• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, August 15, 2011

Back in TV's sit-com heyday coming up with ideas for new shows was relatively easy. Who had the highest Q Rating with the public? Let's build a show around her.

For smart online video producers, the rough equivalent may be Facebook popularity. Who has the network already in place, Web series producers might ask. "LeBron had 12 million people on Facebook already," says Dan Goodman, co-founder, Believe Entertainment, which appears to have a hit on its hands with the Web-only animated series, "The LeBrons." "That is the massive audience we started with," he says. The company has been profitably generating well-sponsored series like this LeBrons series featuring the legendary basketball player, and has managed brand engagement and distribution work on the Agility Studios/Paramount created show The LXD (League of Extraordinary Dancers). Goodman and partner Bill Masterson tell me that they go into new projects with distribution top of mind and especially the ways in which the online social networks are responding to and participating with entertainers. "It is a huge part of how we green-light shows," Goodman says. "You can have a great talent, but without a great network around them, it is more difficult to do."

The LeBrons has generated over 50 million views across its many distribution points, from YouTube and DBG to iTunes. With LeBron himself leveraging both Facebook and Twitter to keep fans in the loop on new episodes, the series has an enormous core constituency and communications channel to build on. From there they flew hundreds of millions of impressions that integrated sponsors like Intel and HP into the animated assets from the shoe.

The effort paid back for the key sponsors in their own social channels. The sponsors were able to include exclusive material from the show and to demonstrate how their own technology helped enable products. "They generated meaningful lifts in their social media in comments and activity," says Goodman.

Believe Entertainment takes the classic studio model to production, even though this has fallen out of style in recent years among many digital video shops. Online video has gone through a number of business model trends in just the last few years. While many "digital studios" of the mid-2000s started with grandiose visions of crafting compelling online properties that brands would scurry to underwrite, by 2009 the mantra became up front funding. Launch no project without brand support. And that is precisely what we got - a lot of brand-first entertainment - mildly funny series that often just happened to be situated in or near the primary sponsor's business.

Masterson says that Believe is following the classic TV model. "We finance shows in advance of any brand partner or distribution. We meet with the talent and first green light it if people will care about the character or the entertainment. We don't start with a brand brief. Let's figure out a show people will care about and then build an audience from there. It is a stronger approach than just building a brand message."