The New York Times is reporting that Firebrand, the great hope of advertising, has finally burned out. Mr. Elliott reported today a spokesman for NBC Universal, Cory Shields, said Tuesday afternoon that: “we are not putting any additional capital into the company.”
And also that: “Mr. Shields responded to a question from a reporter who was told by an executive of Firebrand that the company had shut down, effective immediately. The executive was not authorized to discuss the status of the company and as such declined to be identified.”
Mr. Shields didn’t seem to want to talk about how much cash investors dumped into Firebrand either. Partners included NBC Universal; Microsoft; Ion Television, part of Ion Media Networks; and the Peacock Equity Fund, a venture of NBC Universal and a unit of General Electric with the goal of the trend of ads as entertainment. YouTube had everyone believing that commercials were awesome enough to be considered content all on their lonesome.
Sadly, that just ain’t true.