Spotify Hires Specialist With Sights On Buying Other Companies

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Spotify hired Sheila Spence to help the music streaming platform buy other companies. Spence will report to Spotify chief financial officer Barry McCarthy.

Freeform, the young adult brand being positioned for the Walt Disney company, named Tricia Melton as the new senior vice president of marketing.

Former Hyundai executive Jochen Sengpiehl has been hired as the Volkswagen Group’s new global marketing director.

JCPenney hired former Lowe’s veteran Marci Grebstein to serve as executive vice president and chief marketing officer.

Ad tech veteran Bruce Falck is headed to Twitter as their new general manager of revenue product. Falck will report directly to company CEO Jack Dorsey.

Former Bloomberg media executive Todd Swidler is joining Twitter to run its live video business.

Heather Dietrick, the former president of Gawker, is headed to The Daily Beast to become their new president and publisher.

Hasbro announced that Edward ‘Ted’ Philip has joined their board of directors.

CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves signed a two-year extension with the media company and is is now expected to stay through June 30, 2021.

James P. Hackett has replaced Mark Fields as the new CEO of Ford.

Sega announced the departure of their COO and president, Jurgen Post, who had been with the company for over 10 years. 

Google announced they are launching “Google for Jobs,” a search engine service focusing on jobs ranging from entry-level and service-industry positions to high-end professional jobs. The service will be available in the United States.

(Editor’s Note: This post will be updated daily until Friday, May 26. Have a new hire tip? Let us know at editorial@alistdaily.com.)

Job Vacancies 

Director, Digital Marketing Banana Republic San Francisco, CA
Director, Digital Marketing Lehigh University Bethlehem, PA
Marketing Director Essendant Philadelphia, PA
Director, Targeted Marketing Total Wine Bethesda, MD
Director of Marketing Office Solutions Company Vancouver, BC
Director, Strategic Marketing Aetna Sunrise, FL
Senior Marketing Director ScopeMedia Inc. Vancouver, BC
Director, Digital & Marketing Walgreens Chicago, IL

Make sure to check back for updates on our Jobs Page.

‘Resident Evil’ Director Paul Anderson Talks ‘Monster Hunter’ Movie

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Director Paul Anderson is one of the few in Hollywood who has figured out a formula for success in adapting a video game for the big screen. After tackling Mortal Kombat for New Line Cinema, the director worked with Sony Pictures to bring six Resident Evil movies to cineplexes starring Milla Jovovich.

The last film, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, is out now on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD, after earning over $300 million at the box office. The Resident Evil franchise has topped $1.2 billion globally over the six films, making it the most successful video game adaptation of all time. He’s now preparing another Capcom game, Monster Hunter, for a big screen adaptation.

“The great thing about filmmaking is it’s a constant learning process, and that’s the fun thing about looking back at the Resident Evil franchise,” Anderson told AListDaily. “The look and the feel of the last movie is so different to the first movie, so even within that franchise I feel like as a filmmaker I’ve learned a lot and developed a lot and I brought the lessons of Mortal Kombat to Resident Evil, and I’ll bring the lessons of Resident Evil to Monster Hunter.”

Capcom has sold nearly 40 million copies of Monster Hunter games to date, which makes it a bigger franchise than when Anderson adapted Resident Evil. There are an additional 15 million Chinese gamers paying to play Monster Hunter Online.

Anderson hopes to turn Monster Hunter into another film franchise. He’s written the script for the first film, which will focus on an American working in a dead-end job who gets dragged into this parallel world where monsters exist and for every creature there’s a hero who can defeat it.

“It’s definitely intended to be a franchise because the movie starts in our world and then it goes to the Monster Hunter world and then the final act comes back to our world and it’s basically this epic battle in and around LAX,” Anderson said. “Then at the end, we’re suddenly confronted with the fact that the mythological creatures of our world have come back to wreak vengeance. So we definitely have the second film where that would be planned out.”

Anderson said the thing that really impressed him about Resident Evil, which is very similar to Monster Hunter, is how incredibly cinematic it is.

“That’s what I’m always drawn to, and it was the same with Mortal Kombat as well,” Anderson explained. “With these properties, it’s like cinema is built into their DNA. And talking with the creators you can see the movies that they were influenced by in the games. That’s what I’m always looking for because I think that really makes a great video game adaptation—when the fabric of cinema is woven into the DNA of the video game itself. It makes the transfer back into film a little easier. And Monster Hunter has incredible landscapes, these fantastic creatures . . . it’s got big cinema written all over it.”

While the Resident Evil films have succeeded with an R rating, Monster Hunter opens up a more kid-friendly PG-13 universe.

“It’s on the level of a Star Wars movie in terms of world creation,” Anderson added. “There are no real central characters, so it’s a bit like when we first approached Resident Evil and imposed our own characters and story on that world. This is a perfect IP for us to do exactly that same thing again.”

Anderson hopes to film this adaptation in either China or South Africa. He’ll reteam with Toronto-based visual effects house Mr. X, the company behind the Resident Evil special effects, to keep the budget around $50 million.

“I’ve been pursuing the rights to Monster Hunter for almost five years, so it’s been a long journey already on that franchise,” Anderson said. “But it’s been worth pursuing because it really is incredible. Anyone who has played the game will tell you that, and also a valuable IP. I think it’s perfect for a movie adaptation. What it presents is a wonderful, rich cinematic world onto which I will impose characters in a narrative which are not suggested by the game itself. So in many ways, it’s a perfect adaptation because the story is something that isn’t in the video game. It’s something fresh that I can bring. And that helps with bringing something fresh for the gamers. But also I can build something that is also accessible to people who don’t know Monster Hunter from a hole in their head.”

This film also gives Anderson the ability to control the cinematic future of the property. He and Impact Pictures partner Jeremy Bolt, along with Mr. X’s Dennis Berardi, acquired the rights for the game directly. The Resident Evil IP was acquired by Constantin Film.

“Everything is about world creation, nowadays, and how can you build a world where you can have multiple stories going on,” Anderson said. “I thought this was our opportunity to have a cinematic universe that we could build a whole world around.”

While video game movies haven’t always connected with American audiences, in Asia it’s a different story. And the popularity of Monster Hunter in Japan and China almost guarantees a box office blockbuster.

“Capcom has the most successful video game adaptation of all time, and especially being a Japanese company and how big the Japanese grosses were on these Resident Evil films,” Anderson said. “With the last movie, we out-performed Star Wars, certainly in the game’s home territory. You couldn’t get bigger.”

Anderson’s script brings monsters to life, including giant spiders and flying dragons that are as big as a city block. There are also different locales, including LAX in our world and giant deserts in the Monster Hunter world, which creatures burst out of.

With Capcom continuing to expand the video game franchise, there will also be unique cross-marketing opportunities with the big screen (and later home video release) of the Monster Hunter films and the interactive franchise. That’s something Capcom and Sony Pictures worked together with over the years, culminating in Resident Evil 7 and the last Resident Evil movie launching the same week this past January.

Pre-, Mid-, Or Post-Roll? Here’s Where Your Video Ads Work

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Cisco predicts that 80 percent of all consumer internet traffic will consist of video streaming and downloads by 2019, and brands are investing in the content type like never before. Not all video ads are created equal, so which are the most effective?

Studies Show. . .

Seventy-six percent of viewers skip pre-roll ads simply because they had become conditioned to do so, according to a recent study by Magna, and only 10 percent of those surveyed could still recall the brand after the ad was skipped.

However, if viewers opt to watch pre-roll ads, they have a 78 percent completion rate, according to Ooyala. Still, of the three types of ad placements, YuMe found that pre-roll ads were considered the least intrusive. Only 17 percent of mobile device users feel that the ad interrupts the content compared with 60 percent on outstream and 72 percent on mid-roll.

Ooyala also found that mid-roll ads have a 90 percent completion rate since users are already invested in the content. Mid-roll accounts for more than 33 percent of digital video ads in apps, online and through video-streaming boxes like Apple TV.

Post-roll, while the least engaging, still boasts an impressive 65 percent completion rate, per Ooyala. Calls-to-action after a video has played can be more effective, since users aren’t afraid to miss anything. Post-roll impressions have grown 74 percent YoY as of April 2016, so consumers aren’t necessarily running away as soon as their video has ended.

So, which ads are right for your brand? It depends entirely on the message. Across the board, shorter ads have higher completion rates . . . so long as they are entertaining.

The Earned Media Value Of Top Companies For Q1 2017

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Editor’s note: Robin Boytos is the director of analytics for Ayzenberg Insights. AListDaily is the editorial and publishing arm of the Ayzenberg Group, the parent company of Ayzenberg Insights.

Which companies are killing it on social media? We’re taking a look at how companies are engaging their audiences with social media content and what kind of ROI they’re getting every quarter at Ayzenberg Insights. 

We compiled a list of companies using industry rankings of the world’s most valuable brands and measured the performance of their company’s social media pages with Ayzenberg’s Earned Media Value Index. The earned media revenue was calculated using public social media engagement data, excluding the top five percent of posts on Twitter, 12 percent on YouTube and 20 percent on Facebook on the assumption that these posts utilized paid media.

What is EMV?

Earned media is the extended value of paid, organic social or influencer activity. EMV provides the value of virality on social content—engagements are valuable.

Rates are assigned to a like, comment, share, click and various other metrics through extensive research of the value of each of these metrics with an emphasis on how much this would cost to buy through programmatic buying on social networks. Earned media can be looked at from this perspective: if we stopped all organic social activity, how much paid media is needed to achieve the same earned media results?

Breaking Down The Top 10 Brands By EMV

Disney “The kids brand.” Disney is one of the best to leverage UGC on Instagram, which that along with a large variety of content and high quality assets drove up their Instagram earned media revenue—pushing them into the top 10. Disney also capitalizes on where their Gen Z viewers consume content through YouTube.

H&M and Forever 21 “The cool brands.” For fast fashion companies H&M and Forever 21, Instagram plays to their sweet spot by highlighting trends, usage of models, celebrities and the popular social media trend: knolling.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BT0spKHAppC/

Red Bull “The action brand.” Instagram drove up Red Bull’s earned media revenue with rarely any Red Bull branding at all. This brand is all about appealing to extreme sports and adrenaline-pumping activities.

Starbucks “The tasty brand.” Starbucks lets their product speak for itself with solo focus on their tasty food and drinks. Instagram taps into the millennial and Gen Z infatuation with food pictures and complements the product with cheerful, vibrant colors.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BTmCQlOjkG5/

Nike “The athletic brand.” Nike promotes aspirational and athletic content that embraces the lifestyle of “just do it”.  Nike is able to translate their branding into clearly themed pictures on Instagram.

Audi “The sleek brand.” Instagram is the driving force of Audi’s EMV by incorporating high-resolution shots of their cars from all angles and backdrops. Audi beautifully ties together art and adventure.

Ford “The practical brand.” Ford’s largest source of earned media value comes from YouTube, where practical information drives viewership such as competitor comparisons and customer testimonials. Ford also sees a nice lift from Instagram where they encourage their customers to “go further,” by highlighting the more rugged and durable aspects of their vehicles.

Arby’s “The clever brand.” Arby’s has seemingly mastered the art of marketing on Facebook, driving up their EMV.  Arby’s cleverly places their food as a secondary focus and integrates highly innovative concepts, which in turn receives high shares and likes. More on their strategy here.

Coke “The feel-good brand.” Coca-Cola encapsulates how the cold, refreshing taste of Coke improves everyday moments in life through humorous, “feel good” videos.

Takeaways

If YouTube and Instagram are done right, the earned media revenue payout can be great. With strong Instagram and YouTube strategies, these platforms launched brands into the top 10. Other general trends observed included an abundance of creative assets in the form of photo, GIFs and video. Finally, each of our top 10 had a distinguishable theme and/or brand voice.

Going Behind-The-Scenes With Tumi’s ‘Perfect Journey’ Short Film

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Premium luggage and accessory maker Tumi has been associating its brand with The Perfect Journey for quite some time, where people tell personal stories about travel while showcasing its suitcases. The mix of personalities, gorgeous locations and stories matches perfectly with the travel products. Recently, the Perfect Journey campaign was extended to include a competition where 10 filmmakers were selected to tell their travel stories and how the Tumi 19 Degree suitcases were part of those adventures. All 10 short films can be viewed now on YouTube and Tumi’s dedicated web page, The 19 Degree Experience.

Minos Papas, filmmaker, writer, director and producer at Cyprian Films, New York
Minos Papas, filmmaker, writer, director and producer at Cyprian Films, New York

Minos Papas, filmmaker, writer, director and producer at Cyprian Films, New York is one of those 10 creators, and his short Perfect Journey film focused on a pair of professional dancers—Denys Drozdyuk and Antonina Skobina—as they traveled from New York City to Mexico, showing their moves at picturesque locations.

“It was sort of like a road movie,” said Papas, recounting the making of the film, which was a journey in itself that took his crew to a small fishing village in Mexico, through tiny oasis towns, to beautifully colored bus stops and even on a 15 mile stretch through a cactus forest.

When asked how he became involved with Tumi, Papas explained: “I was approached by the Tribeca Film Festival, which reached out to all its alumni filmmakers from its short film department because I had a film in Tribeca in 2013 called, A Short Film About Guns. It was a documentary about the global arms trade and the need for an arms trade treaty that won best online short in 2013.

So, they reached out to their alumni for this competition by Tumi. I worked together with my fiancée, Liz Sargent, and we sent in a proposal that featured two ballroom dancers, Denys and Antonina, who are two-time US ballroom dance champions. We were selected along with nine others to make an up-to-three-minute spot for Tumi featuring its new Tumi 19 Degree suitcase.”

When asked whether Tumi provided any instructions or directions for how the bag should be presented, Papas said, “No, they left it very open, which was great. They had already started a series of films with producers Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine, and they had made five or six films by the time of the competition. That provided a sort of guideline for us, but basically, the concept was that each filmmaker had to propose a personality to follow. We selected these two ballroom dancers because they tour the world, travel a lot, live out of their suitcases, and wear these amazing costumes that they transport in those suitcases, so we thought it was a perfect fit. Tumi also gave us a title, The Perfect Journey, and that is a title that is at the head of every film in the series.”

Papas further described working with Tumi. “Tumi gave us a lot of freedom,” he said. “In my experience with this project, I was afforded pretty much carte blanche to do whatever I wanted within the confines of what I had proposed and what they had approved. It was a great experience, and I think Tribeca and Tumi deserve credit for picking up filmmakers from all over the country and giving them this opportunity.”

So, how did Papas become connected with the dance couple? “The cool thing is that it was totally random,” said Papas. “When you live in New York, you’re surrounded by so many talented people. We had been forwarded an email from a friend of a friend asking if there are any filmmakers who were willing to work with these two amazing ballroom dancers. That coincided with the competition, so Liz and I met up with Denys and Antonina, went for coffee, and just hit it off.”

When describing the short film, Papas said, “I like to call it a documentary-style spot or documentary-style film. We didn’t want to showcase the suitcase in a way that was unnatural or contrived. We really did use it in a way that the dancers do and it was more about these two. I was more intrigued with this couple than I was with the suitcase, because they’re people and they’re amazing dancers. We put them in situations that aren’t typical for ballroom dancers. They tour the world and perform at the highest level at gala competitions all over the world, but we took them to a tiny fishing village in Baja, Mexico called El Sargento. There, we had them perform for school children—most of them had probably never left that village and had never seen live ballroom dancing before—and the kids just loved it.

It was very much about the dancers, bringing dance to those who have not experienced it in that way, and removing the elitism from the whole dance scene.”

With that being said, does Papas consider his Perfect Journey film a kind of commercial? “I didn’t want it to feel like a commercial,” he said, “I wanted it to feel like we were visiting a small slice of life from these two performers. Even though it does feature a commercial item, I feel that it is more of a film than a spot. I think that if someone watches it, they’ll enjoy it for that factor. It’s not really about pushing the suitcase, even though the suitcase is there.”

Papas then discussed how importance authenticity is to brands such as Tumi. “I’m excited that lots of other brands can watch this and the other nine shorts because it’s a great idea, and I think more brands should be doing it,” he said. “The less contrived it is, the better. We’ve seen certain soda and beer brands try to do things that are very contrived and it just doesn’t work. People are smart to that, and being contrived can be very insulting. So, Tumi’s approach was really spot-on—bringing real-life characters in—and I encourage everybody to go see all the films on YouTube or Tumi’s site because they are all unique and don’t feel contrived at all.

“I think more brands should take advantage of filmmakers like me and the others involved in this competition. We can bring them very interesting stories to further their online campaigns.”

Sony Pictures Names Tony Vinciquerra New CEO

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Veteran media and entertainment executive Tony Vinciquerra has been named the chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Vinciquerra, who formerly led Fox Networks for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., will be based in Los Angeles and take the reins beginning June 1. He replaces former studio chief Michael Lynton, who stepped down from the company in January after Sony Pictures dealt with a series of box office busts and devastating blows—most notably the crippling cyberattack that exposed private emails and internal documents of the company.

“Tony is a proven, results-oriented leader with extensive experience running and driving growth in large, complex media and entertainment businesses,” Sony Corp. CEO Kazuo Hirai said in a statement. “His operating skills, effectiveness working with creative teams and expertise in managing digital disruption and new technologies make him the perfect choice to lead SPE, and build on the studio’s turnaround efforts to date.”

“I am thrilled to be joining SPE at such an exciting and dynamic time for the studio, and for the industry as a whole,” said Vinciquerra. “Everything about how we produce, distribute and consume content is changing, and I see tremendous opportunities working with the enormously talented teams at SPE, Sony Corp. and the other Sony companies. I want to thank Kaz for giving me this opportunity and I look forward to hitting the ground running.”

“Tony’s breadth of experience spanning media, tech and entertainment will enable him to expertly lead SPE and its multi-faceted lines of business,” said Lynton. “After 13 extraordinary years, I know SPE, its strengths and its culture, and I am confident that Tony will make a terrific leader who will take the studio to new heights.”

Dave Peck, a veteran PayPal executive, is switching jobs, and industries, by taking on the chief marketing officer role at Kind Financial, a cannabis company that specializes in end-to-end technology and compliance solutions. Peck previously worked as PayPal’s global head of social and digital media marketing.

According to a job posting on LinkedIn, Amazon Studios has plans to build apps for augmented and mixed reality headsets, per a report by Variety.

Sennheiser has appointed Pete Ogley as chief operating oOfficer for the consumer electronics division.

Biz Stone, one of the co-founders of Twitter who left the social platform in 2011, said that he’s returning to the company. A defined role was not announced.

Peter Stringer has been appointed as UFC’s global vice president of social media.

David Krane, a veteran Google executive, has joined MGM’s board of directors.

Fiji Airways announced the appointment of Marc Cavaliere as CMO.

Ivan Pollard, Coca-Cola’s head of North American media operations, is leaving his post at the soft-drink giant.

(Editor’s Note: This post will be updated daily until Friday, May 19. Have a new hire tip? Let us know at editorial@alistdaily.com.)

Job Vacancies 

Director, Strategic Marketing Aetna Sunrise, FL
Senior Marketing Director ScopeMedia Inc. Vancouver, BC
Director of Marketing Entertainment Benefits Group Aventura, FL
Director of Content Marketing Fusion 360 Salt Lake City, UT
Vice President, Marketing WOOPS! New York, NY
Director, Digital & Marketing Walgreens Chicago, IL
Senior Director, Small Business Marketing Indeed Austin, TX
Marketing Director Tagkast Chicago, IL

Make sure to check back for updates on our Jobs Page.

Awesomeness Appoints NFL’s Content Chief As CEO

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Veteran television programmer Jordan Levin has been appointed as CEO for the teen-focused media company Awesomeness. Levin most recently was the NFL’s chief content officer.

Steven Fowler has moved on to Blizzard Entertainment as their new vice president of global production for Hearthstone. Fowler formerly worked as the head of marketing for Amazon Game Studios.

Meredith Verdone has been promoted to chief marketing officer of Bank of America. Verdone recently worked as head of enterprise marketing for the corporation.

Bob O’Brien has been promoted to senior marketing manager of Kawasaki Motors.

Cable network Fox News has hired NBC Universal veteran Marianne Gambelli as their new president of advertising sales.

Streaming audio company TuneIn announced the appointment of former CBS executive and cross-platform media veteran Michael Hermalyn to head of partnerships. Hermalyn will drive global brand partnerships and agency relations.

Joanna Massey has been appointed as head of communications, a newly created position, for Conde Nast Entertainment. Massey most recently worked as the senior vice president of corporate communications at Lionsgate.

Joe Kipp, executive chairman of Time Inc., is expected to resign from his role with the company.

Jennifer Dorian has been promoted to executive vice president of Turner Portfolio 360 Brand Strategy.

Netflix has announced the creation of 400 jobs at its new multilingual European customer service hub in Amsterdam to support customers across 11 European countries.

Former AMC Networks veteran Joel Stillerman has been named chief content officer for Hulu to oversee the company’s overall content business and strategy.

Whole Food Markets announced a big shake-up of its board and named a new chief financial officer in Keith Manbeck.

(Editor’s Note: This post will be updated daily until Friday, May 12. Have a new hire tip? Let us know at editorial@alistdaily.com.)

Job Vacancies 

Director, Digital & Marketing Walgreens Chicago, IL
Senior Director, Small Business Marketing Indeed Austin, TX
Marketing Director Tagkast Chicago, IL
Director of Content Marketing Fusion 360 Salt Lake City, UT
Vice President, Marketing WOOPS! New York, NY
Vice President, Strategy & Brand Management Warner Bros. Burbank, CA
CMO, Mixed Reality GE Waukesha, WI
Vice President, Marketing Esurance San Francisco, CA

Make sure to check back for updates on our Jobs Page.

These Are The Most Popular Esports Around The World

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The widespread reach of esports is undeniable, but just how big is it? Newzoo decided to find out—focusing on popular PC titles like League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) and Dota 2. The analyst firm discovered that when marketing through esports, not all fans are the same . . . and neither are the players.

Picking Favorites

On a global scale, 191 million consumers will watch esports frequently in 2017, Newzoo reported, with another 194 million tuning in occasionally. Gamers in general boost the numbers to 2.2 billion worldwide across all platforms. Just as a sports fan might prefer football to golf or his/her hometown team to another, esports fans tend to gravitate toward specific games—especially if they play that game, too.

League of Legends has the largest group of exclusive players at 32 percent, compared to CS: GO and Dota 2 at 24 and 13 percent, respectively. Interestingly, these figures are closely matched by exclusive viewers—37 percent (League of Legends), 25 percent (CS: GO) and eight percent (Dota 2). Eight percent of respondents stated they had played or viewed esports content from all three games within the last previous three months.

Across the franchises, League of Legends and CS:GO show the most overlap in viewers. Newzoo attributes the popularity of League of Legends to being a MOBA that is easier to learn and understand than Dota 2.

Armchair Gamers Are Loyal Gamers

Alongside its findings, Newzoo noted that while many consumers no longer have the time or desire to play these popular games themselves, esports creates a type of “lean-back” consumption that keeps fans coming back for more.

“Esports creates a sticky layer around franchises that keeps fans engaged after they stop playing temporarily or for good with the goal of re-engaging fans with the game,” Newzoo said. “Even if there is no re-engagement, the size of this group of consumers justifies the implementation of advertising-driven business models by publishers and organizers.”

Watch Out For Overwatch

Newzoo’s analysis focuses mainly on PC but also includes a comparison with multi-platform games like Overwatch and Hearthstone. The figures are aggregated across 10 Western locations—US, Canada, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Belgium and Sweden.

In terms of global reach, Overwatch comes in third place in North America and Western Europe. While the game boasts a large player base on both console and PC, a “sizable” group of people watch Overwatch esports exclusively, Newzoo reported.

IEM Gyeonggi’s Overwatch tournament finals attracted close to 100,000 peak concurrent viewers on Twitch and the official Overwatch League announcement has over 19 million views on YouTube. The city-based franchise approach presented by Activision/Blizzard seems to have materialized, Newzoo observed, as it’s rumored that the New England Patriots and Miami Dolphins are among the first traditional sports teams to claim a spot in the Overwatch League.

Smashcast CEO Details New Brand And ESports Livestreaming Strategy

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Livestreaming companies Hitbox and Azubu, once competitors, have merged into a single platform. The companies have relaunched with a new brand, Smashcast, which is being billed as the world’s largest independent esports broadcaster outside Asia based on an active user peak of around 20 million in 2016. The company has officially gone live with hundreds of gaming enthusiast broadcasters and millions of active viewers at smashcast.tv, which is the new recipient of all traffic from Hitbox and Azubu. A new Smashcast app is available for free download in the App Store and on Google Play.

Smashcast has also opened a new video content production studio in Vienna, Austria to create esports and competitive gaming content in-house. The company is creating content in 4K and in 360-degrees for virtual reality platforms.

Mike McGarvey, CEO of Smashcast, said that while advertising represents 70 percent of revenue for the company, with subscriptions and donations making up 15 percent, the plan is to use new products in affiliate marketing, interactive sponsor-based advertising, virtual goods sales, sponsorships and in-game betting to close the gap in ARPU between the nascent esports market and other, more traditional, professional sporting businesses around the world.

McGarvey talks about the company’s new brand and directives as it takes on mainstays like Twitch and YouTube Gaming in the competitive esports business.

Why did you decide to launch a new brand after growing audiences through Hitbox and Azubu?

It made the most sense to combine the resources of both companies into a singular, more focused entity. Esports is an industry that features a couple well-heeled competitors, particularly Twitch and YouTube Gaming, so having any amount of increased scale and efficiency can make a material difference.

What went into naming this new brand and how does it compare with the previous two platforms?

We ultimately felt that the Smashcast name best represented the direction in which we wanted to go in the worlds of competitive gaming and esports. By getting laser-focused on the broadcaster-to-viewer interaction loop, we might best carve out our unique place in this burgeoning industry. To us, it’s all about generating smash hits, as determined by our viewers in-stream, whether that hit content be generated at our new production studio or through our talented broadcast partners.

What role will esports play with Smashcast.tv?

There remains a strong cultural tradition with Smashcast that has carried over from the former Hitbox and Azubu market positions. The difference, however slight it may appear at the outset, is that Azubu was hyper-focused on competing against Twitch and YouTube Gaming in esports while Hitbox was more interested in supporting the emergent tastes and interests of its varied global game communities. Hitbox showcased a wider breadth of category participation in competitive gaming vs. being solely focused on esports tournaments and teams. As a result, we’re now pursuing several unique opportunities, perhaps tangential to esports, that we’ll be announcing in the coming months.

How will you be marketing this platform to esports fans?

The vast majority of our multi-million user growth has been driven organically via our community apparatus and targeted content offerings. In the short term, we’ll primarily be focused on growing that channel, in contrast to paid ones, to test the efficacy of our recent investment in content development.

Are there specific leagues or teams you’re working with out of the gate?

We’re speaking with all the major players, leagues and teams in the industry across all territories. We have such a strong base of users in Europe, Eastern Europe, and across Latin America, that we’re looking for specific opportunities that leverage our community advantage in those regions.

What opportunities does this audience open up for sponsors?

We discovered that Hitbox’s deep commitment to community over the years has engendered a tremendous amount of goodwill that often results in engagement levels, on key titles and tournaments—up to 10x what one might expect on Twitch. With such a tight demographic composition of male millennials, we see a huge opportunity for sponsors to open up their reach to previously untested global regions.

What are some of the ways you’re learning from traditional sports through new marketing initiatives for these sponsors?

It’s no secret that esports has a ways to go in terms of catching up to the reach and distribution power of traditional sports industries which, from a foundational standpoint, are more adept at propagating multi-channel-based sponsorships, merchandizing and in-experience purchases. Our intent, from a monetization vantage point, is to first stimulate and build upon a hyper-engaged community—the selling into which is more likely to produce tangible results for our sponsors. So, ensuring that the right sponsorship is matched to the right event is a critical component of our strategy to build resonating community environments where sponsorships can flourish.

What’s your plan for in-house produced content in LA and Vienna and how that will drive viewership?

We’re investing first in a new content production studio in Vienna, which is just now coming online. With our strategy of focusing on unique and emerging opportunities, we felt the Vienna location would best serve our multi-language, multi-region approach to esports. Plans for a Los Angeles facility are in the works, but it’s not specifically our focus in the near term. We believe that the ability to better control the quality output to the Smashcast platform will result in higher engagement and retention metrics and, ultimately, increased rates of new viewer acquisition.

What do you see 360-degree content opening up for sponsors moving forward and how are you addressing that content on your platform?

We’re in the early stages of experimenting with 360 experiences in and around competitive gaming. We feel 360 has strong promise, particularly as it regards live tournament and event streaming, but not likely to be a key focus for us in the short-term. At the same time, Hitbox has always been a pioneer in the VR and 360 broadcasting space, so it remains an ongoing component of discussions with our sponsor partners.

What do you feel differentiates Smashcast from Twitch?

Ultimately, Twitch has become a large-market, large-audience broadcaster with a feature-set that caters to mass viewership. We see ourselves as being community and region-driven, where our focus is on building more intimate and engaging connections between great broadcasters and their viewers. In a sense, one might see bigger numbers at the moment on Twitch but often less engaged users. In some ways, it’s like the difference between braving the crowds, traffic etc. to see a Top 40 act in an arena environment vs. seeing your favorite local band in an intimate, more accessible setting.

How do you hope to attract fans away from Twitch, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube Gaming?

We’ll continue to focus on tightly knit communities around the world, while at the same time, growing those communities in innovative, low cost ways. We believe Twitch viewers will use the Smashcast platform to find unique and highly tailored content that is attractive to their particular interests at any given time. This might be analogous to fans of live music mixing up the types of shows they see based on their tastes and preferences at any given time.

Game Publishers Get A 1-Up By Becoming A Service

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MMOs like World of Warcraft helped usher in the age of online games as a service, with millions of gamers paying a monthly subscription fee. Now, subscription models are becoming more common—and profitable—among other game genres. As more and more consumers prefer digital versions of their favorite games, publishers are evolving their business models from one-time purchases to long-term experiences, keeping them relevant for years to come. Downloadable Content (DLC), episodic content and microtransactions increase the service lives of games significantly.

Roughly a quarter (28 percent) of US males and females ages 13-to-54 purchased additional video game content according to a recent study by NPD, with males and teens being the primary demographic. Microtransactions are purchased more often among those surveyed (compared to DLC) at 23 percent. Meanwhile, 77 percent of these buyers said that microtransactions allow them to extend their enjoyment of a particular game.

Rockstar’s support for its Grand Theft Auto V ‘s online mode has kept the game on top 10 charts for over three years running—many times as number one.

Only 35 percent of Call of Duty: Black Ops III digital revenue to date has been earned by unit sales, according to analyst firm SuperData. Activision’s ability to consistently release additional content has proven financially successful for the company while keeping fans coming back for more. An impressive 33 percent of the game’s digital revenue to date has been earned through microtransactions, compared to DLC and Season Passes at 22 and 10 percent, respectively.

Convenient, digital access to titles is ushering in the age of Netflix-like services that offer instant access to huge libraries of games. Ahead of its time, OnLive pioneered this idea but later sold its patents to Sony. Playstation Now, Xbox Games Pass, EA Access and more allow gamers to try and buy hundreds of games for a monthly fee. These services often attract gamers with exclusive titles, cross-platform play, purchase discounts and early access. HTC Viveport offers up to five VR experiences per month with its subscription plan.

Looking to the future, will mobile game subscriptions be next? Experts say “yes.”

“The success of the subscription model in music and video streaming tells us that consumers are willing to commit to a monthly payment in exchange for access to a curated buffet of content,” Joost van Dreunen, CEO of SuperData, told AListDaily. “As the market for mobile gaming matures, game publishers will seek out ways to lock in their audiences, rather than have them play for a short period and move on. A subscription-based strategy will be a key component in that context.”

“Mobile game subscriptions will free a set of developers to innovate on the content and services that are best suited for that business model (e.g., episodic content, enhanced communications, VIP services, etc.),” predicted Terence Fung, chief strategy officer for Storm8 (Dream City: Metropolis). “This will gain traction in 2017 and continue to grow moving forward.”