May 5, 2010
FNB Innovator: Brandon Gross
FilmNewsBriefs sat this week with Brandon Gross founder of Urgent Content. We discuss the origins of his company and the importance of storytelling in all forms of online content.
FilmNewsBriefs: Tell us some background about how you got into short form content/web content.
Brandon Gross: I started my professional involvement with short form content at Current TV. It was Al Gore’s network, and we were working in the production on the programming side in a department called Making Squared. It was really innovative for its time. We were in a position to put everyday people’s content up on TV. What we did was build a network, really the first of its time, crowd sourcing. It was before Youtube. What we did was build a network of creators, media creators, people, journalists, artists and video bloggers. We put together this global network of talent and did one-on-one outreach, and collaborate with these people to create content that ended up on TV.
FNB: How did you decide what went on TV?
BG: It was a really engaging time for us. Ten twenty-somethings would get in a room and talk about the stories we thought were important. We’d collect our network and see who we trust and it was like a mini tele-event. Much like documentary production we’d develop the stories with the creators. At any given time we’d have 10 to 15 projects in various stages of production.
FNB: How long did it take to get the stories on TV?
BG: We’d get something turned around in a week. We were a hybrid of newsroom and documentary producers really just cutting our teeth in an array of skill sets.
FNB: How’d you make the transition to working with brands?
BG: I myself went over to the brand engagement side of the business. I was really interested in the business side of what was happening at Current and started working with advertisers like Toyota and other big brands. I helped manage a program called VCAM (View Created Ad Message) Before UGC content was what it is now, with contests for Super Bowl ads we were doing it at Current. I was also working with creators, and really tapping into talented people. There’s a real expertise to it. A lot of people fail when they try to tap the masses to create content for them. There’s actually a lot of nuance and expertise that comes into that. It was interesting and nobody else was doing it that way. There was a whole model built on that.
FNB: What was after Current?
BG: I actually left to produce a television show I created. It was a very traditional big budget docu-series. It wasn’t a huge budget but comparatively to what we were doing before, it was significantly larger. At that point we started developing this idea and officially started Urgent Content in September of 2009. Essentially we collaborate with creative consumers to make ‘social’ content.
FNB: What makes the content ‘Social’?
BG: It’s shareable, it’s conducive to a web platform and it’s made particular to specific online environment. An example is this campaign we make for Flip video. We made over 60 TV spots. But the way that the TV media was bought, and what we worked on was placing the spots throughout or network. We have spots that will run only on Bravo, Lifetime, ABC family. Older skewing female networks because the content is really tailored to that audience. Basically, what I mean by making it social is that it’s relevant to a very particular targeted audience.
FNB: Does the content live online, in a micro-site as well?
BG: Yes, it does. We weren’t fully responsible for advertising the online distribution in this particular case. But yes, there is a site called www.doyouflip.com, which has all the spots on it. It’s sharable. It was kind of a unique situation for us because they were TV spots and by nature weren’t the most sharable type of content. People don’t pass around or talk about TV commercials unless they are very exceptional. In this case, there were so many spots that incorporated every day people as well as so many celebrities. It was a really unique campaign and collectively there were a billion impressions. Because there’s such a broad experience we’ve had to create an array of very targeted content.
FNB: Did you use your network to make those spots?
BG: Yeah, it was very interesting. We’re actually in the process of embarking upon the second campaign for them. For the original, holiday campaign, we tapped into a very broad spectrum of people, which is really interesting to us. Flip is a pretty universal movement. Anybody can use a Flip. Capturing a great moment or sound, or something we found online from searching, to working with video troupes or small groups of videographers to celebrity spots; people that traditionally get paid to make entertainment. Now, because the campaign was so successful we have had more people soliciting to us.
FNB: Are brands okay with this wide approach?
BG: Initially there was a push back to the creative approach. But the reality of this is that kids on YouTube are making viral videos by staging a moment. There were definitely a handful of spots in that realm as well.
FNB: What do you think makes a video viral/impactful?
BG: Nothing has been a viral sensation out of Flip. What makes a video “viral”? It’s lightning in a bottle. There’s some things we’ve all learned, propellers that people can try to replicate to make a video viral. Like there’s the WTF factor, asking “is that real?” element of a video. Is it CGI or aftereffects? Then there’s the funny factor. The group called the Bajillionaires Club that we think has potential. They sing songs that are interesting and exciting. It’s funny, relatable and catchy.
FNB: How do you manage your network and find people you would like to work with?
BG: We’ve created a resource called Urgensia, which is sort of an offshoot of what we do. It caters to a media creating community. Fostering a community is providing information and resources that add value to what they do. We are very much entrenched as media makers ourselves. We’re prepping now to go shoot something in a couple weeks here in San Francisco. For a lack of better words, we can relate to people because we are those people. We’re never in a scenario of not being able to understand the perspective. It’s very much the networking with what comes very natural and the people we hang out with are fellow media makers. There’s a large network but its also pretty small community. There’s a point where I personally worked with 100 to 150 different filmmakers when I was at Current. I stay in touch with pretty much all of them. I get and see their films when they are screening. It’s about pounding the pavement and having a passion for it.
FNB: When making content, do you work with traditional storytelling techniques in the shortest form of content?
BG: Storytelling is definitely a hot topic for us. We’re actually in the process of developing a series about storytelling. We believe storytelling itself has evolved with technology. Basic storytelling mechanics remain the same, the typical set up and payoff, but how we tell a story has changed. There’s a blog called Sorry, Mom which is storytelling. She puts up a photo of a guy she’s slept with and writes the story around it. Henry has a great blog, which was a new story about a loss love of his. That’s storytelling. That’s the kind of storytelling we’re interested.
FNB: Like the multi-platform content? Where the user is getting a multi-medium experience?
BG: Exactly. Where we incorporate video and add different dimensions to the story. Where it starts with a text piece and then a video reaction. We’re supremely interested in evolving storytelling. We haven’t quite nailed ways of how to apply it to clients but I definitely think its something of interest.
Intro to Urgent Content from Urgent Content on Vimeo.
Posted in: ABC Family, Al Gore, bajillionaires club, Bloggers, Brandon Gross, Bravo, Current, Current TV, doyouflip.com, flip, flip video, Innovator, Lifetime, Making Squared, Multi-platform Content, Sorry Mom, urgensia, Urgent Content, YouTube