Creativity, Talent and Scale On Show at the VDS Newfront
Viacom Inc., home to the world’s premiere entertainment brands, unveiled Viacom Digital Studios and announced an upcoming slate of digital programming, platform partnerships, talent deals and the expansion of VidCon at its first-ever Digital Content NewFront on April 30, 2018.
Photo courtesy of Viacom
Viacom Digital Studios detailed its plans to deliver hundreds of hours of premium, original content with Viacom stars and digital-native talent from BET, Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon across the leading social and online video platforms for Viacom’s massive social footprint of more than 850 million fans.
Photo courtesy of Viacom
WHOSAY CEO Steve Ellis said at Viacom Digital Studios Newfront, “Average marketing, uncreative marketing, is not good enough anymore. Nobody has to pay attention to what you have to say unless you do something different.”
In response to being part of Viacom, Ellis added, “We always wanted to be able to participate with our services alongside the power of a television Upfront and the distribution that a major media company can offer, and we get to do that this year.”
In addition, Viacom Digital Studios President Kelly Day mentioned the January 2018 Viacom acquisition of WHOSAY as a milestone for a media conglomerate that invented youth culture with MTV and is now reinventing it on a six-inch-screen.
VDS’ pitch centered around the power of creative influencers that produce engaging content for digital distribution. Something that WHOSAY has been done since its founding in 2010 by pairing brands with influencers, including McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Macy’s, P&G and Mars Wrigley—and Viacom’s own iconic MTV and BET.
“We’ve worked with a lot of the same customers,” Ellis told BeetTV. “Now we get to combine that with the inventory that comes with a linear cable company and a digital company that provides so much content, so many views. Those two together we think is the combination that we did this deal for.”
That’s why WHOSAY and VDS are a match made in influencer heaven: small screens and huge creativity would be a good way to describe Viacom Digital Studios’ very first Newfront, with appearances by favorite creators including Broad City’s Arturo Castro and ‘Boomerang’ singer and YouTuber JoJo Siwa, who painted a vivid picture of what the future of content looks like: influencers and Gen Z.
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