The Irreverent Approach
- by Ken Liebeskind , October 1, 2001
Julius & Friends, an animation created by Paul Frank, founder of trendy sportswear and accessories company Paul Frank Industries, has just been released and is running on Screenblast, a new broadband platform from Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment. Julius runs exclusively on Screenblast for six months and will then be syndicated across the Mondo network of 15 sites, including Yahoo! Broadcast, WB Online and Excite@Home.
Zeros & Ones, a Los Angeles production company, produced the animation and negotiated with Mondo for media rights. Mondo co-produced the animation with Zeros and Ones and owns the online syndication rights.
The animation, inspired from childhood toys and including an assortment of amusing characters, may be the first associated with a fashion icon like Paul Frank. The characters first appeared on Paul Frank tee shirts and other clothing that are sold at specialty chains and boutiques. A Paul Frank display currently appears in a window at Bloomingdale's in New York City.
The four-year-old company doesn't do any advertising. "We took Marketing 101 and learned how to break its rules," says Ryan Heuser, president of Paul Frank. "If you have a strong brand, there's little you need to do to convince the consumer."
Interestingly, Heuser doesn't view the animation as advertising either, saying, "the consumers we target don't want to be directly marketed to." Yet he admits that animation is "a very unconventional way to reach consumers and gain access to new ones." The company owns five retail stores in California and Japan and will show the animations there. The stores will be "the only place to view the animation series outside the Web," he says.
While Paul Frank may not see the animation as a marketing tool, Mondo definitely does. The company sells an interesting advertising package for the 12 other animations in its network. The package, called Mondo Side Show, includes a 15 second live action commercial and a series of static banners and pop ups that run during the brief animations. Advertisers have included Universal Pictures for American Pie 2, Kraft General Foods for Altoids, Namco for the Tekken game and Reel.com for Austin Powers videotapes.
The animations appeal to advertisers who take "the irreverent approach," according to David McCoy, Mondo's vice president of advertising sales. "They reach an audience that a lot of current advertisers are interested in, crossing into music, the rave scene and extreme sports. It's a young, hip, hard to define age group." Julius is a property that appeals to this group. "It has a fairly large underground cultural following, so we're looking for similar brands in the soft drink and chewing gum categories," McCoy says.
He notes Mondo hasn't sold any advertising for Julius yet and is looking for a single sponsor or a series of sponsors who might want to buy individual episodes on relevant themes.
He admits that some new advertisers have recently dropped out after the terrorist attacks, but "when they start to re-explore, they'll look at Julius favorably." The company plans to sell advertising for Julius before the end of the year.
