NBCUNIVERSAL is forming a unit called Curve Films, but there is no intention for it to compete with siblings at the company like Universal Pictures or Universal Television.
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Nikol is among several people 18 to 34 years old, known as millennials, who are interviewed and featured in cinematic storytelling by Curve Films, a unit of NBCUniversal.
Unlike those units, whose output is meant for millions of moviegoers and video viewers, Curve Films has a far more defined target audience: Madison Avenue.
Curve is the brainchild of the NBCUniversal integrated media group, which helps sales executives at NBCUniversal peddle commercial time and ad space on their myriad broadcast, cable and online properties that extend from Bravo and iVillage to NBC and the Weather Channel.
The goal of Curve Films — the name is supposed to evoke the phrase “Ahead of the curve” — is to find new, more interesting ways to deliver materials like research data to advertising and media agencies and marketers. So rather than publish a white paper on trends in consumer culture, Curve Films produced a handsome, 108-page book, titled “The Curve,” that would not look out of place on an office coffee table.
And rather than release a report on the estimated 76 million millennials in the United States — also known as Generation Y, and roughly defined as young adults born in 1980 or later — Curve plans on Monday to begin distributing a film called “Y Now.”
The film uses cinematic storytelling techniques to convey information about how Americans ages 18 to 34 behave, what they believe and how they differ significantly from people who were those ages in previous decades. Shot in a documentary vein, the film offers viewers interviews with nine millennials in New York and Texas.
Each represents a life stage or lifestyle like “the boomerang kid,” a 26-year-old man who has moved back in with his parents; “the creative moonlighter,” a man, age 24, who competes in poetry slams and works a day job in a restaurant; “the wanderlust,” a 23-year-old woman who travels and changes addresses continually; and “the stay-at-home dad,” 35, who takes care of his daughter while his wife works.
The film, which runs 22 minutes, will be divided into five shorter segments — five easy pieces, if you will — that are to be sent by e-mail to 1,000 employees at agencies around the country. The segments can be watched by clicking on links in the e-mails, which will go out from Monday through April 27.
“This is an opportunity to make research more compelling and entertaining,” said John Shea, who joined the NBCUniversal integrated media group in November in a new post, executive vice president and chief marketing officer. “We really want the audience who gets these e-mails to feel a connection with the subjects.”
For instance, the opening moments of the film “took cues from ‘An American Family,’ ” Mr. Shea said, referring to the 1973 PBS documentary series that has been called a precursor to reality TV, adding “there are a lot of ‘confessional’ kinds of shots.”
Melissa Lavigne-Delville, vice president for trends and strategic insights at the integrated media group, echoed Mr. Shea.
“Having been in research for so many years, I know that research gets boiled down to just stats and facts, but at the end of the day it’s a reflection of consumers’ lives,” she said. “We intend to breathe life back into what is at its core interesting material.”
In a twist, “Y Now” seeks to paint a portrait of Generation Y in broad strokes, concentrating on larger demographic trends — among them, “next generation parents and the new family” and “the creative class and career” — rather than examining more specialized subjects like changes in media consumption habits.
That approach is fairly novel for a media company. In fact, there is no moment in the film in which a millennial is seen watching TV, staring at a computer screen or thumb-typing on a smartphone.
The bigger picture was “even more of interest to us,” Mr. Shea said, because of the increasing importance to Madison Avenue of what the millennials decide to buy — or not buy.
“This is what the MTV generation, the Abercrombie & Fitch generation, looks like when they become work force newbies and start heading households,” he added. “They now make up 53 percent of the 18-to-49-year-old buying demo.” (That is the viewer demographic group most highly prized by many marketers because its members are forming brand preferences as they form families.)
Mr. Shea and Ms. Lavigne-Delville said they hoped Curve Films would have at least one release each quarter. The unit “does not require additional” spending, Mr. Shea said, because there was “a reallocation of resources” in the integrated media group after he joined.
That the group would seek more visual methods of presenting research results under Mr. Shea is not entirely surprising. He is best known for his long career at the MTV Networks division of Viacom, working on cable channels like MTV and VH1. In fact, when he joined NBCUniversal he received a so-called first look development deal for programming ideas.
NBCUniversal is not alone in trying to better understand Generation Y and explain it to clients. For example, Barkley, an agency in Kansas City, Mo., teamed up with the Boston Consulting Group for a study, “The Millennial Consumer: Debunking Stereotypes,” that was released this week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/business/media/nbcuniversal-to-entice-advertisers-with-filmed-research.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120419
Enlarge This Image
Nikol is among several people 18 to 34 years old, known as millennials, who are interviewed and featured in cinematic storytelling by Curve Films, a unit of NBCUniversal.
Unlike those units, whose output is meant for millions of moviegoers and video viewers, Curve Films has a far more defined target audience: Madison Avenue.
Curve is the brainchild of the NBCUniversal integrated media group, which helps sales executives at NBCUniversal peddle commercial time and ad space on their myriad broadcast, cable and online properties that extend from Bravo and iVillage to NBC and the Weather Channel.
The goal of Curve Films — the name is supposed to evoke the phrase “Ahead of the curve” — is to find new, more interesting ways to deliver materials like research data to advertising and media agencies and marketers. So rather than publish a white paper on trends in consumer culture, Curve Films produced a handsome, 108-page book, titled “The Curve,” that would not look out of place on an office coffee table.
And rather than release a report on the estimated 76 million millennials in the United States — also known as Generation Y, and roughly defined as young adults born in 1980 or later — Curve plans on Monday to begin distributing a film called “Y Now.”
The film uses cinematic storytelling techniques to convey information about how Americans ages 18 to 34 behave, what they believe and how they differ significantly from people who were those ages in previous decades. Shot in a documentary vein, the film offers viewers interviews with nine millennials in New York and Texas.
Each represents a life stage or lifestyle like “the boomerang kid,” a 26-year-old man who has moved back in with his parents; “the creative moonlighter,” a man, age 24, who competes in poetry slams and works a day job in a restaurant; “the wanderlust,” a 23-year-old woman who travels and changes addresses continually; and “the stay-at-home dad,” 35, who takes care of his daughter while his wife works.
The film, which runs 22 minutes, will be divided into five shorter segments — five easy pieces, if you will — that are to be sent by e-mail to 1,000 employees at agencies around the country. The segments can be watched by clicking on links in the e-mails, which will go out from Monday through April 27.
“This is an opportunity to make research more compelling and entertaining,” said John Shea, who joined the NBCUniversal integrated media group in November in a new post, executive vice president and chief marketing officer. “We really want the audience who gets these e-mails to feel a connection with the subjects.”
For instance, the opening moments of the film “took cues from ‘An American Family,’ ” Mr. Shea said, referring to the 1973 PBS documentary series that has been called a precursor to reality TV, adding “there are a lot of ‘confessional’ kinds of shots.”
Melissa Lavigne-Delville, vice president for trends and strategic insights at the integrated media group, echoed Mr. Shea.
“Having been in research for so many years, I know that research gets boiled down to just stats and facts, but at the end of the day it’s a reflection of consumers’ lives,” she said. “We intend to breathe life back into what is at its core interesting material.”
In a twist, “Y Now” seeks to paint a portrait of Generation Y in broad strokes, concentrating on larger demographic trends — among them, “next generation parents and the new family” and “the creative class and career” — rather than examining more specialized subjects like changes in media consumption habits.
That approach is fairly novel for a media company. In fact, there is no moment in the film in which a millennial is seen watching TV, staring at a computer screen or thumb-typing on a smartphone.
The bigger picture was “even more of interest to us,” Mr. Shea said, because of the increasing importance to Madison Avenue of what the millennials decide to buy — or not buy.
“This is what the MTV generation, the Abercrombie & Fitch generation, looks like when they become work force newbies and start heading households,” he added. “They now make up 53 percent of the 18-to-49-year-old buying demo.” (That is the viewer demographic group most highly prized by many marketers because its members are forming brand preferences as they form families.)
Mr. Shea and Ms. Lavigne-Delville said they hoped Curve Films would have at least one release each quarter. The unit “does not require additional” spending, Mr. Shea said, because there was “a reallocation of resources” in the integrated media group after he joined.
That the group would seek more visual methods of presenting research results under Mr. Shea is not entirely surprising. He is best known for his long career at the MTV Networks division of Viacom, working on cable channels like MTV and VH1. In fact, when he joined NBCUniversal he received a so-called first look development deal for programming ideas.
NBCUniversal is not alone in trying to better understand Generation Y and explain it to clients. For example, Barkley, an agency in Kansas City, Mo., teamed up with the Boston Consulting Group for a study, “The Millennial Consumer: Debunking Stereotypes,” that was released this week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/business/media/nbcuniversal-to-entice-advertisers-with-filmed-research.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120419
