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'Chucky' and 'Jurassic World' Are Using This Santa Monica-Based Platform to Tap Fans for Art and Ideas
Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
As a kid, Jeff Blackman loved to see the animated artwork that would air between shows on networks like MTV and Nickelodeon.
Now, as the senior vice president of creative, entertainment cable creative & marketing in NBCUniversal’s Television and Streaming Department, Blackman wants to make his own networks just as visually engaging. And he wants fans to be part of the creative team.
So far, they’ve delivered. Ahead of the second season of “Chucky,” a series that follows the character from the “Child’s Play” franchise, NBCUniversal’s cable channel SYFY tapped the film’s fans to make episodic posters for the show. Eight different artists received $2,000 for their work, which resulted in anime-esque reimaginings of the doll and a Christmas-themed animation.
“We had this idea that, if we're going to turn the brand of SYFY over to the fans, we would want them to create the experience on the TV channel—which, traditionally, only the people that make shows get to make the TV channel,” Blackman says.
To find enthusiastic artists, NBCUniversal turned to Tongal, a Santa Monica-based content creation platform. The way it works is simple. Artists use the platform to showcase their work and market themselves to people looking to hire creatives. Alternatively, companies provide information about specific projects, such as what fanbase they are looking for and digital size requirements. After reviewing artist submissions, the companies greenlight which artists will get funding to complete the project.
For founder and CEO James DeJulio, Tongal was born out of the frustration of seeing talented people be shut out of the entertainment industry, which is notoriously difficult to break into.
“I really wanted to build a system where creative people could begin to unlock their potential and where they would find the opportunity to work with people like [Blackman], who believed in them and who desperately needed to find a way to get closer to creators and their audience,” DeJulio says.
Tongal and NBCUniversal’s partnership has since expanded beyond logo art. For “Jurassic World Dominion,” fans were encouraged to animate dinosaurs in the modern world. The 35 year anniversary of “Back to the Future” was celebrated with people recreating their favorite scenes.
But the process can also get more in-depth. When SYFY wanted to make a documentary about the comic book writer Todd McFarlane, they offered artists on Tongal a budget ranging from $80,000 to $120,000. They also helped those artists coordinate large filming locations. In one case the artists filmed at San Diego Comic-Con and were granted access to McFarlane’s personal archive.
The idea for Blackman is to use Tongal’s network to find creators who have extensive knowledge of the comic book world instead of hiring from a more traditional pool of applicants.
“We need somebody who knows that stuff, maybe has some relationships and prior work in there and then can bring something interesting to the visual storytelling,” Blackman says.
While some companies, like Marvel, have been vocally hesitant to bring fans into their process, claiming that they are too attached to the original plotlines, others have embraced them. Last year, Lucasfilm hired a “Star Wars” fan who had previously made Luke Skywalker deepfakes to work on de-aging and facial visual effects.
For its part, SYFY wants to work with people who are passionate about their intellectual property. According to Blackman, doing so solves two problems: the company doesn’t have to spend time explaining the show to people who are unfamiliar with the universe, and it helps them feature a wide range of skill sets and artistic styles.
“This lets us go really deep with these subsets of fans and audiences and lets them go even deeper on their engagement with the show,” Blackman says.
From DeJulio’s perspective, that level of fan engagement is going to be the key to television marketing. He believes marketing methods that don’t actively engage fans are no longer an effective, long-term marketing model. Instead, bringing in people who want to channel their passion for a show into a creative outlet can become an active part of the marketing process.
“I think, in the future, there's no way for a show or movie to not get really close to the fan base,” DeJulio says. “The idea of that something just gets created in an ivory tower and then launched out into the world—I don't know if that's the long-term marketing model for entertainment.”
Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
https://twitter.com/ksnyder_db
Terms of Misuse?: Breaking Down the Data TikTok Collects on Its U.S. Users
09:00 AM | July 19, 2022
TikTok has come under renewed scrutiny over how it handles U.S. data, with some lawmakers calling for an investigation into the Culver City-based company.
What kind of data does TikTok collect? And should we worry about a potential national security threat when Americans’ data is accessed by employees of ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company?
To answer these questions, dot.LA reviewed TikTok’s privacy policy and interviewed Thomas Germain, a technology writer for Consumer Reports who specializes in privacy issues.
What Data TikTok Collects
Like other social media giants, TikTok gobbles up a lot of user information. To start, TikTok receives names, ages, phone numbers and emails when people sign up for the service. The app also knows users’ approximate locations and mobile device identifiers, such as IP addresses.
Germain told dot.LA the most valuable info may come from the way users interact with the video sharing app. TikTok is quite good at figuring out peoples’ interests based on the videos or accounts they’ve previously liked or followed. Those insights are useful for advertisers and—potentially—for spreading political messages, Germain noted.
“This vast trove of data that every social media company has—on what people are interested in, what makes them upset, what makes them happy—is incredibly valuable,” he said.
The company’s privacy policy permits TikTok to collect a wide range of additional data, from consumers’ keystroke patterns to biometric info. However, the company says it doesn’t necessarily take in or store all of this. For example, keystroke patterns may be used solely for anti-fraud and spam purposes, according to TikTok. Regarding biometrics, TikTok said editing features may automatically locate a person’s face to apply an effect, but those features do not uniquely identify individuals.
Why U.S. government officials are concerned
TikTok is owned by Beijing-based tech giant ByteDance and China is an economic and foreign policy rival to the U.S. government. With the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) exerting considerable power over the nation’s tech companies, U.S. lawmakers and administration officials contend that TikTok’s Chinese ownership poses a national security risk.
“The CCP has a track record longer than a CVS receipt of conducting business & industrial espionage as well as other actions contrary to U.S. national security, which is what makes it so troubling that [ByteDance] personnel in Beijing are accessing this sensitive and personnel data,” Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr recently said.
TikTok says it has never provided any U.S. user data to the Chinese government, nor would it do so if asked. Additionally, the company recently announced that all of U.S. user traffic is now routed to American software giant Oracle’s servers.
“The TikTok app is not unique in the amount of information it collects, compared to other mobile apps,” the company said.
TikTok is hardly the only company swallowing a lot of data on Americans, from car makers to smart doorbell firms. Consumers’ credit card purchases, contact lists and recent GPS locations are hawked by hundreds, if not thousands, of companies in the so-called data broker industry, Germain noted.
“If the Chinese government wanted it, they could just go out and buy it because it's for sale,” he said. “...I think people, when they're worried about TikTok doing something, they should ask themselves whether they should be worried about American companies doing the same thing.”
Still, Germain said there’s some genuine cause for concern, since China’s government has previously pushed the country’s companies to do its bidding. But to Germain, that concern has less to do with China knowing your phone number and more to do with propaganda.
“The Chinese government could instruct Tiktok to manipulate its algorithm to show people content that promotes the goals of the Chinese government,” Germain said. “That could totally happen and that is something that is of concern. But that does start to move away from questions of data privacy.”
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Christian Hetrick
Christian Hetrick is dot.LA's Entertainment Tech Reporter. He was formerly a business reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer and reported on New Jersey politics for the Observer and the Press of Atlantic City.
Gen Z Hates Ads—Unless They’re On TikTok. Here’s Why
11:01 AM | April 07, 2023
This is the web version of dot.LA’s daily newsletter. Sign up to get the latest news on Southern California’s tech, startup and venture capital scene.
TikTok is awash with ads. There are microinfluencers pushing products that fit the latest microtrend. There are celebrity influencers launching their skincare brands. Ads that look like they were re-purposed from high-quality videos. And ads that try to mimic casual influencer videos.
For the past few years, marketing agencies have fully shifted their strategies to prioritize TikTok. On the surface, this might seem contrary to what we know about Gen Z, which is that they hate ads. Digital consumer research firm Bulbshare found that 99% of Gen Z skips ads when given a chance, and 74% feel there are too many ads.
But TikTok ads hit differently. A Statista study from March found that 38% of TikTok users are okay with ads in exchange for being able to use the app for free. And 28% of people have bought products promoted by celebrities or influencers, which is 10% higher than other non-TikTok users. Considering that 60% of TikTok users are Gen Z, it’s clear that these percentages reflect young consumers’ habits more than any other demographic.
So what makes TikTok advertising more potent than other methods of reaching consumers?
In short, TikTok ads are so ingrained within the platform’s influencer culture ecosystem it’s nearly impossible to differentiate them from other pieces of content.
For example, an influencer’s get-ready-with-me video might highlight beauty products a creator was paid to promote or shove in completely unrelated products, like Pop-Tarts in a makeup tutorial. Because these videos look identical to many of the non-promotional content on an influencer’s account, paid promotions are indiscernible from those that are unpaid. Even videos created by brands sometimes look like they were filmed by influencers. In fact, the Statistica study found that 15% have difficulty distinguishing ads from unpaid content.
Naturally, with so much success on TikTok, brands have opted to use it as a starting point for new marketing campaigns. According to Glossy, TikTok is now the testing ground to see how video styles, tones and messages are received. Whatever works on TikTok is then re-purposed across other social media platforms, like Snapchat and Instagram.
But some brands are also trying to figure out how to integrate ideas that succeed on TikTok into other platforms. This has led to a particularly awful type of ad where something that was ostensibly filmed for TikTok is presented in the wide-screen format people are used to seeing on YouTube or on TV. Take this Tractor Supply Company ad featuring country music star Lainey Wilson riding a tractor. The company specifically made the ad, which aired during the November premiere of “Yellowstone,” to be “TikTok style” as a way to appear approachable and down-to-earth. In other words, even ads that don’t appear on TikTok are adopting the video-sharing app’s native style.
It’s unclear how successful this transfer of content is, or if someone watching TV is receptive to this video style. But it’s a relatively low-cost test since filming a “lo-fi” video for TikTok and then re-using it across other advertising channels is less expensive than creating unique content for each platform. - Kristin Snyder
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Kristin Snyder
Kristin Snyder is dot.LA's 2022/23 Editorial Fellow. She previously interned with Tiger Oak Media and led the arts section for UCLA's Daily Bruin.
https://twitter.com/ksnyder_db
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