Michael Eisner Sees Web’s Future in Storytelling
Fragmento del artículo que parece en Advertising Age. Copy&paste
At Microsoft Advance ‘08: Strong Content Also Needs Interactivity, Community
By Abbey Klaassen
Published: May 20, 2008
SEATTLE (AdAge.com) — According to Michael Eisner, story-driven online content is the next big app. “YouTube is to the internet what a nickelodeon is to the movies. It’s the preliminary installment of what is to come,” he said So what is to come? “Great, creative storytelling.”
He continued: “YouTube is filed with stories. … It’s the encyclopedia of everything moving.” And while some are wonderful, he said, the vast majority are skateboarding cats or high-school antics. What’s missing is creative storytelling that capitalizes on a unique aspect of the internet, such as interactivity or community. He said that’s because video search is unsatisfactory, and advertisers tend to be timid when it comes to risks.
‘Risky business’
Mr. Eisner recounted getting egged by protesters as he announced the much-vaunted opening of Euro Disney in the 1990s, when he was CEO of Walt Disney Co. “It was not exactly the reception we had hoped for. … Creativity is a risky business, but it is nearly always worth the risk it takes.”
Mr. Eisner gave a glimpse of one of his latest projects, a steamy-looking promotional video for author Robin Cook’s “Foreign Body,” about medical tourism. (”It costs $60,000 to get a hip replaced in the U.S. and $2,000 in India,” he said. But “we might not have had as big of an audience as we would have with people jumping in and out of bed.”) The video will air 50 days prior to the book’s launch and is partially financed by the publisher, he said. Honda is an advertiser.
