- 6 weeks ago
Ramin Setoodeh moderates a conversation with Chris Down, Hannah Elsakr, Karen Barragan, Darren Schillace and Ian Trombetta about New Frontiers in Entertainment at SXSW Austin.
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00:00This room is filled with people who really care about kind of high-end.
00:03We're not talking about cats off of, you know, diving boards type of memes.
00:06We're talking about really high-end theatrical minutes.
00:09And that's what we're excited about from an innovation standpoint,
00:12about how that all can intersect and how we can help artists really kind of greenlight themselves.
00:28My name is Ramin Satuta. I'm the co-editor-in-chief and co-president of Variety.
00:31And I'm so excited to welcome you all to New Frontiers in Entertainment.
00:35We're going to be talking about what's going on in the entertainment industry
00:37and the future of the entertainment industry and the technology that is being used in the entertainment industry.
00:41And we have an incredible group of people sitting to my left,
00:44starting with Chris Down from Mattel.
00:50Hannah Elsocker from Adobe.
00:54My friend Karen Berrigan from Blumhouse.
00:59Darren Shalace from Fox Entertainment.
01:03And Ian Trombetta from the NFL.
01:06Welcome, guys. Thank you so much for joining us today.
01:09So I have a lot of questions, but to start, I was wondering if we could go down the line
01:14here
01:14since it's Oscars weekend and you guys could talk about a movie that you really love.
01:18It doesn't have to be your favorite movie.
01:19And then what is your favorite part of your job?
01:22Oh.
01:24And this wasn't prepared, so.
01:27Nice work, Ramin.
01:29I have to quickly go watch some Oscar movies.
01:31I'm sorry.
01:31I know.
01:33Yeah, I'm going to circle back on the Oscar movie choice of things that I've loved.
01:38What about Barbie?
01:40Well, I mean, come on.
01:41We're a little bit, you know what?
01:43Barbie is forever, so yes, I'll go Barbie.
01:45You know, let's go Barbie.
01:46And then the second question was.
01:48What's your favorite part of your job?
01:49Favorite part of my job.
01:50You know, we get to, I get to deal with kids and play every day.
01:56And so that changes the whole dynamic of how the workplace works.
02:00It's a corporation.
02:01It's like a lot of other places.
02:02But the subject matter, the content, and the people that we serve does matter.
02:05So that's what I love.
02:07Excellent.
02:09I'll have to say Train Dreams.
02:12I saw that premiered at Sundance.
02:14Adobe's obviously been involved in Sundance for a long time.
02:16And that's just gorgeous, gorgeous cinematography.
02:20Best part of my job.
02:21Well, I have a title which can mean a lot and a little, which is Gen.A.I. New Business
02:26Venture.
02:27So I get to spend my time in all the new technologies and with all these great brands and filmmakers
02:33and studios.
02:34So that's the best part of my job.
02:36I'm going to say The Secret Agent because I did work with Wagner Mora on a show called Narcos.
02:44So it's nice to see him kind of get this recognition.
02:48I don't deal with kids and play.
02:49So I like that about my job.
02:54But I also just like that the...
02:57You.
03:00I'm at Blumhouse.
03:01But I like that the landscape and how we have to do our jobs changes so frequently that it's impossible
03:08to get bored at what you're doing.
03:12I, too, will circle back on the Oscar movies.
03:15I don't think I've been to the movies since, like, COVID.
03:18Oh, God, no.
03:18I know.
03:19Sorry, sorry.
03:21I've done television marketing pretty much my entire career.
03:24I love what I do.
03:25And similar to Karen, the speed, the unpredictability keep me motivated.
03:30I've never had the same day twice in my career.
03:33And I love that about it.
03:35Some of my team spin over it.
03:37But we get through it.
03:38And it's part of the fun.
03:40Okay.
03:41So I've had time to think about this.
03:43I'm going to go with Sinners.
03:45I really enjoyed that movie.
03:46I think it's up for an Oscar, to keep me honest here.
03:50I thought that was just terrific and very original.
03:53And best part of my job at the NFL, I've been there almost eight years now, is working day in,
04:00day out with the players and building those relationships and helping them build their brands.
04:04And I'm sure I'll talk more about that.
04:06But that always excites me and always enjoy me, some of the new players coming up as well.
04:11Great.
04:11Great job, guys.
04:12Thank you very much.
04:13So we're going to have an open and engaging conversation.
04:16But actually, I want to now go back and start with you, Ian, and come back.
04:19And I was wondering if we could each go through, talk about innovation.
04:22What is the innovation in your field?
04:24And how do you think about innovation and change right now in the industry?
04:28That's a very broad question.
04:30I think for us, it comes back to storytelling at the end of the day, right?
04:34I mean, sports is all about storytelling.
04:35And for us, when we think about all the potential that we have, not only in the U.S., but
04:40internationally now, and the growth that we're seeing there, not only with men, but with women.
04:46So when I think about the power of creators and who those creators are and how they're emerging, it's everyone
04:52from players and NFL legends like Jason Kelsey, but also his wife, like Kylie Kelsey, and seeing her now rise
04:59up.
04:59Or Kristen Juszczyk is another great example, someone who's now a really well-known fashion designer.
05:04So these opportunities now are in front of us.
05:07And I think, obviously, the platforms have a lot to do with that.
05:10They really democratize the way in which media is operating.
05:13And for us, we love to celebrate that.
05:14And I think it opens so many new doors for us to build fandom, which is really, at the end
05:19of the day, what my job is all about.
05:21How important has Taylor Swift been?
05:24Yes.
05:24I haven't had a Taylor question in a while, but we love Taylor.
05:28Taylor's fantastic.
05:30We hope to see her in the halftime show at some point soon.
05:34But, no, she's great.
05:36I think the – and just really quick on that.
05:40The reality with Taylor Swift is she's been incredibly additive to the NFL.
05:44There's no doubt about that.
05:46I do think people probably overstated in many cases what it actually meant for our fan base.
05:52She's helped tremendously, no doubt.
05:54But when it comes down to it, almost 50% of our fans were women.
05:59I think what she's actually doing now, and she's actually having more women, young women coming in, and they're getting
06:05to know the game much more than they were before.
06:08So I think we're seeing that sort of deepening of fandom and understanding of the game.
06:11And she's been really at the center of a lot of that.
06:15Excellent.
06:16Darren?
06:17The innovation question is interesting when you work at a broadcast network.
06:21We are a legacy model, but the balance of innovation for us is that literally just modernizing.
06:27It's started many moons ago as we do output deals with Hulu.
06:31It's how we're moving into podcasts and vertical and bringing content to wherever people are, however they want it, without
06:39losing sight of what made Fox Fox in the bold characters and the storytelling, similar to what Ian said.
06:46And just pushing out content on a more frequent basis has been a little bit generated by innovation and AI
06:54in terms of its speed to market, not the content itself.
06:57And it's moving a lot faster than anyone thought broadcasts really ever would.
07:03Interesting.
07:04I think for us, it's probably YouTube and the platform where a lot of directors are now coming from.
07:11So, uh, before I think legacy media kind of was a gate holder to like who could make a movie.
07:17And now you look at someone like Markiplier who made his own movie, self-distributed, still got into like 3000
07:24AMC theaters.
07:26For us, we have found a couple of directors on YouTube, um, and they're making major, uh, studio movies.
07:34So Curry Barker has obsession for focus that comes out in May.
07:37Kane Parsons through Atomic Monster has Backrooms, which also comes out in May.
07:42So like where we have found, um, you know, a new kind of playground for directors is in a format
07:50or a forum where they already have a following.
07:52They have an audience, people know them.
07:55And so the hope is that like they'll kind of migrate and help evolve how the studios have worked before.
08:01And I think that's, that's really interesting for us.
08:04Yeah, I want to plus, I mean, people are green lighting themselves, which is like an incredible thing.
08:08Um, from innovation, like look, Adobe, I think is one of the OGs in the, um, technology innovation space for
08:15creativity.
08:16And so I like to say like, we've been here before in different modes.
08:20Um, you know, a story around Photoshop when it launched in the nineties, people weren't happy with Adobe.
08:25They felt like we were just drawing craft, right?
08:27And I think if you didn't learn Photoshop, you probably missed something called the internet and the digital revolution.
08:34So I like to, you know, and others who probably worked in, in, uh, 3D graphics.
08:38If you talk to the folks at Pixar, when 3D animation came out, that was also, you know, really jarring
08:44for the industry.
08:45And I think we're at that again.
08:47Um, this room is filled with people who really care about kind of high end.
08:50We're not talking about cats off of, you know, diving boards type of memes.
08:54We're talking about really high end theatrical minutes.
08:57And that's what we're excited about from an innovation standpoint, about how that all can intersect and how we can
09:03help artists really kind of green light themselves economically.
09:07Um, and I would, I would totally plus one on that one from, uh, from Hannah.
09:11And I was one of those early Photoshop and Illustrator, uh, users back in the day.
09:15Um, you know, leading, uh, leading the innovation and design practice for Mattel.
09:19Um, innovation is a word that can be applied to a lot of things.
09:23I mean, practical innovation, what are you doing?
09:25It's 5,000 new toys a year.
09:26What are you doing next?
09:27So we think about that a lot, but probably the biggest thing that, that applies to all of us sitting
09:32on the panel and maybe everybody in the room, Mattel is, is, you know, I mean, we just went through
09:37a massive, uh, kind of reorientation about how we think about ourselves.
09:42And we think about ourselves or an 80 year old, 81 year old toy company, and we've just reoriented and,
09:47and changed the model to think of ourselves and restructure ourselves to be a brand company.
09:52So you think of like Hot Wheels and Barbie and Polly and, you know, the, the, the brands are endless,
09:56but the focus on those brands and being able to connect with consumers where they're at, which is much more
10:03broad today than it was even two or three years ago.
10:08So, um, it's, it's, it's, it's a, uh, it's a modification of the model by necessity.
10:14My next question is for all of you on the panel, but we don't have to go in order.
10:17What is the most important technology or an emerging technology that you're using in the day to day of your
10:22business?
10:25I think it goes without saying, and this is going to be a common theme.
10:28You're going to hear this, um, tell the cows come on, but obviously with artificial intelligence, um, we're, we're actively
10:34on an enterprise level using AI in so many different ways, both on the, on the backend, uh, internally to
10:41streamline different processes, but, but also with great partners like Adobe on scaling our, our overall global operation.
10:48Uh, it wouldn't be possible without the use of artificial intelligence.
10:52And just to give you a good use case, if you think about our fans in the U S most
10:58fans know quite a bit about football.
11:00We have over 200 million fans just in the U S alone, and they've, they've been born and kind of
11:04raised with, with the NFL and with football as a whole, when you go outside of the U S and
11:11I was just in Spain last year and, and with family members who had never watched a single minute of
11:17football.
11:18And you think about, okay, the communication and everything that goes around it, even where to watch the game, it's
11:24vastly different in the international markets and we have to meet them on their terms.
11:28So I think with, with AI, especially that'll really help us get there in terms of the messaging day in,
11:33day out with, with our new fans, as well as our Avid fans.
11:38Karen.
11:39Yeah, I would say it's probably the same, you know, there's different ways that we're learning AI and trying different
11:45things.
11:46A lot of it has been optimizing on, um, buying media.
11:49We don't buy a ton of media.
11:51So when you can make it more efficient, our studio partners are really the ones in charge of distributing films.
11:56So when it comes to us for brand building, it's really about like, how can we optimize and get the
12:01most out of our dollar?
12:02Um, I'd also say though, you know, we offer, it's a great tool and we offer our filmmakers like as
12:10much leeway as they want when it comes to like what they want to create with AI.
12:15Um, but it's truly up to them.
12:17I think horror fans have a very strong point of view about AI when they want, if, if it's going
12:21to be on screen, they don't really want to see it.
12:24So it's, it's a very careful balance for us of like listening to the audience and just reading the room
12:30when it comes to how you use these tools.
12:32What do horror fans want when they're, when it comes to AI?
12:35How would you summarize their thoughts?
12:36I mean, look for us, it's been more like our, our mantra has been practical effects, right?
12:41Like it's, it's cheaper and that's our movies are moderately budgeted.
12:46So we're just always very conscientious of that.
12:49And it's got to feel real and scary.
12:52You know, I think I haven't seen a really great AI kind of short that, that feels real enough in
12:58that way.
12:59The, you know, it's coming and, and I think in the future we'll see more of it, but we're not
13:03quite there yet on our end.
13:05Just to fine tune the conversation a little, cause I think that's an interesting framework from Karen.
13:09How do you use AI in a way that's ethical?
13:11Cause AI, the question isn't whether or not we're going to use AI.
13:14We all use AI.
13:15It's here, it's arrived.
13:16It's changing the industry.
13:17It's revolutionizing the industry.
13:18But what are the ways in which you can incorporate AI in a way that's ethical to storytelling and also
13:24making sense in the industry so that you're not, so that storytellers can still have their own voice?
13:32I'll start with that.
13:33I think both externally to your question, but internal to our business, it's about the transparency of it.
13:39We've put things up on social that we thought were clearly, obviously AI, but didn't say anything about it.
13:46And the immediate and vast rejection was, I have to say, just surprising where it became about, you're taking jobs
13:53from artists.
13:55There were artists who actually made this.
13:57We didn't provide any context or the transparency that we should have.
14:02And I think there's so much misinformation out there.
14:05The more we're honest with people about what was done to make it, because everyone just goes with the headlines
14:12of you're taking jobs.
14:13AI is also creating jobs.
14:15And I understand the balance of that, even internally, that transparency of we're now doing this through our operations team.
14:21None of you are leaving, but your jobs are just this now.
14:25So you incorporate AI into your job.
14:27It makes you faster.
14:28You can focus more.
14:29So those conversations have minimized.
14:33The second I say AI, people hear headcount.
14:36I'm like, that's not what I said.
14:37So we have to be very careful about, you know, both creative and just broad adoption, I think.
14:44And, you know, I'll just, maybe I'll add, like, transparency is definitely one thing.
14:48So the other part I say is the nutrition label of the AI you're using.
14:53And this is both, you know, what are the calories in?
14:57So knowing where the data sources are coming from.
15:00And, again, you guys are doing, like, massive releases for global audiences.
15:05And then, you know, just thinking about your own IP agency.
15:09You're all artists in this room.
15:10And so I like what the copyright office has said, which is, you know, humans have to be at the
15:16center of making things in order to have a copyright over it.
15:19And you should be able to monetize what you have created.
15:23And so I think it's important in that concept, and obviously Adobe has taken a particular stance around it, to
15:28license every piece of content that we go into a training model.
15:32Because we, you know, we've really been at the heart of the creative community all that time.
15:37And then, obviously, the consumers, the fandom is discerning.
15:41You know, you're not, if it looks uncanny, it's going to feel uncanny to them.
15:46But you guys have all, for Megan, too, and I think we've done this with the NFL.
15:50Fandom wants to drive the narrative.
15:51And the only way to have fandom do it is if you give them tools.
15:55So I think with Megan, too, we did something with NBC, which was around a social interaction with, you know,
16:01with the avatar.
16:01And the same thing with the NFL, for your WAGs or for the influencers, giving them a brand kit where
16:06they can make video or they can make things on brand.
16:09That's a way to own the agency over your IP and still put it out there with AI.
16:14I do think just on the AI topic, on the misinformation piece, it is something that doesn't get discussed enough.
16:23We've seen just a huge proliferation of fake content, but it's coming from what appears to be real sources.
16:30And that content can scale very, very quickly.
16:34And before you know it, you've got a player or a team owner or a club, and in many cases
16:40with your brands as well, I'm sure, where you've got a real PR situation that's completely fake.
16:46And I'll give you an example just to make it a little more tangible.
16:49When the Charlie Kirk shooting happened, there was misinformation on both sides featuring our players.
16:57Messages saying and posts that look like they're coming from reputable sources saying,
17:01George Kittle has agreed to pay for his children's college tuition.
17:06Or on the other side, that he completely, you know, slanders Charlie Kirk and everything he stood for.
17:11Neither of which are true at all.
17:13But then we're having to get out in front of that.
17:15So for us, it comes down to the early identification of what that content and where it's coming from, and
17:21then immediately taking action.
17:23So we've got an entire team now that's just focused on taking action and pulling down that content as quickly
17:28as we can to avoid these situations where we're having to then combat a misinformation issue.
17:34So I think for all of us in this room, depending on what brand you're working with or building your
17:39own company, it is something to be hyper aware of because the damage that can come out of that is
17:44significant.
17:44And the scale of it is at another level.
17:47Because we don't know what we're looking at.
17:49And it's like there's a level of truth that we don't understand.
17:53Because I remember in the days after, I was getting a lot of posts targeted.
17:56And you have to now go to the source material.
17:57And are people doing that?
17:59And the answer is no.
18:00And I don't think it's a fair expectation for someone who's scrolling on Instagram or TikTok or YouTube, whatever it
18:07may be, to then have to do all the due diligence on the back end.
18:10That's just not going to happen, especially the way that the attention spans are today.
18:14They're going to continue to scroll and take that for what it is.
18:18So I do think the education portion of it is going to be really important for bigger scale companies, especially
18:24to lead the way.
18:25Chris, go ahead.
18:25Yeah, I did want to throw one thing out there.
18:27And it kind of flips to the upstream piece of it, which is what has been – it's like a
18:33miracle.
18:34It was Steve Jobs in 1981, like the computer is like a bicycle for the brain, creates a huge amount
18:42of efficiency and makes humans superpowered.
18:45And in many ways, the upstream aspect in terms of idea generation, fleshing out ideation, early concept development is huge.
18:54And what's amazing is we talk about kind of the democratization of how the tools allow creative minds to actually
19:03express themselves.
19:03Not everybody can, like, draw a pretty picture.
19:06The people that can are some of the most frustrated because they're like, well, I'm going to lose my job
19:10because that was my way of owning the idea space.
19:13Now the idea space is a lot broader.
19:15What's exciting about that is the idea space is a lot broader, and we're certainly seeing that.
19:21Now the difference between what happens internally and ultimately what gets in front of consumers is a – it's a
19:29real sticky one, as is the whole thing about am I going to lose my job.
19:33I will say that because there are companies like Adobe that have IP-safe tools that allow us to express
19:40using AI, things that are IP-safe on the outside is great.
19:45But today, I will tell you, it is a profound influence on the early innovation and ideation process, at least
19:51for toys.
19:52I think the one other thing we didn't really talk about is, on our end, we have a screenwriting program
20:00for up-and-coming screenwriters.
20:02And we worked with Meta, who was doing some of the Gen AI kind of storytelling.
20:07And what they did is they sat down with three different groups that we had pitched them to help them
20:13meet up with engineers and, like, use the AI system that they are developing.
20:18And one of our groups of filmmakers used the time to kind of set up, like, a little bit of
20:24a trailer because they wanted a fundraise.
20:26And so what they were trying to do is use something that they could get people to, you know, pitch
20:31in a room and, like, help people understand what they were trying to accomplish.
20:36And, you know, that's something that, like, they wouldn't have been able to do without a lot of resources on
20:41their own.
20:42So I think even when you're talking about how it's going to help, you know, aid you pushing your project
20:48further, that's just something that we don't always talk about.
20:50But it is really helpful for people.
20:53Hannah, I want to talk to you about, speaking of superpowers and superhuman abilities, talk to me about the way
20:58in which Adobe uses AI ethically for emerging filmmakers, especially the work that you've done in Sundance, and the way
21:05in which now it is a democracy and that people will be able to make movies or make stories or
21:11do projects without necessarily having the overhead of a huge studio budget.
21:16I mean, I think you started to say it, which is, sometimes we pitch and we pitch in words, and
21:21who we're pitching to fundraise us doesn't understand what we're saying.
21:26And so being able to cut a trailer together with a very, no budget, essentially, actually can get you greenlit.
21:35The average minute of Netflix, I think, to produce is something like a couple hundred thousand dollars per minute to
21:42produce final Netflix quality.
21:43If you're doing theatrical, it can be a million dollars or more per minute.
21:47And, of course, we know audiences are not necessarily starting by going to sit in theatrical, since you guys have
21:53said you haven't gone to me in a while.
21:55And so the economics, like the actual math of that is really hard to work out.
22:00And so, yeah, we've been sponsoring Sundance, of course, for 15 years.
22:0585% of the submissions are, you know, cut in our tools or use our tools.
22:10And I think the filmmakers find it interesting to open up the sketchbook and maybe explore 10, 20, 100 ideas,
22:17whereas before they would have been on a timeline where they had to, like, make a choice very early on
22:23back to ideation.
22:23So I do think you'll see possibly more stories being told, and because distribution and being visible doesn't require big
22:33distribution, you can, in a sense, you know, be able to finance yourself and get that done.
22:40I think that's a super exciting thing.
22:43There's lots of artists who would tell me, like, so many ideas are trapped in my sketchbook.
22:48You know, I'm a big director, but I want to do 10 more projects, but I don't have time to
22:53take two years out of, you know, the schedule to go develop it.
22:56But you'll see people are doing more and more things and locking ideas out of their sketchbook.
23:00Maybe do it in shorts or, God forbid, micro-drama series.
23:05I do watch those, so I'll out myself.
23:07But we're consuming in different ways, so I think that's an interesting time.
23:11Is there a tool that you've found that young filmmakers really, really love to use or that really has changed
23:16the way in which they think about storytelling?
23:18Well, I have to say that they love the Adobe tools, right?
23:21Like, we have one which is an endless canvas called Boards, which I do think is really exciting.
23:26It integrates kind of the idea of an ideation board with all the best-in-class AI models in the
23:32same place.
23:33So, you know, I've worked with some folks in marketing who are marketing movies where it would have taken them
23:39three weeks to cut a 40-second promo.
23:41And we'll sit down in front of a board, and we'll just cut together a storyboard in, like, an hour.
23:46And then we can generate six ideas for every eight-second clip and make choices between the models, between, you
23:53know, we can take a VO, we can feed it a VO.
23:56And they'll have something done in a day, which, again, if you think about personalization and reaching everyone,
24:03and teams usually don't have enough capacity.
24:06So I'm excited that you can reach more audience.
24:09Speaking of reaching more audience, Darren, I wanted to ask you, how has social media affected the way in which
24:14you judge the success of a marketing campaign?
24:16Does it exist if it doesn't exist on social media?
24:19A hard question.
24:22I remember early in my career, we did our first Facebook page for Grey's Anatomy in season one.
24:28And we were, like, pretending we were the doctors.
24:31It was so silly looking back on it now.
24:34I actually remember that campaign.
24:36We're going to find their voice.
24:36It was probably Grey's Shaban.
24:38It was great at the time.
24:41Very convincing.
24:44But, I mean, then it was all about the numbers and the volume.
24:47Like, there was a race for all the networks.
24:49Who gets a million followers by the upfront?
24:51I mean, we all bought them, but whatever.
24:53It was the secret to come out.
24:57What happened to transparency?
24:58It's been a long time.
25:00But, no, it did used to matter.
25:02And I think now it depends on the show.
25:04We have shows with insane fandom, where they can't say enough.
25:09We can't give them enough content, like everyone else was saying, to evangelize for us.
25:15That is where it's the engagement that really matters for us, if you're looking at a number.
25:19But we have what I'll call quiet procedurals that do very well in the numbers that make us money.
25:25But no one's out there talking about a case of the week in the volume.
25:29But they work in other ways.
25:31So it's not a sole metric.
25:32But when you have something that kind of sticks, we just did an open casting call for Baywatch.
25:38As returning IP, we had thousands of people who came to Santa Monica, most of whom showed up in Red
25:45Bathing Series, whether they should have or not.
25:48And it was really amazing.
25:50They were all just posting.
25:51I was just walking around.
25:52Just everybody's on TikTok and Instagram.
25:54And it was such a low lift for us, besides setting up the casting call.
25:59It was all just out there.
26:01And that number, that was the first touchpoint for this campaign.
26:04I don't have an air date yet, but it's already out there.
26:06So those are the numbers that matter.
26:09When looking at online engagement, how do you monitor whether or not you're looking at a real person or a
26:15bot?
26:15Because so much of online now is also being driven by anonymous accounts.
26:19And so how do you navigate that?
26:23Anyone want to weigh in?
26:26Ian, do you have a thought on that?
26:28Yeah.
26:28I mean, it's really tough, to be honest, right?
26:31I feel like we have pretty sophisticated social listening tools and capabilities and great partnerships with the platforms that give
26:38us a good sense of it.
26:39But at the end of the day, there's no perfect science to it just yet.
26:43I think we have to then evaluate what type of content is coming out of some of these accounts, especially
26:48the larger ones, to ensure that it's not just a bot-run account.
26:53But there is, at least that I'm aware of, I haven't seen anything out there that's able to get down
27:00to that level of granularity where you can tell, okay, this exact account is fake, et cetera.
27:05So if there is, please let me know.
27:08Does Adobe have?
27:12Chris, what does the future look like when we're looking ahead five, ten years from now?
27:15What do you think, what is it important for Mintel to get ahead of?
27:20I mean, I think that we're constantly living in the future.
27:23I mean, for example, right now, there are a few Mintel folks sitting in the audience.
27:26We're working on 2020.
27:28We're kicking off 2028.
27:29We literally kicked off 2028.
27:31So the most important thing for us is that we're looking at what consumer behavior is today and trying to
27:37interpret what those signals are that they're giving us that are going to be meaningful for tomorrow.
27:41There's obviously the whole aspect of, like, how does our workflow work?
27:45What are the tools that we're using?
27:47What type of talent do we need in the future to think properly about what to create?
27:51What I will say is the approach that we're taking is broader based on how consumers are engaging with brand,
28:01not just how they're engaging with toy.
28:02And you can think of that.
28:04Everybody can think of, like, a Hot Wheels car or a Barbie doll, the Barbie movie or the Roblox game,
28:11or I want to show my fandom and carry the lunchbox or wear the sweatshirt.
28:18These are all ways of engaging consumers, kind of where they're at and where they're going.
28:23And so I'd say that the future looks more broadly than any single category, but really starts to understand how
28:31consumers are playing and connecting with brands wherever they might go.
28:36Now, I guarantee this, five years from now and ten years from now, they're going to be doing different things
28:41with different hot – it's not going to be – anybody that has kids or knows kids or are kids
28:45in the audience, it's not going to be neato squishies even five months from now, let alone five years.
28:51So there's always going to be the next Cabbage Patch doll or something else that's going to drive sensation.
28:55One thing we talked about, because you just said you were planning for 28, which is like, whoa, that's a
29:01long time.
29:01But when we met, K-pop Demon Hunters was blowing up, and you guys got in there really fast.
29:06I mean, I think that's one of the questions around innovation.
29:08We can plan, but we never know exactly what's going to hit.
29:11And you – I don't know how you did it, but you got in there and had K-pop Demon
29:15Hunter dolls.
29:16Yeah, I mean, within –
29:17How did you do that?
29:18Inside of six or seven months.
29:19I mean, it was half to a third our normal development cycle, and it was a Sunday night.
29:24I still remember it.
29:26Picking up the phone after watching with my two little girls and talking to our head of entertainment partnerships, saying,
29:34Nick, there's a thing.
29:37Why didn't we see this thing before?
29:39And then it was the race.
29:41And I think that from a product development point of view, it actually has turned into a case study for
29:46Mattel about how we move faster.
29:49Because you're right.
29:50Like, kind of like innovation opportunities are always on.
29:54How quickly you can respond to them is – the spoils goes to the quick.
29:58So I do think that that model has taught us some new things about maybe some – you know, breaking
30:04some dogma of how we consider product, pitch for product, and manufacture and make product in the future.
30:12Is there a marketing challenge, too, when you have the K-pop Demon Hunter dolls having to come out so
30:16quickly?
30:17Or is that people just know what it is, so you don't really have to worry about that?
30:20When something – I mean, that is – it's a dream property because everybody knew about it kind of all
30:26at once.
30:26And so the demand was immediately there.
30:29And the demand was much broader than a typical piece of content would fire on in terms of kids and
30:35adults and globally.
30:38And so, yeah, we jumped on it from there.
30:41But marketing, you know, this is another interesting thing that is a nuance.
30:46And I don't know that lightning is ever going to strike twice.
30:49Typically, we hear about a movie.
30:51We pitch for a movie.
30:52The assets, we're looking at it in blue line form, and we're like, okay, we can make a toy out
30:57of that.
30:57And the toy is going to be awesome.
30:58Believe us.
30:59Here's a prototype.
31:00It looks cool.
31:01Movie's not even done yet.
31:03K-pop Demon Hunters was done.
31:05We had final assets.
31:06We were ready to go.
31:07We knew the storyline.
31:08We knew the key characters.
31:09We imagined where it might go.
31:11But even just based on the content, we hit the ground running fast with launch programs, pre-sales, and product
31:17development within a week.
31:20Karen, where do you think the horror space will look like?
31:23What do you think the horror space will look like in five to ten years from now?
31:25And how will Blumhouse be prepared for that?
31:27I mean, I talked about it a little bit when it just came to, like, even some of the people
31:32creating horror movies, right, are on YouTube and migrating to bigger distribution.
31:39Like, bigger, literally, on the big screen.
31:42You know, we have, I think for a long time we were known for, like, micro-budget, smaller budgets that
31:49would, you know, then get the big theatrical distribution.
31:52We recently hired Sam Zimmerman, who came to us from Shudder.
31:55And he is, it's just opening up the aperture for filmmakers who are still working in the, you know, less
32:04than $10 million, like $5 million space, which is for a while kind of the price point that we had
32:10kind of gotten out of.
32:12So now we're just looking at more talent in different places.
32:17And I think that for us is really trying, not getting back to our roots, but just understanding that the
32:24audience is in a different place.
32:26And the next great filmmaker is not going to come necessarily from, you know, four movies, four theatrical movies down.
32:33But it's like they're probably shooting something right now with a bunch of their friends on their iPhone.
32:37So it's just kind of really being aware of that.
32:41Ian, I have a version of that question for you, but also I was wondering if you could talk about
32:45the importance of having Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl this year.
32:48Yes.
32:49We love Bad Bunny.
32:50He was great.
32:51That's one of the best shows I've ever seen, to be honest.
32:53But I think going back to social media and the importance of that, this is one of those areas where
32:58the Nielsen rating was important.
33:00But even more important for us was the social reach we had outside of the United States.
33:04And if you guys saw the numbers, it was over 4 billion views in 24 hours, which set about every
33:09record that I'm aware of.
33:11And so now you're starting to see just the importance of different platforms like a YouTube and some of the
33:17other social platforms in connection to what we're doing from a linear perspective.
33:21I think from an innovation standpoint, where we're going to be as a league and where football is going to
33:26be, live sports is one of the few things in today's world that's not being as disrupted by technology.
33:33The NFL, 93 of the top 100 shows this last year were NFL games.
33:39And two of the other ones were shows that fall at NFL games.
33:43So we're in a good position from a viewership perspective.
33:47And we're really excited about what that means with new partners coming on like Netflix and YouTube.
33:52But even more than that, we're really looking forward to launching our women's pro flag football lead.
33:58And that is going to really open up things from us, again, from a storytelling perspective, but just the global
34:04growth of our game.
34:05It's going to happen both from the men's side and the women's side.
34:08With our professional flag football league.
34:11And today, if you look at our flag football numbers, especially with young women, we're up triple digits.
34:16And that's going to continue to grow as we go into the LA 20 Olympics for the first time.
34:22Darren, what does the future viewer of Fox look like?
34:25And what are you anticipating your audience will want in the next five to ten years?
34:31Thorpe is saying next Saturday we're airing a flag football game.
34:34That's right.
34:35There you go.
34:38It depends if you mean Fox Network or just Fox Programming.
34:41And what I mean by that is?
34:43Programming.
34:43Okay, good.
34:44Because the network is the network.
34:47The ratings are small.
34:48People don't watch live.
34:50It's viewer driven.
34:52We all know all those details.
34:54For those who do watch live, they're much older.
34:57We want to preserve that as long as possible.
34:59But the programming is all about availability.
35:02And, you know, it's an always on world right now for us.
35:06I was just kind of going through and it's kind of a matrix of insanity.
35:10But it's what makes us what keeps us relevant.
35:14We have a show called Doc.
35:16We are in season two right now.
35:18Season one launched last year.
35:19Very traditional campaign.
35:21Got it out there.
35:22Output deal with Hulu.
35:23Keep that sustained for, I think, the first season was ten episodes.
35:27We launched season two while we put season one on Netflix.
35:30Became their number one acquired series on Netflix.
35:33Creating millions more fans who then were going on to Hulu to watch season two.
35:38Some of whom were catching up to watch live on Fox on season two.
35:42So the ratings were like, tracking it all is insane.
35:45But the opportunity is always there.
35:48When you have good content, keeping it relevant to the right people, we can't ever stop.
35:54I can't say my budgets allow that all the time.
35:56But when we believe in something, no matter what season or what part of a life cycle it is in,
36:02we all have a list on our phone of shows we want to watch.
36:05It's my team's job to make sure we stay on that list.
36:07And that's really important to just stay relevant as long as possible.
36:10And Hannah, I'm going to give you the final word.
36:12When we look ahead to the future and people are using AI tools,
36:16do you think that the ethics that we're now discussing will just be a code of conduct
36:20and the future generations will understand what is ethical and what is not ethical?
36:25And how can we get there?
36:27This is like the multiple adventures that you could head down.
36:32I think it actually is our responsibility.
36:34I don't think it's a foregone conclusion.
36:35And there is a huge gap in understanding and education and transparency and what is happening.
36:41And so, I mean, part of this and doing a panel, even a panel like this at South By is
36:46to make sure we have the discourse
36:48and the dialogue that's on us to do that.
36:50I mean, of course, we have tooling.
36:52We have something called the Content Authenticity Initiative, which is, you know,
36:56people smarter than me, like forensic watermarking, indelible.
36:59You cannot remove it.
37:00You can tell where this provenance of the data came from.
37:03Those are really important things and that we all adopt.
37:05And then I do say, you know, it's a bit on us to make sure our teams are recognizing what
37:11they're using.
37:12Chris and I talked about this before, but at the end, it's not about the model.
37:15It's about the workflow.
37:17And so for you to break paradigm and dogma to get down to releasing in a week or two,
37:22for you to, you know, get behind – horror is like one of the fastest growing genres right now.
37:27How do we get behind that for less?
37:30I think that's about the workflow and what we do about that.
37:32So hopefully in a couple of years, we will understand.
37:35We'll have a base understanding of the technology.
37:37And maybe we just stop talking about AI unto itself, and we're just, you know,
37:41talking about making great content faster.
37:44Great final word.
37:45Thank you guys very much.
37:46What an incredible panel.
37:47We really appreciate your time.
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