06/01/18: TONE Networks' Gemma Toner shares tips for informational short-form content

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM TURNER

THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THE FANS.

Fans aren’t eyeballs. They’re advocates.

They aren’t binge-watchers. They’re believers.

Fans don’t consume content. They connect to it.

At Turner, we make more than great content.

We make fans.

IT’S MORE THAN AN AUDIENCE. IT’S A FOLLOWING.

Cynopsis SHORT FORM

Good morning. It’s Friday June 1, 2018 and this is your first Cynopsis Short Form briefing.

IN THE NEWS

Internet pay-TV service Philo is adding Cheddar Big News, PeopleTV and Tastemade channels to its skinny bundle offering at no additional cost to subscribers. Tastemade features original food, home and travel content; Cheddar Big News offers news and headlines aimed at younger audiences and PeopleTV is all about pop culture, celebrity and human-interest content culled from People and Entertainment Weekly.

Has Facebook, become your father’s social platform? YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat are the most popular online destinations for teens, according to a new Pew Research Center study. While 51 percent of teens in the US ages 13-17 say they use Facebook, 85 percent report using YouTube, 72 percent hang on Instagram, and 69 percent are connecting on Snapchat. The new data signifies a social media shift; in Pew’s 2014-15 survey, the house of Zuckerberg was the dominant teen social media choice. In other report highlights:

* 95 percent of teens own or have access to a smartphone; nearly half of teens say they’re online “almost constantly.”

* 88 percent of teens have access to a computer at home, but there still is an access issue among lower-income households.

* 97 percent of teen boys say they play video games; about 80 percent of girls say the same.

Shhhhh… A new Instagram feature allows users to mute *friends without blatantly unfollowing them. The feature, much like a similar button on parent Facebook’s flagship service, is rolling out in a test phase this month.

Roseanne Barr’s tweet sparked a short spoof from Full Frontal With Samantha Bee (Of course, Samantha Bee got into hot water on her own during the show….) that ratchets up the racism on the traditional drug commercial-disclaimer template. Comments include: “Until you know how Ambien will affect you, you shouldn’t drive in urban areas, operate heavy machinery, or visit a Starbucks.” Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hxkf1E4Uz9Y

The world’s largest indie newspaper syndicate, Andrews McMeel Universal, which has made significant inroads in comic strip, book and calendar publishing as well as new media, is taking a step in attracting talent to develop the next generation of comics – short-form video. The Kansas City-based company is launching the GoComics Short Shorts Animation Contest, a first for its GoComics.com brand, which houses comics-related merch and strips such as Calvin and Hobbes and Doonesbury. Original animated videos must be 60 seconds or shorter; submissions are due July 27.

Snapchat is turning up. The platform has launched a sound-activated lens that picks up sounds and responds accordingly. In practical terms, that puppy face lens, for example, may start moving its eyes or mouth depending on what sound it picks up. Enlarging ears and glowing eyes let users know the sound is on.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM TURNER

IT’S MORE THAN CONTENT. IT’S CONNECTION.

Turner is #1 among major media companies for driving social engagement to branded content.

With 800 MILLION SOCIAL FOLLOWERS across the portfolio, Turner delivers:

2X MORE ENGAGEMENT than branded content published by other leading TV Networks

19X MORE SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT than advertisers owned pages. (Source).

IT’S MORE THAN AN AUDIENCE. IT’S A FOLLOWING.

PROGRAMMING PULSE

We are the World (Cup): Sony Crackle will launch new soccer-centric shorts series Rog & Davo’s Guide to Russia this month. From Embassy Row, the series of 10 original shorts will air June 11-13 as lead-in to the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia. Hosted by sports writer Roger Bennett and TV producer Michael Davies, known for their NBCSN series and podcast Men in Blazers, each four- to six-minute short ep will feature a specific country – including Argentina, Brazil, England, Portugal and Spain – along with the duo’s humorous predictions for the given home team… For YouTubers with slightly longer attention spans, new series F2 Finding Football will follow the creators of its soccer channel F2Freestylers on their global soccer adventures. Produced by Whistle Sports, series will premiere on the F2Freestyler’s YT channel on June 13, following the antics of skills specialists Billy Wingrove and Jeremy Lynch. First and second episodes will be free to view; subsequent eps will be available exclusively to subscribers of the YouTube Premium tier.

Monday’s episode of Bad Joke Telling, the Whistle Sports short-form series where stars go face to face telling cheesy jokes and the first person to laugh loses, will feature guests King Bach and Glozell. New episodes of the series air at 5p Mondays on YouTube and Facebook Watch.

Short form as a litmus test for longer-form content? Outdoor Sportsman Group executive Tom Caraccioli and CBS Sports exec Jerry Caraccioli are dipping a toe in the short-form waters with Striking Silver: The Untold Story of America’s Forgotten Hockey Team (www.strikingsilver1972.com). The Honorable Mention at the inaugural Cynopsis Short Form Video Festival is based on their book of the same name, which chronicles the story of the 1972 US Olympic silver medaling team that participated in Sapporo, Japan, but was never recognized for their accomplishment – and the Caracciolis are running with the positive reception to the project with plans for potential further development on the project. “Ultimately our goal is to have this become a full-fledged doc or even a feature film – but step by step,” says Tom Caraccioli. He tells Cyn Short Form they are also eyeing a short form treatment of their second book, Boycott. “It’s all about the story. That’s the most important thing.”

SnapChat Discover: Coming this month is NowBreaking, a breaking news series produced exclusively for the platform by NowThis, the video division of Group Nine Media. NowThis already has been running Publisher Story on Snapchat Discover since 2016, and later this summer Group Nine’s Thrillist is slated to debut a travel channel on Snapchat Discover that will offer travel videos, tips from locals in and flight deals. Snap also scored recent renewals from a bunch of companies including Viacom, which renewed multiple shows including MTV’s Girl Code and Cribs, and Conde Nast Entertainment, which reupped for True Crime/Uncovered and has new shows in the works.

It’s not all short and listicle-y at BuzzFeed. The company’s 20-ep weekly series Follow This will debut July 9 on Netflix, and this week BuzzFeed announced it’s working on a documentary about music artist and perennially accused misogynist R. Kelly.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM TURNER

YOUR IDEAS DESERVE FANS LIKE THIS.

Turner’s branded content delivers real results for marketers:

+19% LIFT in brand favorability

+9% LIFT in purchase intent

84% OF VIEWERS are more likely to recommend your brand after seeing the content. (Source).

IT’S MORE THAN AN AUDIENCE. IT’S A FOLLOWING.

IN CONVERSATION WITH… GEMMA TONER/TONE NETWORKS

TONE Networks, a subscription online resource and community for women, is growing its pool of experts and amping up its short-form video offerings, which currently total close to 500. TONE CEO Gemma Toner, former SVP, business insights and strategy at Cablevision Systems, talks with Cyn Short Form about why in an over-scheduled universe, short form is the most effective way to break through.

What is the mission of TONE and what makes it different from what’s out there?

GT: Our mission is to help every woman we can get to their fullest potential at the highest level. Women attracted to TONE are highly capable achievers already, but we all need a little help. And we have sensitivity to the very busy, time-strapped woman, which is what led us to determining short-form content was where we wanted to go.

Why does it make sense to tell stories and share advice in smaller bites?

GT: We did a lot of research in the marketplace and consumer research, and from the beginning we knew there is a lot of long-form out there for women, and a lot of scripted content for women. We wanted to be in the space of delivering informational short-form learning for personal and professional growth.

What have you learned specifically about creating informational short-form content?

GT: Short form is hard to do. It’s hard to write short, it’s hard to talk short. It took us a while to come to a tight format. We keep videos at about two minutes and no more five minutes, and each video has an executive summary so members get what we call the TONE takeaway. If you’ve taken a few minutes to watch, we reinforce that with these takeaways that help jog your memory… And the videos need to be highly descriptive and nothing fancy in terms of the production. We put content in front of many focus groups and what they said was… “Don’t tell me what I should think about, just tell me what to do and let me do it.”

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM TURNER

VIEWERS TUNE OUT. FANS TUNE IN.

Turner is home to three of cable’s top five entertainment networks in primetime among millennials (Source):

#2 Adult Swim
#3 TBS
#5 TNT

IT’S MORE THAN AN AUDIENCE. IT’S A FOLLOWING.

AROUND THE INDUSTRY

BuzzFeed is singing a new tune with a foray into the concert business. The site is behind three-city “Kamp Kona” tour, featuring electronica artist Dan Deacon and touching down in LA, Santa Fe and Marfa, TX, and includes an integrated campaign with Hyundai. Attendees will get a peak at Hyundai’s Kona vehicles, aimed, no surprise, at younger consumers.

Paramount Pictures will run ads for its summer movie Mission: Impossible – Fallout via a new feature Pinterest is testing that sees video ads running the entire width of its app. Where stand-alone apps span only one column on Pinterest, the new Promoted Video will span the full two columns. Among other advertisers giving the new feature a spin are American Express, Chevrolet and P&G.

The Entertainment Software Ratings Board is planning to drop its “short form” ratings process. The ESRB rates games two ways: Physical titles are subject a “long form” ratings process that requires a fee and includes an online questionnaire and a submitted video, while downloadable-only games are rated via a “short form” process, which has been free. Digital-only developers can get a free rating from the International Age Rating Coalition, but that system at present supports only Google Play, Nintendo eShop, Microsoft and Oculus product. Among the platforms missing from the IAEC roster are Steam and PlayStation.

Lynn Leahey Editorial Director @Lynn_Leahey
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