their press release on enhancing market leadership with reach, revenue and solutions which can be found at the end of this post.

Larry Kless: How did the Upfront go? How successful was it for FYI?

Paul Kontonis: I think it was successful for us because it gave us an opportunity to attract some attention to what we're doing in our content. It allowed us to position our content to the advertising agencies that we'd love to work with. I think it's important that we react to the changing economy not only by reducing expenses but by also putting out a more compelling product and service that can still attract the dollars. So, I do agree very strongly that when the economy is not going in the right direction you reduce expenses and run a very tight ship and we've been needing to do that our whole lifespan… so for us it's all about how do we continue to innovate, get those dollars and provide a real powerful advertising solution for the brands we hope we can work with.

LK: How often do you host the Upfronts? Have you been doing them for a while?

PK: Yes, the first one we did I believe was in the Fall of '07 so I think that this might our 6th. We've been doing them once a quarter since late 2007.

LK: Any immediate results?

PK: Sure, we've had inquiries on a couple of our shows right away and about some brand opportunities. I would say that we've sent out information on Lurker the new series by the Break a Leg guys to some big online destination site type of networks. We've had inquiry on the Greenhouse which is our Green Living network and also on the Spanish show Spanish por la Mañana.

LK: Regarding your press release, did you share that as part of the package for the Upfront event?

PK: Not all of it. The revenue related stuff wasn't there at the event but everything else was.

LK: So how about the expansive reach? Your release says your looking at exciting partnerships with Hulu, Joost, Dailymotion, Howcast and Tremor Media and OggiFinoggi.

PK: Coming in January we'll start having our content put out on Hulu. We actually close the Hulu deal much earlier this year but they use an encoding format MP2 that is not really standard in the industry so we've been holding back on spending the time to do that encoding specifically for them. Everyone else uses .mp4 except for them and Joost. They both are MP2 holdouts and they some pretty. When it comes to the file format they're a little on the primitive side in that A) they are using MP2 and B) they don't have the ability to encode. So for example, you could upload to let's say Blip or Viddler an .mov, an .avi, a .wmv, a .mp2, a mp4, pretty much any format you can think of, you can upload the Flip video format (.avi plus Divx plug-in) and it will work fine and they encode to the .mp4 format they use and the .flv format that use. Both Hulu and Joost don't do that at all so you actually have to give them exactly the file format you're going to use. So when you got all your files in your workflow to be .mp4 based since everyone uses.mp4, H.264 files are beautiful and then all of a sudden it come around to another file format it's a real pain in the @$. There's over 300 files and downloads alone and we're talking over 80 hours to encode all of that. It's insane. But we're looking forward to finally getting our content up on Hulu and since were doing Hulu we might as well do the web version of Joost as well because they've got some great functionality and we've got a nice working relationship with them that was built in the Dailymotion days when most of the people left Dailymotion to go to Joost. So we're really excited about that too. We're solidifying the relations with Howcast and we'll probably see some content for them to continue to build out their content library. With Tremor, they really helped us with targeting publishing verticals and helping with not really distribution but targeting some of the relationships with the publisher and ad networks that we want to work with for promotional purposes. OggiFinoggi has a video player that we will use and a widget that we'll distribute on other sites that has some really cool functionality to it when you mouse over it, it expands into a much bigger player that has multiple videos and ad units on it and so we can drive specific traffic to videos as well as to additional videos by using their player as a widget we can place all around vertical sites across the web.

LK: In terms of powerful advertising solutions, in working with these destination sites that use the ad server model, how effective has that been in combination with the "baked in" endorsement approach? Do see this as a one-two punch?

PK: Definitely, I think the ad server model adds in a little supplemental revenue which is pretty negligible at this point so we really don't pay much attention to those dollars, the pre-roll, the overlays and post-rolls, The baked in host endorsement product placement and thematic content -- meaning we do an episode about something that relates to that product's brand but still stays in the vein of the show and the authenticity and the credibility of the show -- is definitely a very successful way for us to integrate advertising messages in a real quality kind of way into the content and still make it very true to the content brand that we've created and yet very accommodating to the advertisers. and again in a way that people receive it as informative and entertaining and not a straight up pitch. The host endorsements are very sincere they're very authentic and they really differentiate from the ad sever model. When you see an overlay it's more thrown at you, it's interruptive but when the host of the show stops for a second and says, "We'd specifically like to thank Hasbro for helping bring you DadLabs this week or this month" (right now there's a campaign going on with Hasbro and DadLabs) Link: Hasbro Sponsors DadLabs with Family Game Night - For Your Imagination - For Your Imagination - develops and markets high-quality original web video) The response we've seen form the audience is, "Okay, cool." It's a very positive reaction because we're very clear that they're helping bring this programming that you find informative, entertaining and useful to being a Dad, for example, people respond very positively to it. The recall is very high, the brands and everyone is re-upped so everyone who's tested something out has decided to do more at this point. So we're really excited about Hasbro coming in this week at DadLabs because we're hoping that they re-up for their next release.

LK: What drove the new expansion into these other areas of personal finance, style and fashion?

PK: The one that I'm personally most excited about is GEQ network which stands for Generation Equity and that's the personal finance content. It's something that from pretty early in setting up For Your Imagination I had always followed the "click these rankings" of brand spending online and looked at the categories and personal finance has been one of these areas that has been a very very high dollar spend online and that continued even through this downturn in he economy. It's still one of the biggest areas of online spending. So take that and balance it with this idea that you have this whole generation of people, Generation Y and even older and younger, who are active, building their futures, some in the workforce some still in school and have really no idea how to manage their money, how to balance their checkbook, how to control their spending, how to work with debt, how to work credit cards.

Home Economics used to be one of the biggest classes you had to take at some point and now it's out of the curriculum, it doesn't exist anymore. So you people who really have no clue what they're doing, and the number one source for information for them are their friends first who are also completely illiterate on personal finance and then you have family members as the next place they turn to. And for the most part we've become a society ridden with debt and really managing our money every well as a whole. You've got a generation that's turning to itself which doesn't really know what it's doing relying upon then their parents who don't know what they're doing either. So it's a real mess.

There is a need here for really good, and sometimes I call it mundane and practical, information on what you should be doing -- and I'm not talking about Jim Cramer, "Get your money into an IRA and roll it over to this and make investment in these stocks..." -- I'm talking about which online banking is better? How to do it? SHOULD you have a credit card or should you NOT have a credit card? And if you do what do you really look for? What do you need in a credit card? And how do you pick one? Most college students at this point got their credit card because someone was giving them a T-shirt or a hat at street fair outside their school or on the school grounds. And they sign up for the credit card they've got no idea why except, "I got a cool T-shirt" or "I'm getting a coupon for Pizza for my friends."

LK: Right, and they have no idea the 19% APR kicks in after a few months.

PK: Yes! And the blatant marketing towards the use on the credit card arena is really disastrous and causing problems now and could potentially cause more problems in the future. So, I'm not against credit cards, I think I'm against people not knowing what to do with them and the credit card companies not educating people on how to best manage it. We did a round table here and we asked a very simple question of college students, "Do you improve your credit rating with a credit card? Or how do you affect your credit rating with credit cards?" and some of the people said, "Oh yeah, it's good to have a credit card. Get and just don't use it." Other people said, "Oh no, you have to get put money on it and pay it off right away." While others said, "No, I thought you were supposed to carry a balance and just make your monthly payment."

LK: (LAUGHS)

PK: There's just total ignorance without even realizing you don't need a credit card at all to improve your credit rating. But that's what people have come to think and they're just going through the motions of and how much debt are people accumulating when their in college and how long will the it take to really pay it off? We asked people how long it take to pay off their student loans they had no idea and said, "I don't know, a few years after school?" But how long is it really going to take? 30 years, 50 years? They really had no understanding whatsoever. So that's the one that has the most robust financial opportunities and tech revenue generator for us but also it serves a real true purpose. It is filling a gap that is missing in content online in an accessible kind of way. I consider, take Suze Orman mix it with a little Consumer Report and then make it fun and informative for that generation and that's what we're really shooting for with GEQ.

LK: Are there several programs launching in that vertical or one main program?

PK: There's four shows total. The first one is news and interview and community focused show taking to peers and interviewing news makers and giving vital information. That one's called straight up, "Generation Equity."

The next one is a How-to series called, "Ka-ching! Live Well Spend Less" and that's going be giving real practical tips on how to manage your money. A lot of people have advocated, "You cut your expenses, don't sound any money, never eat out, never do this," but I'm a believer in you just do in moderation and you learn how to balance everything. So this is really going to focus on how to help people understand you can still live well and spend less.

Then there's going to be straight up entertainment scripted comedy called, "Broke in the City" about two recent college graduates who are living in a big city. One is planning to go to Grad school and works whatever odd jobs while he's in school. The other one is getting an entry level position in a big ad agency and it's them living in a city with most of their money going to rent, eating ramen noodles and really giving people a chance to laugh at themselves. Because everyone has bought something they really shouldn't have when they didn't have any money and put it on a credit and said, "Aw crap, now what I going to do?" Everyone has done that so this gives you an opportunity to laugh at that and probably learn through making fun of yourself in a way.

PK: Nothing formal, we have a budding relationship with them but nothing really solid there. We'll see what happens though, we just have a very unique opportunity to work with a very well established fashion photographer by the name Tom Concordia who's very well entrenched in the fashion industry and has been producing absolutely incredible shoots and has the opportunity to film them all and produce this content. So we've been producing the content but haven't been editing it yet and putting it out there but it will have some amazing access. It's not so much about, "On my God, who's the model?" it's more like, "Wow, look at how they actually did that!" It's going to have wonderful product integration opportunities and that's going to be very product oriented.