DDB has won the Blockbuster advertising account, and will pull in a number of pre-existing groups to support the new venture, says a source familiar with the situation. DDB Entertainment will consist of Ant Farm and, according to AdAge, youth branding group Uproar and the agency’s LA-based branded entertainment wing.
The last 12 months have been tough for the Blockbuster as competitors like Netflix and so-called illegal movie sites have gained leverage by offering content for download online.
Netflix on the one hand is easier to access — it’s available not only through snail mail and your PC, but through Microsoft’s XBOX Live as well. Apple’s iTunes has also taken some of that business. But another factor is the availability of free downloadable/streaming video content from sites like Watch-movies-online dot net, which directs visitors to offshore servers containing “illegal” copies of video content. With a single click a visitor can watch a movie as simply as you might watch a YouTube clip.
The downside to streaming content is that it is often low quality. So for those who want more, there are torrent Web sites (where one can download large movie files to their computer) like ThePirateBay dot org, whose founders were recently put on trial in the EU for purported Copyright infringement. Those charges were dropped the second day and on the third the prosecution claimed that their clients were owed $13 million for the total number of videos that were downloaded by individuals who found the content through thepiratebay’s site. The defense:
“EU directive 2000/31/EG says that he who provides an information service is not responsible for the information that is being transferred. In order to be responsible, the service provider must initiate the transfer. But the admins of The Pirate Bay don’t initiate transfers. It’s the users that do and they are physically identifiable people. They call themselves names like King Kong.”
The issue at hand for entertainment companies is that until every country in the world outlaws illegally hosting downloadable/streaming content from servers within their borders, the availability of free movies will never cease. So if DDB and Blockbuster hope to surpass Netflix and iTunes while competing with the “illegal” sites, they’ll have to make their content extremely cheap. To stay ahead in this game, you have to take things way beyond rational business sense.
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