While the term “premium digital video” has become quite commonplace at the Digital Content NewFronts, when the event debuted 10 years ago was on few peoples’ radar screen. Now premium video can be considered a table stake for content creators who hope to get marketers’ attention.
One of the most interesting things that Jill Kelly, CMO at marketing and technology agency Digitas, sees as she surveys this year’s NewFronts is the rise of quality programs with which brands can participate.
“What I do see is a gradual increase in the standards of which program gets created and that’s really refreshing to me,” Kelly says in this interview with Beet.TV. “When we started this NewFront 10 years ago, the notion of premium digital video was almost nonexistent.”
This is one reason why the NewFronts aspire to be a place where storytellers and those in need of stories to attract consumer attention can mingle and let their imaginations loose amid an always expanding universe of data-enabled platforms.
As the founder of the NewFronts, Digitas is the only agency that hosts its own program at the annual confab. “Our event is a moment to exhale and pause and take a bigger picture of the complete ecosystem of premium digital programming,” Kelly says. “It’s not necessarily about us selling anything specifically. It’s what are the trends, what are the obstacles.”
Digitas has distilled this collaborative spirit into a “playful and fun” video depiction of what happens when a cave man reminiscent of GEICO commercials circa 2004 crosses paths with an astronaut in full celestial garb. Their various encounters while living together represent human storytelling melded with technology as it relates to marketers seeking to engage with consumers in new and inventive ways.
“What we loved about it is there is an embedded tension, opposition, but the fact of the matter is it doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. What you heard from the speakers today is that they unite. And when they unite beautifully, when they unite without ego you, will have beautiful stories well told that are informed by science and by data,” says Kelly.
This video is part of Beet.TV’s coverage of the IAB’s Digital Content NewFronts 2017. The series is sponsored by the IAB. For more videos from the #NewFronts, please visit this page.
