The opening of Digital Hollywood, a conference devoted to new technology in the entertainment industry, brought discussions on digital marketing and new platforms, iPads and social gaming, advertising in the digital age and monetizing creativity.
And the event, which takes place Monday through Thursday at the Loew’s Santa Monica Beach Hotel, included a lot of panelists and attendees who used some variation on the phrase, “Well, I talked to my teenage kid about it, and he says …. “
Some glimpses of early action at the conference (at which theWrap is an event sponsor), and at the Variety Entertainment and Technology Summit, which ran concurrently with the opening day of Digital Hollywood:
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Besides lobbying for the end of the consent decree, producer, studio exec and Revolution Studios founder Joe Roth spent lots of his opening keynote interview at the Variety Summit pushing for the likes of Microsoft and Xbox to get more involved in the content business.
“Xbox is a cable network, they just don’t know it,” he insisted. “They have eight-and-a-half million subscribers. Why aren’t they creating original content? They should go out and get a big heavyweight fight … or make a series of original shows for $100,000 an episode.”
The reluctance of Xbox, Microsoft, Google and the like to create original content, he said, was likely due to caution about taking on too much.
“They might have a concern that it’s not in their wheelhouse, and they might feel that there’s a difference between technology people and creative people,” he said. “I think everybody’s scared that they’re going to get sucked in and seduced by Hollywood, and they’re going to lose $100 million on a movie.
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Roth also focused on a pair of statistics: two-thirds of all teenagers, he said, own cell phones, while three-quarters own iPods.
With teens that connected, he added, it’s crucial for entertainment companies to look to social media to reach their potential audience.
“Access is everything,” he said. “They’re completely open to be marketed and sold to … And three quarters of the time, you’re in contact with a potential buyer.”
The key, he said, comes in tapping into the social media communities that have coalesced around things like the “Twilight” books and movies. Roth has done that with the Seattle Sounders, a soccer team in which he is a majority owner, and one that allows an online community of fans to name the team and even make personnel decisions, voting every four years whether or not to retain or dismiss the general manager.
“Your audience can be told about something without having to spend $200,000 on a television spot,” he said.
For example: “‘The Hangover’ (above) and ‘District 9’ really are digital media movies. You can’t tell me that people came to see those movies in their second or third weeks because of a media buy. I guarantee you that the legs on those movies are because of interaction in the digital world.”
